Analog Brothers in a Digital Age

ATHENS, GA - “I don’t have the biggest tape collection, but I do think I have the most unique,” said Tom Murphy, digging through his plastic bin of decades old cassette tapes. “There’s comedy tapes, medical tapes, atmospheric tapes with sound effects, some bands I’ve played in, and then all the ones my brother has sent me.”

Tom lives in the heart of Athens in a one bedroom apartment packed with speakers, guitars, amps, keyboards, and bins of cassette tapes. The room doubles as a studio for when the mood strikes him just right. 

In 1981, Tom’s brother, Louis Murphy, started a now decades-long tradition of staying in touch by creating and sending cassette tapes to each other in the mail. 

Louis joined the Marine Corps right out of high school during a time that the brothers would later find out was the peak of their parents' falling out. When he returned to rejoin the family in Jackson, Mississippi, the divorce process had already begun. It would leave their mother in the difficult situation of figuring out how to provide for her five children. Louis, ten years older than an 11-year-old Tom, became the de facto father figure to his brother. 

“He took me under his wing, and we bonded while working through my family’s turmoil,” said Tom, “he became more of a mentor to me.”

When Louis eventually moved to Atlanta to pursue a position with the Atlanta Police Department, he knew the two would need to find a way to keep in touch. 

“We had similar taste in music so we used to spend time listening to vinyl or tapes together when we still lived together. It just clicked and made sense to send a tape to him, especially since we didn’t have CDs yet,” said Louis. 

Shortly after Louis moved to Georgia to join the Atlanta Police Department, Tom received a package containing the first cassette tape labeled with the name of the fake radio program his brother had created for him called “Bad Moon.” 

The brothers have kept up with the tradition now for the past four decades, gathering sounds from as many sources as they could and sending the tapes off when they felt complete. Over the years, Tom’s moved from place to place, eventually settling down in Athens where he’s been for the past 10 years. While few things in Tom's life ever remained the same, the tapes from Louis were always a constant, much like Athens is to him now. Tom’s collection has multiplied over the years but his brother’s tapes remain the most prominently featured.

“Do you want to listen?” Tom asks while handing me the decorated cassette case, not waiting for an answer before he’s already moving to insert the tape into the player closest to him. He hits play, and decades worth of audio-crackle pours through the speakers. Then, an early 20s Louis, can be heard introducing the next hour’s worth of programming for his audience of one.

“Testing, testing, 1-2-3...Murphy Studios, Atlantic Coast in cooperation with Big90 FM. KATL, Atlanta. At this time I’d like to present ‘Bad Moon,’ a collection of rock’n’roll from some of the most famous groups and artists of all time.”

Tom grins and laughs to himself as the DJ disclaims, “Keep in mind this tape was put together in a hasty type of manner. It’s not as fine tuned as it should be, but we think you will enjoy this for your listening pleasure.” The next 30 minutes of music then kicks off with Foreigner’s “At War with the World.”

“Recording a new tape is like writing a letter, only more creative and you’re playing DJ instead. There’s a lot more creativity to play with,” said Tom. Many of his tapes include sets of songs he’s recently enjoyed while others are a bit more abstract or experimental, with added sounds he’s gathered from the radio, TV, or life around him.

Occasionally Tom sends tapes to other family members as well. Most recently he’s been working on one to send to his sister for her birthday, featuring audio from Joe Biden’s most recent address mixed to “sound like he’s there in the studio” with him. Other additions included some original guitar tracks, commercials for fake products, and sound bites he recorded from the movie “Goodfellas.”

“We’re still to this day not the kind of brothers that pick up the phone and call each other to catch up, but we’re still close,” said Louis, “Just like how we’re both Steelers fans or part of the military, the tapes are just as much part of our shared history as anything else about us and they forged a bond we share that just doesn’t exist elsewhere.”

Tom said, “cassette tapes to me are like fossils, preserving bits and pieces of history, my history, 30 minutes at a time.” 

The Murphy brothers have even joked about recording their individual wills, making their families go through the trouble of locating a cassette player just to listen to them. “I just have this image in my head of them finally finding one, hitting play, and realizing they forgot that these things also run on batteries,” said Tom. 

He hopes that one day he can leave his collection with someone that will appreciate them all as much as he has. Looking over his collection Tom says, “There may come a day when digital music disappears...but tapes are forever. They’ll be here long after we’re gone.”