When Yamen Mekdad was a teenager in Damascus, Syria, there was one place he'd go almost every day: his friend's cassette shop. "So I'd just sit with him, hang out with him, smoke cigarettes and just ...

When Mark Gergis visited Syria for the first time in December 1997, he was drowning in magnetic tape. On the streets of Damascus, the capital, cassette sellers set up carts where they’d crank the ...

When Yamen Mekdad and Mark Gergis met in 2018, the pair combined their love of Syrian cassettes into a project aiming to save them — and share... The Syrian Cassette Archive, preserving a disappearing ...

This story is free to read because readers choose to support LAist. If you find value in independent local reporting, make a donation to power our newsroom today. When Yamen Mekdad was a teenager in ...