Tape Spaghetti

If you take the vocals from a Jay-Z song, combine them with a Beatles recording, and create something nobody's ever heard before... have you made a new piece of music? For a brief, glorious moment in the 2000s, mashup music was everywhere. And then, almost as quickly as it arrived, it vanished. This week on Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake explore the musical movement that turned stolen (or borrowe...

What do Wilco, Cold War espionage, and creepily cryptic radio messages have in common? ...Quite a bit, actually. For decades, mysterious shortwave radio broadcasts from "numbers stations" have sent out eerie transmissions of seemingly random numbers and words representing incomprehensible messages to unknown recipients. Numbers stations have long fascinated radio enthusiasts and intelligence...

When you think of the first great concept albums, what comes to mind? Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band? Pet Sounds? The Dark Side of the Moon? Well, what if we told you the origins of this exceptionally innovative format actually trace back to a super bummed out Frank Sinatra, a bottle of whiskey, and 16 songs about being miserable? In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake tackle In...

Beethoven died in 1827. Chopin died in 1849. Liszt died in 1886. But, apparently, that didn’t stop any of 'em from writing new music. In the 1960s, an unassuming British widow named Rosemary Brown alleged Liszt appeared beside her piano and began guiding her hands through compositions she’d never heard before. Soon it became a party. Beethoven. Chopin. Bach. Brahms. The afterlife’s greatest superg...

What happens when the biggest band in the world starts asking engineers to do things recording equipment was never designed to do? Things get weird. But, did the Beatles really revolutionize the gear and recording techniques that changed the game? On this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake peek into the studio during the Beatles' most experimental years to explore the tricks, hacks, acc...

By 1970, Elvis Presley had fame, money, guns, wicked karate skills, a collection of police badges, and the ability to get almost anything else he wanted. Then he decided he needed federal credentials. What followed was an absolutely bonkers few days. On this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Elvis storms out after a family argument, writes Richard Nixon a six-page letter, crisscrosses the country on...

In the early '90s, bands like My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive, and Lush transformed walls of distortion, oceans of reverb, and enough guitar pedals to bankrupt a small nation into Britain’s hottest new sound. Shoegaze had arrived, and seemed to be ushering in a new era of music out of England. Then the press turned on them, Britpop arrived, and suddenly being called a “shoegazer” was practical...

No Lead Belly, no Beatles? Sounds like clickbait, but the musical family tree makes a surprisingly convincing case. On this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake wrap up the incredible story of Huddy Ledbetter and trace how a former prisoner from the Louisiana-Texas border became one of modern music’s most essential ancestors. After getting out of the "Alcatraz of the South," Angola Prison, L...

Long before Kurt Cobain's legendary performance of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” on MTV Unplugged, there was Lead Belly. Wandering folk hero. Convicted killer. Musical encyclopedia. A man so talented he supposedly sang his way out of prison...twice. On this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake dig into the real Huddie Ledbetter and discover that the truth is every bit as fascinating as t...

Marvin Gaye made some of the most beautiful music ever recorded, but behind it was a life defined by a constant struggle for control. On this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake trace Gaye’s journey from an abusive childhood to the pinnacle of Motown, where Berry Gordy’s hit-making machine dictated everything from his sound to his image. Gaye fought back with What’s Going On, staking his ca...

Getting kicked out of a band is no fun at all. But what happens when losing the “wrong” person turns out to be exactly the right move? This week on Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake dig into famous lineup changes that looked risky, unpopular, or downright catastrophic at the time, only to completely reshape music history. The Beatles canned Pete Best and replaced him with Ringo Starr on the cusp of...

What happens when incredible music collides with impossible politics? In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake dive into the tangled history of Paul Simon's Graceland, tracing how one bootleg cassette led to a Grammy-winning masterpiece... and an international controversy. When Simon laid his ears on some extremely jive hits from South Africa, it helped him break a wicked creative slump...

