There is no single way to make music, or to release it for that matter. At Scene Point Blank we feature a new record (nearly) each month, but some are full-lengths of new material, some are EPs, some collect old material, and some are compilations. There are so many ways to do it. So many ways to keep making, releasing and enjoying music.
This time around we have a four-band split with a common theme throughout Can This Be It??, a Wet Cassettes limited releasing compiling material by Too Late, BatShit, Let Me Sleep, and Scratched, all recorded between 2008 t0 2018. There’s a connective tissue through all four bands that leads almost directly to the formation of Wet Cassettes.
Rather than recap it, let’s get it straight from the source, as written by lead heads Nick Hertzberg and Billy Applegate:
Can This Be It?? is Wet Cassettes' second compilation of 2021 and features four bands our co-founder, Billy Applegate, was involved in from 2008 until 2018. These albums have floated around on various CD-Rs, junk cassettes, and YouTube videos for years, but here they are collected and officially seeing the light of day for the first time. We offer these songs up to you to not only serve as an archive but to be able to see where we have progressed.
Listen below:
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This album shows us that in life we're stuck in the passenger seat of a car driven by our art, our ego, our aspirations, and don't get too much time to rubberneck at our accidents or successes before moving onto the next. At the end of the day, we are left with a shitty, coffee stained map and no GPS as our only tools to figure out where we are going and what to do. We're left to discover and address a question which we must ask ourselves as we drive forward in creating and consuming to seemingly no end: Can This Be It??
The record releases on July 16, with preorders available now. The physical release is limited to just 15 tapes and each comes with an exclusive live Too Late set too. If you’d like to know more about the bands, keep reading as Billy shares some memories on each.
Before PARCH or Billy and the Bad Peach or Wet Cassettes, there was TOO LATE. We were a band from 2008 to 2018 on and off but mostly on. We recorded three times and every time, each recording would fully be done in a day. Everyone that ever played in Too Late was completely out of their mind, depressed, and pissed off. We played hundreds of shows through NJ and PA, lots of crazy house shows. We were never the cool guys and played by our own rules. PineyStyle.
BatShit was a band that started because me and Edgar (now of School Drugs) were listening to nothing but early screamo every day and night. I lived in a shell of a house that was the old office for a marine that my then friend's father owned. The wind ripped through the house like there were no walls at all. We found a drummer that Edgar knew and I had asked an old friend to play guitar. We recorded in the said house and then the drummer tried to fight my friends at my birthday party. 2014 was the beginning and end of the band.
Let Me Sleep was a product of hanging out with a few friends that were much younger than I am. We would sit in Wawa parking lots all night long every night drinking coffee with me showing them old screamo bands. We recorded directly to a laptop just sitting in the middle of the room that we put sweatshirts over so it would muffle the sound. The band lasted a few weeks in 2011. Young kids.
Scratched was a band that started because Antwonn (now of Billy and the Bad Peach) wanted to be a cowboy. Chris wanted to play NY hardcore punk and Kevin just wanted to slap the bass. Scratched recorded and then fell apart as fast as it started. I loved getting Chinese from the shitty place across the street from Antwonn’s apartment in Philly. Long rides in 2016 down route 70.
On July 16, in addition to Can This Be It??, Wet Cassettes also releases new material from Tourists, Agruvzi, and I Felt Alright About It x Bombyx Mori.
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Pictured: Too Late’s final show in 2018. Photo by Nick Hertzberg.
