As digital media reigns supreme with vast libraries and instant album releases on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, a different scene unfolded in Bushwick this past Sunday. At the first-ever NYC Tape Fair held at Selva, an art gallery and record store, over a dozen vendors dealt in the trade of nostalgia and tangible music, offering rare and vintage VHS and cassette tapes alongside modern iterations of the mediums. Anthony Morton, co-founder of the event, shared his passion for physical media, having started as a "broke kid" who could afford a $5 cassette at a concert, telling Brooklyn Paper, “Similarly, with VHS, I wanted to own all my favorite movies, and realizing people were basically throwing VHSs away allowed me to do that and exposed me to so many new things because of the low financial barrier for entry.”
The event also drew ted Schmiedeler, former station director of WKCR. He expressed his disdain for the "mechanization of music" and the influence of streaming algorithms, finding a remedy in the straightforward and unskippable experience of cassette tapes, According to Gothamist, “When I sit down with a tape in my Walkman, I can’t skip, fast-forwarding is a hassle, I’m just stuck with the music that’s in front of me,” Schmiedeler said. Vendors at the event hailed from notable shops such as Captured Record Shop and the newly opened Night Owl Video, but also included independent collectors like Mike Videopunk and Billy Bombs.
The fair featured not only sales but also a cultural exchange with participants like the Found Footage Festival in attendance. This hub of lost video ephemera, as described by its creators originating from The Onion and "The Late Show," brought with it the joys of forgotten VHS materials. They're known for their weekly YouTube series where they reveal their latest findings with humor and historical insight, and for the NYC Tape Fair, they delved into their archives to share some of their collection with festivalgoers. “They have essentially the world’s largest collection of obscure and niche things put to VHS,” Anthony Morton said in anticipation of their participation.
Despite the ubiquity of streaming, sellers and attendees alike recognize a growing trend towards physical media. Stores specializing in cassette-heavy offerings such as Paradise of Replica and Captured turned out for the Tape Fair, and even with studios and networks having ceased the production of new VHS tapes, there exists a thriving market for niche collectors. The sentiment that tangible media provides a reliable and personal connection that digital platforms cannot guarantee seemed to be a common thread amongst fair participants. “I think people have kind of realized that they don’t have a tangible connection, they don’t have a tactile thing they can hold,” Morton told, Brooklyn Paper. “And that kind of scares [them,] like, what if it all goes away? It definitely has people kind of clamoring to own their favorite things, and to be able to access them at their own speed.”
