Tape Spaghetti

As a native Pacific-Northwesterner with roots in the music scene, our very own Blake Wyland is verifiably Portland-proud. But this week he delves into one of the city's darkest stories...with shocking ties to a beloved rock venue. This episode of Tape Spaghetti takes you inside the history of Portland’s Roseland Theater, previously known as the Starry Night nightclub—where the town's vibrant music...

What do Joe Pesci, Oscar Isaac, and Keanu Reeves all have in common? No, this isn't the weirdest casting call of all time (though, we'd totally watch that movie) – it's MUSIC. In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake dive into the unexpected world of actors who were (or still are) legit musicians. This Hollywood crossover occurs in some seriously surprising places, and the actors in ques...

Before his name became synonymous with nightmares and jumpscares, John Carpenter was a humble film student with an extremely limited budget. So, what did this industrious director do when he couldn't afford to hire a composer? He became one. This week on Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake look at Carpenter's lesser-known brilliance as a music-maker and how what started as a workaround became a legacy o...

A burned out music teacher with no plan. A room full of kids. And a record that sounds like nothing else on earth. In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott, Blake, and guest Nate Catanzarite discuss the Langley Schools Music Project, which started out as a classroom experiment and ended up as a captivating cult classic. Frustrated with traditional lessons, teacher Hans Fenger let students choose s...

Imagine a world where the best session musicians in Los Angeles have a revolutionary idea: "....Hey... why don't we just BE the band??" In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake unravel the surprisingly unlikely rise of Toto, a cadre of hyper-skilled studio players who went from backing name-brand artists to dominating the charts on their own. Featured in hits ranging from yacht-rock to Thr...

What happens when a world-class guitarist gets dropped into a zillion dollar Hollywood film production? In this special episode of Tape Spaghetti, JD Simo pulls back the curtain on how musical authenticity is crafted on the big screen. From Elvis to Springsteen, JD has played a key role in powering the musical engines of some MAJOR movies. Whether it's recording sessions, ensuring that meticulous...

Long before Elvis shook his hips or the Beatles sparked screaming crowds, there was Franz Liszt. In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake dive into the wild story of the 19th-century Hungarian pianist who unknowingly invented the archetype of the modern rock star. Liszt wasn’t just a virtuoso — he was a phenomenon. Concertgoers fainted. Women fought over his discarded cigarette butts. Ne...

You already know the chorus. In fact, you've probably scream-sung it at a bar. But, what do you know about the band behind Tubthumping? What if we told you that the biggest pub anthem of the '90s was written by militant anarchic agitators who supported striking miners, clashed with fascists, and called a crumbling Victorian mansion home? Yep, Chumbawamba is probably a LOT more interesting than you...

Ever wonder why older albums feel warm and dynamic while some late-’90s and 2000s records sound like a stark wall of noise? In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake remember the Loudness Wars—an era when mastering engineers pushed music to its absolute sonic limits. The guys track the constraints of analog vinyl to the digital “look-ahead” limiters that could mathematically crush peaks i...

Before she was a household name, before the Grammys, before the headlining tours, Brittany Howard was dragging herself to rehearsals after 12-hour shifts as a mail carrier. Before that, she grew up in a trailer in a junkyard in rural Alabama, enduring poverty, prejudice, and the tragic loss of her sister.  This episode of Tape Spaghetti tells the story of Howard’s meteoric rise—and the grit that p...

Last week Scott & Blake dove into the birth of the Rolling Stones' touring empire. In Part II, they find out what it cost. After reinventing the modern mega-tour in 1969, the Stones faced backlash from a counterculture that suddenly saw them as corporate villains. Their response, a massive free concert celebration in Northern California, was meant to be an olive-branch. Instead, the Altamont Speed...

In the 1960s the Rolling Stones were already rock royalty. In 1969, they became an empire. In this week's Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake hone in on the year the Stones built the model by which all future mega-tours would function. For the first time, rock shows became carefully choreographed spectacles, with the band providing total oversight to sound engineering, lighting, transitions, tempos, mer...

Welcome aboard the Mothership. In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake are joined by special guest Richard Oliver (Wampler Pedals, Chasing Tone, Amplify Creative) who shares his personal history and expertise in a deep, joyful, and occasionally unhinged journey through the universe of Parliament-Funkadelic. P-Funk’s unexpected evolution from 1960s doo-wop into a genre-shattering collage o...

