(September 2026) I started playing guitar around the age of 14 in 1982. I received a Hondo II Strat copy electric guitar and amp as a “Graduation” present from my parents when I finished 8th Grade. That summer before high school, I played guitar all the time and dreamed of becoming a rock-n-roll star someday.
As part of this dream, I started making cassette tapes of “albums” that I was releasing. Basically, I started pretending that I was already a recording artist putting out albums at the age of 14.
There’s only one problem here. You see, I could barely play the guitar. I had written a couple of “songs,” if you could call them that. But I certainly wasn’t good enough to be recording and releasing albums.
I always had a typewriter as a kid, and I loved creating family newsletters and newspapers. So, naturally, when I started playing guitar and got the idea to make these cassettes of my “albums,” I got out the old typewriter and put it to good use.
I probably had a total of about 20 albums if I include all the “side projects” as well. Most of them were just a list of song titles and fake names of guest musicians who sat in with me. But I did actually write some of the songs, albeit they are pretty terrible. I even had a “Greatest Hits” album! (pictured)
Fast forward to September of 2026, I dug this box of cassettes out of the attic and started looking through them all. It made me sad that I never actually tried to write songs and record these “albums.” Even if it was just me playing guitar and singing into my cassette deck.
So, I decided that it’s time these “albums” were released. I started by creating a Google Doc for each one of the album titles and typed the song list. Then, I added what instrumentation I had in the liner notes for each album. For example, if I said that there was a sax player on a certain record, I included that the sax should be part of this release. For the project, I’m only working on the “Don Bedell” albums. It’s a total of 11 albums. There are others for bands that I was supposedly in, like “High Voltage” or “Zephyr” or “The Nights.” Then, there are some albums for “Don Bedell & The Oasis.” But I’ll get to all those later. For now, I’m just concentrating on my solo work.
On the albums that had songs that I had written, I listened to the old cassettes and transcribed the lyrics, and tried to figure out what I was playing. I decided that I would “polish” the songs, but wouldn’t completely rewrite them as a 58-year-old. I want to record the song that the 14-year-old me wrote, but record it as a 58-year-old.
For the rest, I just started writing lyrics based on the song titles. Not trying to write the next big hit. Not trying to make a statement. Just writing a song based on a title that I came up with 44 years ago.
I’m calling it “The Cassette Project – 2026” and decided that I would chronicle the progress here. I hope you’ll join me on this journey.
- September 20, 2026: Earlier in the week, I finished the lyrics for a song called “In The Morning” that was part of my “Time FLYS” album. Yes, I spelled “flies” incorrectly back in 1982, but I just left it that way. Anyway, I really liked the lyrics that I had written, and on Saturday, I just sat down with my wife’s acoustic and started playing. The music just came to me and almost wrote itself. Today, I recorded the song, and I really like it! I’ll upload it after I am happy with the mix. At this point, I already have 2 albums worth of lyrics written. Two of the albums were already written – just never recorded. So, of the 11 albums, 4 of them are already ready to be recorded! Only 7 more to go!
- September 21, 2026: I decided that I need to chronicle this project. So, I worked on this website page!
- September 22, 2026: The first “album” is called “High Tailin’.” Apparently, I released it in 1979 before I even knew how to play the guitar! As I mentioned in the introduction to this project, the first thing that I did when I started was create Google Docs and type out each album and track listing. I started with this album and over the course of a couple of nights, I wrote lyrics for all the songs on this one. As you can see, there are intriguing titles like “Jamming Through The NIGHT,” “7×7,” and “G J Y O.” Amazing stuff, amiright? Tonight, I actually took the tape out of the case and popped it in the cassette deck. I actually recorded something on this one! It kind of sounds like I just made it up as I went along, and the songs are very difficult to listen to. Plus, the recording is pretty bad, and I can’t even understand some of the lyrics. So, I think I’m going to go with the songs that I wrote recently rather than try to figure out what the hell I was singing back in 1980-something when I recorded this tape. Regarding the lyric writing for this one, I didn’t try to overthink it. I was working with titles like “Jamming Through The NIGHT” after all! For 7×7, I just did a search asking what “7×7” could mean, besides 49, and the internet sold me that San Francisco is often referred to as “7×7” because it’s roughly 49 square miles – 7 miles x 7 miles. And I decided that “G J Y O” stands for “Guilt Just Yields Obsession.” Now, do you really think that the 11 year old me back in 1979 would have been able to come up with something like that? I think not! The project continues…
- September 28, 2026: I talked to my good friend, the amazing singer-songwriter, artist, Joe Crookston the other night and told him about the project. I knew he’d love the idea, but he gave me a whole new idea with this project. I told him that I found that some of the cassettes had some very basic recordings of the songs on them. Then he suggested that maybe I try to use some of that audio and then make a new 2026 version of the song – almost as if the 58-year-old me is doing a collaboration with the 15-year-old me! I love this idea. So, tonight, I went through the “High Tailin'” album and transcribed all the lyrics that I could understand. The recordings feature guitar in the left channel and vocals in the right channel, so it was fairly easy to figure out what I was singing. BUT, on a couple of the songs, it sounds like I was playing another cassette of a previous recording of the song and then was signing over it. I do remember my first experience with “multi-track” recording as a kid. I would record something into one of my tape recorders and then play it back while recording into another tape recorder. I would to that back and forth, adding other instruments and vocals. Problem with that is by the time you get to the last track, the first couple of recordings are a jumbled mess and you can’t understand a word of the vocals. But, on the other songs with vocals in the right channel, I can take those vocals out and put them in Logic. I’ve never done it before, but I’m assuming that you can “sync” them to a tempo and then I could add new instruments to the lyrics? Either way, I’m excited to try. Could be a really fun way to create a song. If nothing else, I plan on using some of the early recordings and incorporate that into a new song.
Also, I’ve been listening to my recent recording of “In The Morning.” I’m going to make some tweaks and add some harmony vocals and I’ll be ready to share the mix here.
That’s all for today. More to come!
- October 4, 2026: I’m realizing now that there’s a lot more recorded “music” on these cassettes than I originally thought or remembered. Some of them have the entire album recorded. Some of them have songs that sound like I made them up as I went along. Some are recorded so poorly that I can’t understand the words at all.
Good news is that some of the songs that I remember writing as a new guitar player are on there and the recording is good enough that I can figure out all the lyrics and what chords I was playing.
It’s really cool getting this glimpse into me as a teenager through recordings that I don’t even remember doing!
This project gets more fun with every cassette that I pop into the deck!
- October 17, 2026: As I listen to more and more of these songs on these cassettes, it’s amazing to me that I recorded so many of these songs and I have no recollection of ever doing it. The way I’m thinking about this now is that I am assuming the role of producer. I’m going to take a look at the lyrics and how I had the songs constructed musically and make “tweaks” like a Producer would.
- November 2, 2026: Sorry that I haven’t posted in a while. But I’ve been busy with the project! I bought a USB cassette player, so now I can digitize my “demo tapes.” My idea now is that I will eventually post the original “demo” tape made by the teenage me along with the new 2026 recorded version of the song. I’m getting close on posting my first one!