There was a time when you could hang out with Cassette, like they were just, you know, your mates.

You’d call Jon or Jane (now a unit, so often called Joane, as to rhyme with Moan, in the tabloids) and say howzit, care to go for some Kentucky or something. Or maybe you’d run into Nathan or Marc (now an iconic celebrity gay couple, known as Marthan, as to sound like Martian pronounced by a kid with half a tongue and no front teeth) down at the neighbourhood local and you’d shoot some pool, play that golf game and you know, talk about girls and that week’s dickhead. There was also a time when you could actually hold down a conversation with Andrew down at the rehab clinic, where he was doing an admirable job getting off the Tippex.

But things have changed...

Visit them at www.playcassette.com or www.myspace.com/playcassette

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Rock / Indie / Pop

Since their debut album, ‘Welcome Back To Earth’, was released worldwide from Benoni to Bloem to Brackenfell in May 2006, their world has strode to the proverbial outhouse, chucked in all the ex-wife’s kitchen appliances, added some guilt-free Venezuelan petrol and a single match and then ran like hell, because such an explosion is something even Kurt Russel and Unknown Baldwin Brother would’ve had trouble dealing with in their Backdraft days.

(That was 1991, and Diana Tilden-Davis was Miss South Africa. Years later, in Botswana, a hippo nearly took her leg right off.)

You could of course see it all coming.

Since the band got together in Johannesburg in late 2004, their curve towards becoming wankers like every other famous band was steep and uncompromising. As one brilliant song after the other came spewing from their ranks and word started getting out (they were Band of the Week on Britain’s XFM long before most of their current fans had even been born), record company executives from around the world started flying in to woo the band. There were Americans, Germans, Japanese and a lone Mongolian (he was a rep from a yoghurt company which wanted to use the band’s smash hit ‘Your Star’ – which spent 18 weeks on 5FM’s Hi5 charts - in a TV ad) who at different times made offers to the band during clandestine meetings at venues like Zoo Lake and the Randburg Waterfront.

In the end, offering lavish suburban homes in Westdene (pool, Russian mail-order brides and Toy Poms – we think it’s a type of dog – included) with regular caravan holidays to Sodwana thrown in for good measure, Sony/BMG South Africa got the band to sign with them in a deal rumoured to be worth as much as R2000.

Response to the release of the album has been nothing short of sensational. Madonna, spotted at the Musica in Cavendish by this writer, bought two copies, admitting that she’d like the one copy to be cryogenically frozen with her when she turns 70. It was also lauded as Album of the Week by Entertainment Africa and a mother in rural Mpumalanga who had listened to ‘Welcome Back To Earth’ during the final stages of her pregnancy, said that her now 2-month old child could already read Coptic because of it.

‘Get in the Ring’ was banned in Zimbabwe because of some remarks made in it about the Honourable Robert Mugabe, who promptly ordered the seizure of the farms owned by the parents of the band’s members until he realised that there was actually just Nathan’s uncle’s plot outside Krugersdorp, which was burnt down and littered with pig carcases anyway (and not in Zimbabwe either).

‘Sometimes’ went all the way to number 1 on TUKS FM’s charts and Steve Hofmeyr began to roll uneasily in his sleep.

Here at the press office, our phone rang less and less.

Cassette had been touring around South Africa creating hype for the new album, and we asked them to keep a diary so we could put it on their site (www.playcassette.com). Here’s a sample of what we eventually got from their manager:

14 January 2006 Jon: “I feel weighed down by expectation. Bono wants me to help him buy Lesotho again, but I keep telling him Swaziland is nicer. Ugh, there’s the phone again. The limo must be outside.”

23 January 2006 Jon: “Bought Swaziland. Tick.”

30 January 2006 Marc: “Nathan is by the window, catching panties again. I don’t know where all those girls came from. Had lunch. Not sure if the black stuff was caviar but it tasted pretty OK on an apple.”

2 February 2006 Andrew: “I am swimming underground with miners. I am wearing a red suit with my name embroidered on the back. I am a freedom fighter. I eat gumboots. There is something in the distance. A petrol pump. I fondle the nozzle. Pink Nesquik comes out. I pick up the dog again and notice it’s actually been a cat for days.”

And so on and on. Really juvenile.

When we approached their tour bus to try and get the message across that their fans would actually be more interested in what inspires their songs etc, this is how the conversation went:

Us: “Guys! Open up! We gotta speak about the tour diary thing!” Voice from inside: “We’ve already got one!” Us: “What?” Voice from inside: “Got one! Go away!” Us: “Got a what?”

Door opens. It’s Marc, holding a Big Issue in his hands.

Marc: “Got one. Thanks.” Us: “We’re not selling Big Issue.” Marc: “Then who the hell are you?” Us: “Your… press team.” Marc (sarcastically): “Oh really. And what exactly have you done for us?” Us: “We got your pictures published in SL, we got Fair Lady to call you a band to watch…” Marc (interrupting): “Enough, I’m calling security.”

He slams the door.

That’s Cassette for you these days. Dickheads.

- By Cassette