Show notes
In the spring of 1998, a box of twelve two-inch reels left a basement studio on Wythe Avenue. The session they held — an unreleased album by a band that broke up a month later — was presumed lost for two decades.
Then, in 2018, the tapes appeared in an online auction listed as “vintage studio tapes, unknown artist.” This week Maya traces the chain of custody: the studio owner, the tape op, a storage-unit buyer in Jersey City and a collector who still will not say what he paid.
In this episode
- Why two-inch tape is the most valuable object in a 90s studio
- The difference between owning a master and owning a song
- How a forty-dollar bid became a federal lawsuit
- What happened to the band — and the one member who agreed to talk
“A tape is just plastic and rust. Until somebody remembers what’s on it.”
Links & credits
Produced by Kim Ahn. Mixed at Loudhouse Studio B. Theme music by The Pale Hours. Archival audio courtesy of the Wythe Ave Studio log, used with permission.
