L.A. Weekly: Cassette Tapes Are Back. Ask Your Mom to Mail Your Old Jambox.

"I grew up collecting and listening to cassette tapes and records," said Phil Shaheen, drummer for Los Angeles indie band Tijuana Panthers. "I like the fact that cassettes are in again and that cool little labels are putting them out." The band released its album, Max Baker, as a limited-edition tape through Kill/Hurt, a Hollywood cassette-only label.

It's true, cassettes seem a little ridiculous at first. They're bulky, you have to flip them in the middle of an album, and cassette players aren't widely available. But cassettes provide benefits digital media can't, and they're back.

At 70 cents a tape, an artist can get small batches of music in the public's hands for less money than a CD or vinyl record. Michael McKinney, president of M2 Communications, a Pasadena duplication company, puts out between 6,000 and 10,000 tapes each month. Orders have picked up, mostly due to indie bands.

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