Cassette Review // Abbie Hoffman "Sings On His Friends: Wake Up America" (TPOS)

Perhaps the true power of music and a cassette for that matter is seeing it somewhere for sale, not buying it and then going back and seeing it again and buying it.   I first saw this cassette at Willimantic Records but I didn't buy it right away.   I went home, thinking about it, and even looked it up online.  All I can really find online about this is this Discogs page.  This made me somehow more intrigued.  

The next time I went back to Willimantic Records I looked through the cassettes and knew as soon as I saw it that this time I was buying it.  It just had been stuck in my head.  I'm not sure what I expected out of this cassette, but the way it stuck with me was enough for me to take it home and give it a listen.

Around the same time that I saw this cassette I had been to a book store up in MA and purchased an Abbie Hoffman book, which you don't see too much of in the wild any more.  So I felt like this connection where I had just started reading an Abbie Hoffman book and now to find this cassette meant it was destined to be.   Through audio clips and some songs, this cassette captures that spirit of Abbie Hoffman.  

At one point, Hoffman explains how you can't describe a pear to someone who's never eaten a pear before and it's the same way that someone who isn't used to revolution can't understand why you would want to.  I think that still holds true to this day- how a lot of people don't want to rebel because they just never have and so it doesn't seem appealing to them.  People won't put signs of protest on their lawns because of what the HOA might think.

This cassette is a good reminder of what life was like back in the 1970's, but also it stands to hold truth to this day.  Does this mean Abbie Hoffman was ahead of his time or are we really just stuck in our old ways?  I think it's a bit of both, but I encourage all who are interested to track down and find out as much as possible about Abbie Hoffman because you won't be disappointed unless you're part of the problem.