"The underground cassette network – cassette culture and all was the anarchistic answer to commercial garbage music product that the mainstream propped up as the King’s clothes." (Mike Honeycutt)
Mike Honeycutt was a pioneer of the DIY cassette scene. He was also a radio producer at the community radio station WEVL Memphis, where he ran the program "Audio Exotica". Mike was kind enough to play a lot of my music (Monochrome Bleu, Josef K. Noyce, Wipeout, The Smiling Buddhas, ...) and I had the pleasure of producing an entire radio show with him twice. His aliases were DJ Mystery Mike, Mystery Hearsay (label, act, ..), World Helix, Cassette Culture Net, ... or Audio Exotica (Radioshow). He was in many band projects like Kuwahara (with Michael D. Peck), MHZ (with Miker Hertz and Bob), Larb (with Zan Hoffman), Kimik Mystev (with Mike Stevens), .. and many more. It's a real shame that Mike never set up his own server where he could have documented an overview of his extensive work. All that remains is the Way Back Machine on archiv.org to immerse yourself in the world of Mystery Hearsay.
"Mike and I had known each other since 1983. We were never in constant touch, but every few months we would chat. Although we never actually physically met, I consider him one of my best friends. Through his cassette label, Mystery Hearsay, he released several “we be echo” tapes, and I’ll be forever grateful for his vision and passion for music of all kinds." (Kevin Thorne)
My dear friend, I am deeply shocked, I cannot believe that you have gone so soon.
I recently received an email with links to your music and I wrote back that I would listen to everything carefully. Great material for one or more remixes, a collaboration in the spirit of Mail Art. Unfortunately there won't be any more collaborations, but I will probably do a remix as an acoustic farewell.
I will always remember the stays in your apartments in the late 90ies. Twice I spent a few days on your couch, right next to your equipment where we later produced radio shows and jammed. Early in the morning in April 1998, I made this poetic recording of a train passing a good 100 meters from your house, a recurring sound from the south.
On November 12, 1999, Mike visited me in Albuquerque, from where we drove to Chaco Canyon in an old Honda Civic. We took a wild dirt road straight into the valley, which saved us 30 miles. Mike was the driver, and he had never been on a road like this before and was terrified. But he drove well and we arrived safely. Late at night we drove up to Farmington and early in the morning to the Bisti Badlands (see colored photos) where we produced a live radio show in the desert for "Audio Exotica" on WEFL Memphis. All on batteries. What a dream!
Ten years earlier, in 1989, I was playing with Monochrome Bleu in Memphis. The band was staying in the house that Alan Hayes (passed away from cancer in 2022) and Mike had rented. In Memphis we played at a folk club after Alan Hayes and his friends. After hours, Mike saw the wiskey running into us and got a little scared for us, then selflessly stayed sober and drove us safely to his house. Mike was someone you could rely on. Fortunately, our email correspondence never stopped, we always send each other our new music, there were also plans for you to travel to Europe with a concert of Mike in Linz, Austria. Mike, you were a great artist, radio producer and networker, but as a person you were a giant. Rest gently, dear friend! (Wolfgang Dorninger)
"A partner in crime pushing cassette culture passions to the n’th - Mike and I traversed between Louisville and Memphis regularly enough to create a body of recordings under the name Larb to mess will y’all’s heads. Subversive humor covered the trails of Mike’s glacial Memphis pace and we were constantly joking in ruined southern slang in we had overhead from coworkers. We had massive work in documenting our cassette culture worlds with plans for a museum with our combined archives saying “we ain’t nebber gunna be done did wif it”… sadly it seems we now are done did wif it." (Zan Hoffman)
A 2020 "honeycutt_rmx" I did as The Smiling Buddhas, based on sounds by Mike, still unreleased.
"Mike has been one of the most respected veterans of the entire home recording electronic music scene. His exotic and outstanding musical creations and his support for independent sound are tireless and valuable." (Don Campau - in The Living Archive of Undeground Music)
