Mixology: Child of Vision

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.

Child of Vision (summer 1981)

Jumping in the Wayback Machine for this one, the third in a trilogy of clock radio tapes I made as a young 'un up in Toronto (check out parts 1 and 2). As with the others, I don't have a lot of descriptive information on the mix, just a crappy old Exxel 60-minute cassette with some band names scribbled on it. I'm guessing I made it sometime in the summer of '81, again taping all the songs off Toronto rock stations CHUM-FM and Q107.

As I've documented previously, it was a bittersweet summer because I had a blast but knew we were going to be moving soon to Washington state, where my dad had already moved in June. We would follow in late November, but for the moment, I was enjoying myself. I hung out with my buddies in Pickering, Ontario, played a lot of street hockey and soccer, rode my bike a lot, listened to a lot of rock on the radio. It was a good year for the brand of commercial hard rock I loved; some of the albums I was enjoying included Rush's Moving Pictures, Van Halen's Fair Warning, April Wine's Nature of the Beast, The Who's Face Dances, Foreigner 4, Styx's Paradise Theater and later in the year, the Stones' Tattoo You and Black Sabbath's Mob Rules.

I tried not to think about what lay ahead for me. Even more immediate was the prospect of Pickering High School, where I would essentially have to make all new friends because most of mine were going to the other high school in town. And of course, once I finally got into the swing of things there, we moved.

The mix starts off with a Pat Benatar song, which doesn't quite get all the way through before it cuts into AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long." The tape's heavy with AC/DC (three songs) and Van Halen (two). My strategy was just to have the tape ready to go and to wait for a song I liked before hitting the record button.

But the difference with this mix is after we moved to Richland, Washington, I apparently decided to inject a little more personality into the tape. After Foreigner's "Urgent" (which was a hot jam in '81; funny what a sax solo will do for a song), suddenly you hear dorky 14-year-old Jay Kumar interjecting with some DJ action. I know exactly when this was recorded, because I actually say it was 8:52 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 1982. I guess I taped over a song, but I have no memory of which one. I come back with some more jibba jab and then introduce VH's "Unchained." Then I return at the end of side 1, where I start praising my mix tape-making abilities. The funny part is my then 9-year-old brother, whom I shared a room with at the time, was giving me crap in the background (which sadly, you can't hear), so I'm telling him to shut up and go to sleep. I finish by hyping some other mixes I made before I get cut off when the side ends. Side 2 continues unabated until the very end after AC/DC's "TNT," when I jump in again for some more wackiness (you can hear these snippets as well as one I made on another tape in episode 141 of CompCon).

Nearly 30 years after I made the tapes, I had no recollection of doing these little voiceovers. And I never recorded myself again until I started doing my podcast four years ago. Sure, it's embarrassing to hear these dorky recordings now, but they also make me wonder what was going through that kid's head back in '82 when I recorded them. I honestly have no idea, but it's kinda funny that at age 43, I'm still recording myself jibba-jabbing into a microphone.

Side 1
Shadows of the Night - Pat Benatar
You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
Roller - April Wine
Child of Vision - Supertramp
Urgent - Foreigner
DJ JK (1/12/82)
Unchained - Van Halen
Emotional Rescue - Rolling Stones
The Waiting - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
DJ JK, part 2

Side 2
D'yer Maker - Led Zeppelin
I Can't Stand It - Eric Clapton
I Can See for Miles - The Who
Roundabout - Yes
Mean Street - Van Halen
Hell's Bells - AC/DC
TNT - AC/DC
DJ JK, part 3




Urgent:


TNT: