Henry Weintraub has always loved cassettes. Collecting physical copies of music has been on the rise, with vinyl and cassette sales climbing in recent years, according to BuzzAngle Music reports. Weintraub wants to help those numbers grow.
“It’s kind of the forgotten medium,” he said.
That’s why Weintraub is trying to bring cassettes back into style with his local cassette label, Memorable But Not Honorable. As well as being a passion project, the label is an affordable way he can make and keep music. A cassette on his Bandcamp website is $8, while a CD or record can range from $12 to $40 at a local record shop.
Weintraub’s affinity for cassettes came early in his life. The first album he ever owned was on cassette, and his collecting of physical copies of music began from there. Now he has over 100 tapes and wants to pass on his love for collecting tapes by making his own business.
“People forgot about tapes,” Weintraub said. “Maybe it’s because one day we were told that CDs were better, which isn’t necessarily true.”
The COVID-19 pandemic inspired Weintraub to begin the label. With the virus’ spread forcing people indoors, he started to see bands performing live online. He later reached out to these bands, including Teflon Dave and Billy Putz and asked if they wanted to record a cassette.
Now Memorable But Not Honorable has a scheduled monthly cassette release for the rest of the year.
“I don’t know if it’s a nostalgia thing that makes it appealing or actually having a physical copy,” Weintraub said.
Memorable But Not Honorable is primarily a punk and pop-punk label. As a teenager, Weintraub was a fan of the Ramones, Screeching Weasel and The Groovie Ghoulies. These bands are what inspired him to start his passion project. The label’s first cassette was an acoustic version of some of Teflon Dave’s songs; while this isn’t common for punk or rock, it tames down the abrasiveness that is typical with the genres. Punk and pop-punk have fast-paced and aggressive guitar progressions, heavy drums and at times nasally vocals.
Weintraub doesn’t want to do this for money, he said. He just wants people to reconnect with something tangible and connect with others who share that adoration for a hard copy.
What amazes Weintraub the most is how far the community of cassette fans reaches. People from around the world with internet access now have an easy way to find music that can be streamed and they can have a cassette. Having a physical copy makes it feel real to Weintraub, while also being a way to directly back the band.
“All the money that gets made from the tapes goes back to the bands,” he said. “It feels important to support the bands.”
What’s impressive about Memorable But Not Honorable is the community that it finds for itself. Pop-punk cassette tapes are a retro medium boosted by the help of an international community online. This worldly community helped find artists stateside as well as overseas. Weintraub produces cassettes for bands from Illinois, Indiana, New York, the United Kingdom and Norway.
Weintraub finds himself in a unique space. While most music collectors tend to be fans of records, he finds himself in an even smaller community that likes cassettes within the subgenre of pop-punk. He realizes it might be hard to reach listeners who are plugged into the billboard charts, but if fans like Blink-182, Good Charlotte or Green Day, this label could be the place for them.
“It is a niche, I admit it, but I don’t always want it to be too accessible,” Weintraub said. “You want it to fit people’s need to belong to something, and they belong to this small group, and this small label fits it.”
Over the next few months, Weintraub hopes to create a larger library of cassettes. With more monthly releases in the works, that shouldn’t be difficult. His next release is Geoff Palmer and Lucy Ellis’ “Your Face is Weird,” which comes out Oct. 9.
