by Daniel Colussi | Part of what makes Vancouver so rad is that it’s so rich in creative types, the ones who quietly tool away at their projects and are willing to share the sweet fruits of their labours with the rest of us. Take, for example, Ryan and his upstart cassette label Green Burrito. He sums up his operation as “one guy making cassettes in his bedroom above a restaurant” on Main Street. In a way, that’s all it is. But if we probe deeper than just the nuts and bolts of his modest operation, we find that in tapping into Vancouver’s very happening music scene, Ryan has provided a focal point around which a community can orbit. That’s cool in itself, and even better are the very slick looking, primo-fidelity cassettes that can be enjoyed on the home hi-fi or on-the-go in a walkman.

Readers, from a bedroom cluttered with blank cassettes, discontinued hi-fi equipment and stacks of j-stock cards, I give you Green Burrito…

So what made you want to start Green Burrito? There was a bunch of stuff that tying it in together that made me start the label. I always loved making mix tapes, it was such a cool high school thing to do. And it’s literally the easiest form of making some music – at home you can do it with your own devices and a little common sense. And so that together with having a buttload of pals making sweet music – all the cards just fell into the palm of my hand without really trying. I was having a bit of a lull, being creative on my own level, so it seemed like a way to keep me stimulated creatively and get involved, work with other people. Its just really fun, super positive.

So what’s the process dubbing procedure for making these cassettes? By the time I put out the Capital 6 tape I owned four cassette duplicators, and they were all different – I had a one to one, a one to three, and an a and b side at the same time type unit. I bought them all off Craigslist and Ebay. And the thing with these cassette duplicators, that I started to figure out, is that they were very commonly used by churches to do Sunday service tapes. So you can imagine, they probably put out hundreds or thousands of recordings every week for years, so the heads on these duplicators are just mangled. And also, without knowing it I dubbed all these Capital 6 cassettes in mono! One day after the fact I realized it. So that prompted me to search out a stereo duplicator, and not a used one. I bought a brand new one that has brand new stereo duplicating heads, and that was a big step.

And you had to go to Victoria to get it? For doing the master cassette that I’ll use to make the duplications, I’ll take the digital file and then record that into a cassette recorder. And the one that I got in Victoria is this stereo company called Nakamichi. Nakamichi was for the real nerd in 1992 who wanted the highest end, highest fidelity cassette quality. I started reading forums online and there are people out there who are just total cassette-heads. Just like there are dudes who listen to vinyl only, there are dudes who only like cassettes! And there’s this thing called the Nakamichi Dragon that’s a fucking $1,000 thing, and I thought, “Woah, I won’t get that,” {laughs} but I got this other Nakamichi from a dude in Victoria. The recording and playback is far superior as far as home recording systems go, and there’s less background sound. Yeah, the first tape decks I was using had a lot of hiss!

That’s pretty epic, to go to Victoria for a cassette duplicator. I met the dude there, he was a total tape-head, and he had all these cassette decks for sale that were all really good. The one that he showed me, that I wanted to get, was $700. Not even for a duplicator, just for a tape deck! It’s cool stuff and I’m super interested in it, but it’s also a little bit beyond me.

Is it always the same number of cassettes made for each run? The first one was fifty. And then after that I started to do one hundred. So then it’s fifty-fifty for me and the band. This is a pretty low-key operation. Its just one person in a bedroom, above a restaurant on Main Street producing tapes, stickers, whatever it all is.

And you’ve one pretty well selling the cassettes through the internet? It’s so funny how the internet works. I don’t even have Facebook. I’m pretty disconnected from the internet. Now I’m actually seeing with my own eyes how it works. I’ve sent tapes to Australia, Ohio, Oklahoma, New York, San Francisco, the U.K…

All the cover are looks really good. Is the art and layout all you? I’ve had some different roles as far as the artwork has gone. The Capital 6 tape, the first tape, I drew that cover. And then the Two Towns tape, my roommate and good friend Dan drew the cover of the lion wrestling the dude. It’s been cool, it’s been really nice. Either or. I’ve designed a couple, and some of the bands have done their own. Johnny De Courcy designed his own tape cover and that one was so sick! I really liked the cover for Johnny De Courcy’s tape because it had that generic look of an 80s major label cassette. It reminded me of being really young and looking at my older brothers cassette collection. And when I looked at a copy in at Zulu, it even looked as if the plastic case was an old, battered case. Johnny specifically requested that I find the black and clear plastic cassette cases. So raided my own personal cassette collection and went to some Salvation Army’s. And it’s so cool because some of the cases have like an old Woodward’s sticker on it, or like a “$2.99 Special” sticker on it. Some of those cases are from way back when I bought cassettes of Hastings. It’s pretty funny.

Any plans to start doing some vinyl? I hope that vinyl releases are in my future…

The Catalogue

Can we go through each title that you’ve put out and you can tell me a bit about each one? I’d love to.

Capital 6 “Captain Rehab”

Capital 6 was super exciting. Malcolm is a number one bro. I really liked Henry’s organ playing. It was a nice way to start off.

Two Towns s/t

I was really, really pumped. Jesse is one of the sweetest dudes, and our relationship made it super easy to make the tape. And I like that vibe of rock n roll a lot. I’d sum it up with: desert rock!

The High Drops s/t

“Street Girl” was such a jangly, catchy tune, and that kind of got me. And then “Dying On The Vine” is such a sick banger!

Bummer High “Lost Highway”

With all the bands I’ve released so far, I’ve had at least one or two of the band members be close personal friends. So Dave told me he had these five songs, and didn’t know the order they should go in. So Dave and I got to work together to figure out the track order. I felt so stoked.

Johnny De Courcy “Bad Teeth”

Johnny’s was cool too. Johnny phoned me because he wanted to borrow my duplicator to dub some cassettes for a show he had. This was Tuesday and the show was Saturday. I’d lent my duplicator out before and I didn’t get it back. And I didn’t like having off-length cassettes, with dead space on them. He was literally tracking the songs on Friday, he came over to my house and did it, brought them to the show. One shot and your done.

Mac Demarco “Rock And Roll Night Club”

His songs are mind-blowing. Having shared lived with him and driven across the country with him made me think about the album in a more personal way. But from the get-go his stuff was fun. And these new songs sound so good. It’s very, very different from what he did before with Makeout Videotape. It’s got some Elvis in it.

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Zulu Records veteran and tunage aficionado Daniel Colussi is the Music Editor of Scout Magazine.