Welcome to The Source – a buzzy Sunset Strip health-food restaurant... that also happens to be the intersection of kale, celebrities, and the cosmic control of a self-proclaimed deity calling himself Father Yod. Sound weird? That's because it is weird. And why is this the subject of this week's Tape Spaghetti? Because in the cult of The Source, music is mandatory – but sounding good is forbidden....

Why are music's biggest megastars cashing out their catalogs for jaw-dropping sums—and who’s buying? If you've ever seen a headline like “Queen sells catalog for $1.27B” and wondered "…how does that even work?" – this episode's for you. Scott and Blake break down the recent gold rush of music rights sales, including the acquisitions of Bieber, Dylan, and Springsteen's oeuvres. They also turn back...

If thinking about the sounds of glass shattering or funeral bells tolling on live TV send chills down your spine, you've already met Jim Johnston —you just didn’t know his name. In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake break kayfabe and pull back the curtain on how WWE's most legendary entrance themes, which often emerged out of pure chaos. The in-house composer who scored wrestling's gold...

Gather round, children of the Spaghetti. From the vaults beneath the Shred Shed, Blake unearthed the ancient scrolls: Tone Mob episode 20, the first recorded encounter between Blake Wyland and Scott Marquart. Back when a “mobile rig” meant earbuds, an iPhone, and whatever flimsy connection the 3G overlords were willing to grant, these two met in the wild and immediately started talking like they’d...

In this year’s Tape Spaghetti Christmas special, Scott & Blake ask a question that you’ve probably never considered – but won’t be able to unhear afterward: why does Christmas music sound so… Hawaiian? Unraveling X-Mas tunes’ tropical DNA takes us back to 19th-century Hawaiian royalty, to the invention of the steel guitar, through WWII, tiki bars, surf rock, and suburban America’s obsession with e...

In this special edition of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake wrap up  and run down their favorite albums of 2025…. and, as usual, a whooole buncha other stuff. From revelations about their own streaming habits, strong opinions on production choices and pedal chains, a victory lap on year one of Tape Spaghetti, and oh yeah, spotlights on the guys’ picks for the best albums of the year, this one is a...

What if we told you that the biggest electronic album of all time started as a complete flop? In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake tell the unbelievable story of how Moby’s Play went from career-killing failure to a global phenomenon thanks to the most shamelessly brilliant licensing plan ever executed. After alienating his fans with a hardcore punk passion project and getting droppe...

Remember the feeling of being a kid and encountering an album cover that you just *knew* you weren’t supposed to be looking at? On this week’s Tape Spaghetti we’re turning that feeling up to 12 as Scott and Blake dive into the flat-out shocking world of controversial album art. From covers that got bands banned in department stores, to designs that sparked lawsuits, protests, and panicked parents,...

Is elevator music... evil? In this week’s Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake go on a tour through the highly unlikely, slightly dystopian history of Muzak – the music nobody loves, but everyone hears. Born from military experimentation, electrical engineering breakthroughs, and a dream to make Americans more productive through calibrated background sound, Muzak might sound aimless, but it was designe...

What happens when one of the biggest bands in the world takes on its industry’s Death Star? In 1994, Pearl Jam was willing to find out. On this week’s Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake revisit the grunge-era showdown that pitted a group of scrappy rock idealists against Ticketmaster, the ultimate corporate monolith. Having locked down every major venue in America, Ticketmaster strangled fans with spec...

We all know we have to tune our guitars… but we don’t usually think about *why* we tune the way we do. In this weeks’ Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake do just that, in a discussion fit for a tin-foil hat. For instance, what if we told you that tuning your guitar was actually part of a Nazi mind-control plot? Or that certain frequencies align us with the universe and balance our “water memory?” Or w...

This week on Tape Spaghetti, Scott and Blake head to Malaysia for perhaps the darkest story in Southeast Asian pop history: the twisted tale of Mona Fandey. Once an aspiring starlet, Fandey’s talent didn’t take her very far – but her transformation into a self-proclaimed shaman gave her access to some of the most powerful figures in Malaysian politics. Her promise to deliver power and success thro...