Stephen Mejias

I don’t think much about resolutions. One way or another, people do what they want to do, and all too often our desire conflicts with our resolve. But yesterday morning, as I was walking around downtown, waiting for everyone else to wake up, I stopped at Van Vorst Park to eat a banana and watch a father build a snowman for his son.

For Christmas, I received the new vinyl reissue of Nirvana’s seminal 1991 album, Nevermind. This beautiful thing, mastered by acclaimed engineer, Bernie">http://www.stereophile.com/news/102207bernie/index.html">Bernie Grundman, and pressed at RTIhttp://www.stereophile.com/features/408rti/index.html">RTI; on extremely quiet 180gm vinyl, is brought to us by Original">http://www.originalrecordingsgroup.com/index.htm">Original Recordings Group. Thank god for them.

Today I received my first package from Scotch">http://www.freewebs.com/scotchtapes/">Scotch Tapes! Inside the cardboard-reinforced padded envelope were five cassettes and three 7-inch EPs:

I’ve received two packages in the mail today. Both were from Portland, Oregon, a hotbed for outstanding independent music, and both contained tapeshttp://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/why_cassettes/">tapes;.

I was introduced to Scotch">http://www.freewebs.com/scotchtapes/">Scotch Tapes, “the worst hi-tech music label ever,” on December 9, by a Twitterhttp://twitter.com/stereophilemag">Twitter; post from Jagjaguwarhttp://www.jagjaguwar.com/">Jagjaguwar;. Oneida would be releasing a limited-edition cassette through Scotch Tapes. This was interesting news to me, first because I">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/the_way_we_listened_then/">I’ve been fascinated with the idea of a “cassette tape revival,” and second because Oneida is a well-established name in the world of underground rock bands. Why would Oneida release work on a format that had been all but forgotten by the music industry? Why cassettes?

Oh yeah: Matador's">http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/2009/12/09/this-christmas-just-g… having a holiday sale.

Where did I hide that Replacements record, dammit?