TIL our little 4 track demo got played 10,000 times on Bandcamp, and I found out from a stranger at a gas station

Eric Johnson · 2026-10-15T20:05:05.826803+00:00

So my old band from college, we were called Pine Cone Radio, and we recorded four songs in my buddy Dave's basement in Akron back in 2011 on a Tascam 424 that smelled like burnt dust. We pressed like 50 CDRs and gave them out at shows, and I figured that was that, maybe 30 people ever heard those songs. Then last Tuesday a guy at a Speedway pumps me on the shoulder and asks if I played bass in Pine Cone Radio, and I kid you not, he pulls out his phone and shows me our Bandcamp page sitting at 10,247 plays. Turns out some college radio guy in Portland found the demo in a dollar bin and posted it on a blog, and it just kept getting passed around for a decade. I sat in my truck for ten minutes just staring at that number, because those songs were recorded in one take with Dave's mom yelling about dinner in the background of track three. The whole thing cost us about 40 bucks in blank tapes. What gets me is none of us ever knew, and now I'm wondering what other old demos are just sitting out there racking up listens without anybody telling the band. Has anybody here ever found out years later that a tape you forgot about actually found an audience?

🐿️Pinecone Attack

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TIL our little 4 track demo got played 10,000 times on Bandcamp, and I found out from a stranger at a gas station | Basement Band Demos - Pinecone Attack