Back in 1991 our barely teenage rock band Cake (the UK was added later to fend off legal action from the more-conventionally-popular US act of the same name) were the hottest band in Kidderminster. Or KidderMADster as we hoped it might one day become known (didn’t catch on). There was hair on our heads, hot breath in our lungs, and screaming teams of feral teens stagediving at our shows. 

Keen for instant and substantial success, the band travelled the seven short miles up the A449 to neighbouring Stourbridge, a town which, for a very brief period, was the beating grebo heart of all UK indie rock and roll – a sort of self-deprecating Seattle in a balti-splattered long-sleeve t-shirt; a chummy two-pub Camden with glass blowing. 

There, on April the (let’s say) 5th 1991 Cake checked-in at Icehouse, the town’s most famous (cheapest) recording studio, to lay down their legacy with super-producer Colin Icehouse, a man who seemed to have a near insatiable appetite for rock and roll, pork pies and, it transpired, wacky neo-comic skits on his records. An hour-and-a-half later, with hits smashed and demos dubbed the band decamped to the pub next door to hand out tapes and wait for fame and fortune to come knocking. The pub had an outside toilet which was guarded by a goat. 

Everybody knows the rest of the Cake story. The unparalleled 25 year history of chart success, the Lear jets and loggerheads, the dancing man dressed as a sausage roll… Not all of those things happened. Instead, one-by-one, the Cake tapes made that day got mangled in Walkmen, chewed up in car stereos, taken to parties and left. All too soon there was no evidence that Cake (UK) were ever KidderMADster’s hottest band at all. 

UNTIL NOW! 

Late last year internet rumours leaked that a fifth-generation copy had been located in a Kidderminster loft by super-fan Simon Cooper. The tape, which had seen some battle damage (and also featured some Cud and a bit of Buffalo Tom) was rushed to the pro mastering lab of Doug Shearer whose credits include The Fall, Venom, Electric Wizard and Alicia Keys. His salvage work is now available on a strictly limited, super deluxe 25th anniversary edition transluscent orange cassette The tape comes with bonus tracks, six-pages of artwork and archive material and a cover based on a classic James Mitchell flyer design.

What does it sound like? Good question. It sounds vibey. The only REAL way to obtain SERIOUS TONE is to let a fifth generation tape warp and buckle in a box for twenty five years, then give it to the guy who mastered Dopethrone. And then put it back on tape. It sounds AUTHENTICALLY ANALOGUE in a way that Jack White could only dream of. It also sounds authentically like Ned's Atomic Dustbin trying to cover My Bloody Valentine. And a little bit funk metal.