Fire Island Soundtrack

April 29, 2022 4:12 PM

A couple moved into a house on Fire Island and found 20 years worth of cassettes, documenting DJ sets and party soundtracks from 1979-1999. Over 200 tapes are being digitized and uploaded to MixCloud.
posted by hwyengr (22 comments total)

Cassette archives, queer archaeology, and DJ culture are three of my favorite things, and this totally spun my head around when it first appeared. I downloaded the hell out of the whole series. I'm still following them on Mixcloud, so I get the updates in my feed as they plow through more. What a thing.
posted by mykescipark at 4:31 PM on April 29, 2022 [10 favorites]

Even with JavaScript disabled this article captured my attention and told a wonderful story. A great link, thanks, hwyengr!
posted by cgc373 at 4:33 PM on April 29, 2022

Now we know what Fountains of Wayne’s parents and friends parents were doing on Fire Island
posted by glaucon at 4:42 PM on April 29, 2022 [3 favorites]

Love it! One of the nicer trends in life has been the redemption of disco in the cultural mind. (Well, some of the cultural mind, anyway.) Need to make time to listen to a few of these.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:42 PM on April 29, 2022 [13 favorites]

This is so great! Thanks for sharing. I love this so much in so many ways.
posted by forkisbetter at 5:33 PM on April 29, 2022

I like this set by Teri Beaudoin - Midnight - October 1989

I keep forgetting to go back and dig through the new uploads. It's great to get a fleshed out version of the story.
posted by clockwork at 5:47 PM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

download convert to mp3 cut specific tunes from the mp3
posted by robbyrobs at 5:48 PM on April 29, 2022 [10 favorites]

How exactly does one go about downloading from Mixcloud?
posted by hippybear at 5:52 PM on April 29, 2022

With difficulty. You’ll need YouTube-dl or some friendly browser equivalent.
posted by Going To Maine at 6:06 PM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

right click Hot Night December 1979 'copy link' paste in
posted by robbyrobs at 6:07 PM on April 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

O
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posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 6:10 PM on April 29, 2022

This was such a good read.
posted by fruitslinger at 7:26 PM on April 29, 2022

Archive link for the article

Beautiful story, thank you.
posted by signsofrain at 9:17 PM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

Are these going on to an Archive.org collection as well as MixCloud?
posted by k3ninho at 1:58 AM on April 30, 2022 [4 favorites]

The article really struck a chord in my heart. It was beautifully written; and edited in such a way that I could remember being there; even though I wasn't.

I now have a lump in my throught and tears welling up at 5:30 in the morning....thinking about the joy and devastation of the past. We are so fortunate to have this story preserved and brought to a larger audience.

I will give a listen to the music after work tonight... when I have adequate time.

Thank you hwyengr, for sharing and thanks to signsofrain for the archive link.
posted by mightshould at 2:41 AM on April 30, 2022 [5 favorites]

This is amazing. Thank you for posting!
posted by DiscourseMarker at 7:06 AM on April 30, 2022

Holy hell, I can't imagine a find more personally tailored to my weird musical interests. Beautiful and moving in its context, and makes me think about what a world without the aids crisis would have looked like musically, a world where people like Patrick Cowley, Sylvester, Arthur Russel and others kept growing and developing as artists.

On the topic of disco being rehabilitated in the public eye I think a lot of it has to do with growing awareness of actual good dance club disco from the era vs the general public imaginary of what disco was. I mean if your baseline is disco inferno, disco duck and the beegees, you're missing out on all the amazing dance tracks that actually make you want to move your feet.
posted by Ferreous at 7:26 AM on April 30, 2022 [7 favorites]

This documentary traces how disco became house music became the music that everyone in the world is listening to on some level. Any rehab of disco now is happening because people are realizing this is what they always liked.
posted by hippybear at 8:07 AM on April 30, 2022 [6 favorites]

I am listening to a mix from 1978. It's loaded with amazing music I've never heard before. I am amazed at the sound quality and delighted to be able to hear this.
posted by rednikki at 9:21 AM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]

I created a mixcloud account just to listen to these and have been dancing around the house all morning. Some of it's a bit heavy on the sad nostalgia for me -- other times, other clubs -- but I'm grateful to be able to listen to it.
posted by gingerbeer at 12:16 PM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

Oh, robbyrobs, you're a gem. I just noticed your links! Thanks so much!
posted by hippybear at 12:43 PM on April 30, 2022

Searching around the web with this collection brought me to this gem of a website:
San Francisco Disco Preservation Society
that also has a trove of digitized DJ sets and mixtapes to dig through.
posted by msbutah at 1:25 PM on April 30, 2022 [7 favorites]