Mixology: All Mixed Up

Mixology is a recurring feature in which I take a look at one of the many mix tapes I made over the years. Some are better than others, but all of them are fun to revisit.

All Mixed Up (8/19 and 9/3/89)

Sometimes you look back at a point in your life and you wonder how things were ever that simple. And I don't mean when you were a little kid and had no responsibilities or cares other than which game you were going to play next. In 1989, I was moving into a new phase of my life, which I'm sure seemed really stressful and game-changing at the time. But really, it was new and exciting but not very complicated.

This tape was made during the summer after I graduated from UNH, a few months after the mix I made before I started working. I had begun working full-time as a reporter at the Peabody Times and in June had begun renting an apartment in a house in Magnolia, which is a nice section of Gloucester. I had quickly grown sick of the commute from Kingston, NH, to Peabody and also wanted to get out of my parents' house. I was driving a 1988 Hyundai Excel hatchback, which had not much in the way of giddyup, but it was MINE, dammit.

The Magnolia place was pretty sweet, right next to the beach. I actually went for some runs on the beach in an effort to reduce my beer-enabled paunch (but I didn't really get serious about exercise until a few months later when I joined a gym). The house on Hesperus Avenue was essentially a boarding house that many of the paper's interns had used over the years. I didn't as an intern because I was only earning $57 a week after taxes, but now that I was making a living wage ($20,000, but with minimal debt and no dependents), I could afford to rent a room. It was a mostly young group of people living there, including a couple of super-hot women, but I was pretty busy at the paper most of the time. I do recall going to a club in Revere with some of them, but mainly I kept to myself. We shared the kitchen; I was up on the third floor. At first, I went home on the weekends to work night crews at Market Basket and bring in some extra cash, but that was too much of a drain on my energy level and my social life, so I stopped after a month or so.

My brother and I flew up to Toronto for a few days in August to stay with my uncle. We caught a Jays game, saw the first Tim Burton Batman movie (which had just come out) and had a good time in general. As the fall approached, I definitely found myself wishing I was going back to school instead of working in the real world, but I got over it. I had started as a general assignment reporter in June, but by the end of the summer, our senior reporter left for another job and the workload got busier. Which was a good thing. Of course, that didn't stop me from going up to UNH several times during the school year to party with friends who were still there.

It was a strange summer because I didn't have many friends in the area, but that changed as the months wore on. I began dating one of the reporters at the paper. We saw R.E.M. at Great Woods (now the Comcast Center) that summer. It rained pretty much the whole time, but we had seats under the roof. I could have seen the Rolling Stones in Foxboro, but I refused to pay $70 (nowadays, that would probably be a $200 ticket) to sit a mile away from the stage.

At this point, I was still buying albums on vinyl, although I was also buying new releases on CD. On this mix, it's probably 50-50 songs from both formats. By 1990, however, I bought everything on CD. Now I only buy the occasional CD and download the majority of my music.

One great thing about the summer of '89 was I had no idea what the future held. That can be scary, but when you're 21, it just means you've got a big blank canvas on which to paint.

Side A
The Crossroads - Kim Mitchell
Girlfriend is Better (live) - Talking Heads
Partyman - Prince
Dancing Days - Led Zeppelin
Under the God - Tin Machine
Wishing Well - Bob Mould
(Wearing Down) Like a Wheel - Elliot Easton
Even the Losers - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Wall of Denial - Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
Big Time - The Kinsey Report
Medicine Train - The Cult
White Tornado - R.E.M.

Side B
Continental Drift - Rolling Stones
You Want Her Too - Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello
Ain't So Easy - David & David
Slave to Love - Bryan Ferry
Soul Crying Out - Simple Minds
Inca Queen - Neil Young and Crazy Horse
Patience - Guns 'N Roses
Coming Up Close - Til Tuesday
Never Let Me Down - David Bowie
O Mercy Louise - Kim Mitchell





Under the God:


Patience: