Hit the Decks: A This & That Tapes FanZiNE of Music, Art, & Cassette Culture

From our friends at Displaced Snail

• Hit the Decks is a 32 page, 8.5” x 11” B&W photocopied zine about music, art, and cassette culture, with an emphasis on T&TT and its artists. The zine was copied in hi-contrast B&W on a 2009 Muratec photocopier to mimic zines from the late 70s and early 80s. I love the lo-fi aesthetic, and all proceeds from the mag are split 50/50 with the artists.

Wanna know more? Here’s some modified information from the back cover:

I get it. You’re like, Why would I spend $8 on a zine for a label I’ve never heard of about cassettes, a defunct medium, right?? WRONG. Tapes aren’t defunct, and you’re hearing about This & That Tapes RIGHT NOW. And you’d pay that much because you want to keep art alive and you like things that are awesome. T&TT is a DIY cassette label run out of Philadelphia. Every purchase of music, even digital downloads, come with a cassette rip so you can hear what the music sounds like on cassette. All sales are split 50/50 with the artists. As for the zine: do you like interviews with artists? Got you covered: we have interviews with Murder City Devils frontman Spencer Moody, whiskey folk hero lauren.napier, and Dead Milkmen co-founder Joe Jack Talcum. Like art? Yeah, who doesn’t like art? Cool, enclosed please find: comics from Jay McQuirns, collage art from lauren.napier, a new painted illustration from Spencer Moody, something special from little stray & LJ Brubaker, a page of recipes from Joe Jack Talcum, and a special announcement about Pixelvision. You’re like, “Oh man, but I like essays, you can’t possibly have any writing in this zine!” EXCEPT WE DO. Find a personal essay from writer and zine-maker Katie Haegele, a discussion about mixtapes from Sommer aka Tape Girl from the Mixtape Musuem, I wrote a bunch of stuff, and Joshua James Amberson from Antiquated Future wrote about his collections. What d’ya think, we don’t have photography? We have photography! Jess Moncrief with a photo essay about seeing Lee Ving perform in a tattoo shop, Craig Wenner explains how to put on a DIY show, and Neal Langford shows off his best photography in lo-fi. Think this zine is lame because it has advertisers? WRONG AGAIN, BOZO. All the ads in here are from small businesses who were invited to advertise by the artists. Now that you’re out of excuses, open up that wallet and support good art!