Concrete Music Bloc

“Concrete Corner” was an attempt to promote hard rock, hard alternative, hardcore and heavy metal releases.

Every month they would release these cassette tapes, and send them to participating Concrete Corner stores.

These tapes included artists like: Primus, White Zombie, Bang Tango, Love/Hate, Faster Pussycat, I Mother Earth, Lillian Axe, Every Mother’s Nightmare, Spread Eagle, and Monster Magnet and many more!

These tapes are amazing because they documented the bands that were overlooked when grunge became popular. Grunge was the next big thing, and rock was considered to be a dead genre.

I think these tapes show what an amazing time it was for rock music because some of the most unique band came from this time period. Lyrically, these bands discussed topics in a more honest way in comparison to the hair metal bands of the 1980s. To me, what they talk about in these 1990s groups is more honest and I love it because I can relate to it.

Concrete Corner is one of many samplers that were released to promote up and coming artists.

For free, you get to hear all these artists.

I was inspired to do this project because I was thinking about 2012, specifically, when my dad started giving me certain cassettes, and during one time when I going through them, and he brought up the “Concrete Corner” samplers he had gotten years ago when he used to shop at a friend’s store who was part of the Concrete Corner program.

I always recall him bringing them up, and mentioning that I would really enjoy them.

One day, after knowing about them for so long, I finally took a bunch of the tapes, and I recall listening to them in parts at first, because when I had my cassettes, I would only listen for about 15 minutes before wrapping up for the night since I was in school, and had to be up early.

I had this giant shoebox that I used to store them in and every time I got cassettes they would be stored in there.

Eventually, we put all the cassettes back together on the shelf they were on in our basement to preserve them.

Even though I had those tapes for a long time, I always had an urge to go through the cassettes again because I somehow always found something new every time I went through them.

So, in 2016, I had the urge to go digging for cassettes, and I took all the Concrete Corner samplers along with some regular albums on cassette, and I starting making time to listen to them and I remember my earliest favorite song being “Nonstop To Nowhere” by Faster Pussycat.

At that time, my brother was in college and he took our original offline music/photos only Blackberry and I didn’t have a new one just yet, so at night, I would just dig through my record collection and my cassette tapes instead, but I did eventually get a new Blackberry since I love listening to music on when I'm studying, it's easier than having a stack of cassette tapes that I have to keep playing over and over. With the Blackberry, I can put on a playlist and concentrate while I'm studying.

When I did this project, it was May 2019. I’m going through the drawers where I store my tapes and I realize how many Concrete Corner tapes I have, and I decide to do a project.

I decided to listen to all the Concrete Corner tapes I have from 1992 to 1994, and make a special showcase and playlist for all the bands that were featured on those tapes.

I did this project to share all the bands were promoted thanks to Concrete Corner, and for you to see how much great music was released in those few years, even though it was a time when it was considered to be a supposedly dead genre.

It was a time of so many unique bands, and it’s awesome that they had a platform that allowed them to be showcased.

Also, everything on this playlist from “Wasted In America” by Love/Hate to “Children Of The Grave” by White Zombie (a special cover version!!) are from the tapes my dad gave to me.

I was looking around on eBay to see what was on some of the earlier tapes, and everything from “Untied and True” by Bang Tango to "Blood On The Bricks" by Aldo Nova is from an early tape which I found online, but it isn’t one of the ones that I own in my personal collection.

I just wanted to mention that because the tapes I own are from 1992 to 1994, and the songs from that portion of the playlist are from 1991.

Also, here’s a link to the releases in Discogs, so you can see what was on all of those tapes! // Concrete Marketing: Archive