The cassette heyday may have been wiped out by the arrival of the CD, and later the MP3 player, but a number of music lovers still celebrate the analog audio format.

Agus Susanto, a seller of second hand cassettes in Blok M Square shopping mall, South Jakarta, said he had dozens of regular customers who bought cassettes.

He said with the disappearance of cassettes in the mainstream music industry his business applied a supply and demand market mechanism.

'€œCassette tapes that are difficult to find but are highly sought after will have a high price,'€ he told The Jakarta Post while showing a Guruh Gypsy cassette from 1976 that cost Rp 300,000 (US$26).

Arthur, one of his customers, spent Rp 130,000 on a cassette by the Black Brothers, a band from Papua that was popular in the 1970s, and a cassette by The Tielman Brothers: The oldest Indonesian rock band that shot into international fame in the 1950s.

'€œI believe every form of media has its own strengths, but to me, vinyl and cassettes are the best format for listening to music,'€ he told the Post.

Agus and Arthur were among participants of the first ever Cassette Store Day held at Saffron Bistro in Kemang, South Jakarta, on Sept 7.

The event, which was celebrated worldwide, saw a number of independent bands such as Efek Rumah Kaca and Roman Catholic Skulls releasing their album or a limited number of cassettes. The event also had stalls selling second-hand cassettes, live music and a discussion on the changing face of music formats in the country.

Arief Wiratama, a 19-year old university student who learned about the event on Twitter, said he was thrilled to find four second hand cassettes by English band Radiohead.

'€œEach cassette cost Rp 25,000 [US$2.2]. I am a big fan of Radiohead!'€ he told the Post enthusiastically.

He said the last new cassette he bought in 2007 was an album by American rock band Linkin Park. The last time he used his tape recorder, he said, was when he tried to practice English listening last year.

Organizers of the event wanted to send a message to the participants instead of just bringing the memory back to life.

'€œWe want to remind people that we need to have this physical form of music. We also want to introduce cassettes to the generation born after the 1990s, as they may only be accustomed to CD and MP3,'€ Dimas Ario, one of the organizers, said.

He said cassettes would also teach people to appreciate the whole album because they would need to push the fast forward or rewind buttons to get to the song they liked.

'€œNew releases are generally limited to 100 pieces. They are not meant to be exclusive, but rather collectible items,'€
Dimas said.

Herry Sutresna, better known as Ucok Homicide, the owner of Bandung-based independent label Grimlock Records, says the cassette format is beneficial for musicians who do not have a capital as they can be produced in smaller numbers compared to CDs.

He said the format was still popular among hard-core punk musicians who could earn income from cassettes. The difficulty he faced so far, he said, was getting blank cassette tapes in a selection of colors, which needed to be imported.

'€œCassette will still exist in the world of Indie music. It will never completely disappear because it can become an alternative media,'€ he told the Post over the phone.

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