Everyone knows John Lennon was murdered outside the Dakota on December 8, 1980. Far fewer know just how strange and unsettling the full story really is. In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake trace the events leading up to one of music's darkest days, exploring Mark David Chapman's obsession with The Catcher in the Rye, the bizarre patterns and coincidences he believed were shaping his...

Unclear creative direction, bizarre experimentation, and a rudderless band of twenty-somethings. Sounds like the making of a half-baked album by a bunch of nobodies, right? ...Not quite. In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake break down the White Album, a legendary record by the most popular band of all time. Following Brian Epstein's death The Beatles had to steer their own ship, and th...

For better or worse, streaming changed the music business forever. But it also created an entirely new kind of crime. Or actually, a whole bunch of new kinds of crimes. This week on Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake pull back the curtain on the shadowy underground industry of fake streams, click farms, bot networks, AI-generated music, and digital fraud. The guys also explore how streaming royalties...

Before they became the most controversial band in country music, the Dixie Chicks were absolutely unstoppable. In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake unpack the extraordinary story of the Dixie Chicks, whose meteoric rise was matched only by the speed of their catastrophic public downfall. (Or maybe not???) Long before headlines and controversy, the band had already rewritten the rules...

Before punk rock, before arena rock, and before garage rock was a thing, there was "Louie Louie." In this special episode of Tape Spaghetti, Blake shares his remarkable conversation with Kingsmen guitarist Mike Mitchell, whose band accidentally changed history. Recorded in a single take for less than the cost of a decent dinner, Louie Louie's famously garbled lyrics sparked a national panic when s...

Paranoid about the algorithm? Totally understandable. But, if you're yearning for the good ol' days when records zipped to the top of the charts on the strength of catchy tunes and the cultural zeitgeist... we've got some bad news for you. In the 1950s, well before playlists and trending were a thing, it was DJs that had the power to make or break a pop artist's career. And in this episode of Tape...

Pop music simply wouldn't be the same without one-hit wonders, those flash in a pan artists who capture the listening public's imagination... for about 5 minutes. But, what about those musicians who are labeled one-hit wonders and then absolutely refuse to go away? In this episode, Scott & Blake explore the curious cases of bands that scored a massive breakthrough hit, got written off by critics a...

A struggling musician drives into the New Mexico desert with a guitar, a trunk full of records, and dreams of making it in Nashville. He is never seen again. This week on Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake dive into the bizarre true story of Jim Sullivan, a gifted songwriter whose cult-classic album U.F.O. became even more intriguing after he seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth in 1975. Alon...

How obscene does your band need to be for the FBI to get involved? In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake dig into the band that found out the hard way: The Fugs. A chaotic 1960s underground band comprised of poets, pranksters, activists, and, well, absolute weirdos, The Fugs tackled topics such as sex, politics, drugs, and social rebellion in songs with titles so outrageous they got t...

There are a good many outlaw country artists. But Gram Parsons might be the only one whose outlaw status followed him to the grave...and then back out of it. In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake dig up the unbelievable life and afterlife of Gram Parsons, a country-rock visionary who pushed musical boundaries while battling self-destructive habits exacerbated by the intensity of fame. P...

The Beach Boys undoubtedly changed pop music forever. But they also cut an album so strange that it's basically been erased from music history. In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake take a look at Summer in Paradise, the Beach Boys' bizarre attempt at reclaiming their throne with a "modern" summer soundtrack. With Brian Wilson out of the picture, the Mike Love-led Beach Boys wanted to s...

Waylon Jennings didn't just sing songs about being an outlaw. He genuinely became one. In this week's Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake discuss the life and legend of Waylon Jennings, who went from small-town disc-jockey to Buddy Holly's bandmate to one of country's greatest rebels. Back when Nashville was a highly polished music machine, Jennings forged his own gritty sound... and even grittier lifes...

A big ol' multi-million-dollar record deal, a rebel artist, a major corporate label, and "total creative freedom." What could possibly go wrong? In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake unravel the chaotic 1980s era of Neil Young. When Young let his artistic spirit soar into downright experimental territory, his own label, Geffen, sued him for not being “Neil Young enough.” While the alb...