Our Story: BB ’2

'Reel to Reel'

The cassette that wouldn’t lie down

This is the story of how we released BB Live at Jamerson's—without ever knowing we had it, or that it had even been made.

The hero of this story is a humble cassette tape. That small piece of plastic made this release possible

and now also serves as the soundtrack to a video of the song.

So there we were, playing our hearts out at Jamerson's—just

another night at Resistance HQ.

More slap chips in the kitchen, then back to Berea. Maybe a stop in

Hillbrow for coffee at Café Zurich… or Mi Vami if we were hungry (we were always hungry).

Then a goodnight spliff at our spot—the home of our friend, Andrew Shand.

Our ears were ringing.

Our heads were spinning.

All was good with the world.

Anyway, to cut a 42-year story short: I think Robin contacted Tom about re-recording Rainbow Warrior. Tom and Dan started listening to tracks we’d recorded in the early ’80s—now somehow living on our cloud drive. I had never listened to them… or had forgotten they were there. Meanwhile, Tom mixed and mastered two tracks.

And what a thing they turned out to be—they were the Jamersons recordings.

Robin had nicked the sound engineer’s cassette tape (or maybe he’d asked for it) and somehow it had landed up safely digitised on one of our computers… all these years.

Tom got working. Dan and I listened. Soon we had eight songs sounding decent—more than decent. Magical.

Hearing ourselves 40 years ago: already confident, groovy, defiant. RAF.

This is super-early BB—barely a year in—sounding fantastic.

The band just fits together. It did then, and it still does.

Within a week, Tom had mixed, tweaked, and mastered eight tracks—obscure ones I didn’t even remember. We scrounged for photos, made a cover, and suddenly we were ready to go.

And what of the cassette? I think it went to Australia with Robin—and he’s offered it back to us.

Such a big circle for a small tape. Important things along the way, and a

surprisingly happy ending.

This is not quite the end of the story, because we’re going to stream the music… and we may print a few cassettes—for those who want to feel they’ve been on a 42-year circular journey.

Peeps who were at Jamerson's and The Brass Bell all

those years ago—you should want one.

Talk to us.

We’re all still here.

And so is the music.

by Ian Cohen