Mixology: High-Decibel Mixology

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.

High-Decibel Mixology (9/15/90)

Here's another mix from 20 freakin' years ago, and indeed, the one that gave this feature its name. I was firmly entrenched at the Peabody Times as the schools reporter, which meant I covered a lot of School Committee meetings and whenever there was some wacky assembly activity like the Traveling Tidepool. Not exactly Woodward and Bernstein, but it was a job. I was still thinking I would move on to a bigger paper in a year, but that never happened.

I started going to a lot of concerts: Smithereens, Aerosmith/Black Crowes, Jerry Seinfeld, Robert Plant, and even James Taylor (wasn't my idea). I drove up to Toronto in August with my brother again, this time for a week. We saw three games at the then-brand new Skydome, two against the Red Sox and one against the Brewers; the place sold out all 50,000 seats every night, but my aunt hooked us up.

At the time, I was a regular customer of Rockit Records in Saugus, which was a great store on Route 1 North. In the '80s, I used to frequent the Rockit store in Nashua with my buddy Tat to find the latest metal releases and issues of Kerrang! magazine. I used to comb through the used CD offerings to get good deals; that's where I bought the Black Crowes' debut Shake Your Money Maker, the Kings of the Sun album (had to look that one up; traded it in long ago) and the Dread Zeppelin disc, both of which are featured on this tape. The store closed in the mid-to-late '90s, unfortunately. Rockit was one of the last of the great indie record stores in the 'burbs. Thankfully, Newbury Comics (which is a chain with an indie mentality) and the Record Exchange in Salem are still around.

Musically, I still dug the heavy rock, as is evidenced by the presence of Living Colour and Tesla (!) here, and the guitar heroes (Vai, Belew, Johnson, Hendrix, Moore), but I was also broadening my listening habits and getting into acts like Public Enemy. I picked up the cassette of Fear of a Black Planet earlier in '90 and was into it. I liked the Flavor Flav stuff, but was more into Chuck D's booming raps. That dude was SERIOUS. There's also a song off the soundtrack to Mo' Better Blues, featuring none other than Denzel Washington on vocals, kinda jazz-rappin', I guess. He played a trumpet player in the Spike Lee movie, which I quite enjoyed. Listening to it now, it definitely sticks out, but what the hey. They can't all be gems.

Side A
Elvis is Dead - Living Colour
Heartbreaker - Dread Zeppelin
I am a Wild Party - Kim Mitchell
Fuckin' Up - Neil Young
The One Thing - The Pursuit of Happiness
Pop Top 40 - Branford Marsalis Quintet and Terence Blanchard (with Denzel Washington)
Don't Break My Heart! - 24/7 Spyz
911 is a Joke - Public Enemy
Drop the Gun - Kings of the Sun
Pretty Pink Rose - Adrian Belew (with David Bowie)
Cliffs of Dover - Eric Johnson

Side B
That's the Hold (live) - Kim Mitchell
Type - Living Colour
Heaven's Trail (No Way Out) - Tesla
Erotic Nightmares - Steve Vai
Trouble with the Sweet Stuff - Billy Idol
Liberty Lies - David Baerwald
While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Jeff Healey Band
Oh Pretty Woman - Gary Moore
Sister Luck - Black Crowes
Radio One Theme - Jimi Hendrix Experience





Drop the Gun:


911 is a Joke: