Author: Joey deVilla

The promo for the completely fictitious “Volcasette” 4-track recorder.

It’s April Fools’ Day! It’s become an internet tradition to post an announcement for a fake product on this day. Usually, these fake products are too silly to ever become real, but sometimes they have that “why doesn’t this thing already exist?” quality, and there’s enough demand to make them real. This year’s fake product that people want turned real is the Korg Volcassette.

The Volcassette is supposed to be the latest in Korg’s “Volca” line, which is a series of very portable, very inexpensive (they retail for US$150) synthesizers that are about the size of a paperback book. The Volca line is “retro” — these synthesizers replicate the technology and sounds from 1980s. The Volca FM synth pictured above does a pretty good job of duplicating the sounds of the Yamaha DX7, the bright, ringing sound that defined the ’80s pop and synthpop sound. For example, the opening to Howard Jones’ What is Love? is littered with DX7 sounds, especially the bass and bell sound.

Just as Korg’s Volca synths are inexpensive “throwback” devices that bring back the sounds of the 80’s, the Volcassette is supposed to be a throwback to four-track tape recorders, which let you record four separate recordings and layers them — typically vocals on one track, drums on another, and two or more other instruments on the other two tracks. Through the ’80s and ’90s, the 4-track cassette tape recorder was a mainstay of home recording studios; I even had one.

There are far less clunky ways to do multitrack recording these days. Even smartphones do it well these days. If you have an iPhone and want to do 4-track recording, you’ll find the excellent Spire app perfect for your needs. Its features run circles around the feature set of the Volcassette, which are straight from the stone age:

• Transport: Play, Record, Rewind, Rewind 2x, Fast Forward, Fast Forward 3x, Tape Speed (for playback and record), Auto-Reverse
• Recording Capabilities: Four-track recorder
• Display: 7-segment LED play counter with reset
• Inputs: Combined 1/8″ guitar/XLR input (includes breakout cables); onboard microphone
• Outputs: 2 x 1/8″ stereo headphone jacks for shared listening
• Output Processing: Dolby A noise reduction; dedicated Bass and Treble controls
• Power: 6 x AA batteries (included) for up to 20 hours continuous playback, or optional 9V adapter
• * Optional volcahead head-cleaning tape also available

But in the hipster era, when people are buying increasing numbers of vinyl albums and turntables, when photographers are getting into old toy film cameras like Lomos and Holgas, when Moleskine notebooks still sell even though our phones have more powerful note-taking apps, and when things like vintage typewriter stores exist (Tampa’s own Paper Seahorse has a lovely collection), it shouldn’t a that big a surprise that musicians would want an old school 4-track tape recorder.

Here’s a sample of reactions to the April Fools’ Volcassette announcement on Facebook:

If Korg end up having to make the Volcassette real, it wouldn’t be the first time this sort of thing has happened:

The iCade — an miniature cabinet that turned your iPad into an arcade machine — was originally a ThinkGeek April Fools’ joke product announced in 2010. However, the idea was so good, the demand was so great, and the idea was actually within the realm of possibility, so they had to make it real.

Thanks to Occupy London for the find!

Thanks to Will Perkins for the find!

Don’t know what the “Distracted Boyfriend” meme is? Here are a couple of examples:

It’s based on the stock photo pictured below, and here’s an explainer.

The headline is Dog Pursuit Sends Naked Woman Across I-95 in Florida. Here’s the opener:

Richard Griffin of Titusville says he and his wife were driving north on I-95 in Flagler County Friday when they saw a man and a woman running across the road.

But as they got closer, they saw that the woman had no clothes on. Griffin says she was naked from head to toe, and trying to round up a dog.

As for the joke from 4th grade, it’s this one:

There was a woman who had two dogs, whom she named Seymour and Freeshow. One day, while taking a shower, she noticed through the bathroom window that she’d left the gate to her yard open, and the dogs were running away. Without stopping even to garb a towel, she ran out the house and after her dogs — completely naked — calling after them: “Freeshow! Seymour!”

Saw this display at “Gifts from FL”, one of many cheesy-yet-charming gift shops in the more tourist-heavy areas of Orlando. Florida requires only a license plate on the rear, leaving the front free to personalize. Which one of these should I go with for my car?

Click the photo to read the story on NPR.

When New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gave her first speech to Parliament after last week’s terrorist attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, she said this:

“That’s why you will never hear me mention his name. He is a terrorist, he is a criminal, he is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless.”

It’s an idea along the same lines as one expressed in 2015 in the webcomic The Nonadventures of Wonderella. Wonderella just makes it a little spicier:

Click the comic to read the whole thing.

And hey, even the American answer to Uday Hussein tweeted the same notion. His tweet pretty much mirrors his life: it has a great start, flounders mid-way just like he did in college, and ends like the dumpster fire that one would expect:

Click Diaper Don’s tweet to read it on the original site.

When very different people have the same idea in science, it’s called multiple discovery. Let’s follow the example of this sort of multiple discovery and not mention the terrorist by name. I myself will be following Wonderella’s advice and simply refer to him as “some asshole”.