Mixology: Vacation Volume '91

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.

Vacation Volume '91 (8/10/91)

I actually made this mix to listen to while on vacation up in Maine. My girlfriend's family had a cottage/campground on an island in Greene, so we were heading up there for a week. Unfortunately, it was the week that the first Lollapalooza tour came through the Boston area, so I missed that historic show with Jane's Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Living Colour, Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, Body Count, Fishbone and Violent Femmes. I was pretty bummed, but what could I do? I caught the next two years of the festival, but I always regretted missing this one.

Still, it was a good vacation, as I recall. I didn't do much swimming because not being able to see to the bottom of the lake kinda freaked me out, so I did a lot of lounging around. I remember I was reading Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix & the Post-War Rock n' Roll Revolution by Charles Shaar Murray during the vacation and listening to my Walkman a lot.

At this point in '91, I had just moved in with my girlfriend, which was the first time I'd ever lived with a woman. I think it was more of an adjustment for her than me, actually. I know my mother wasn't too thrilled with the whole "living in sin" thing, but that was no big deal to me. We found an apartment in the Centerville area of Beverly that was pretty nice, but we ended up moving across town about nine months later.

This was also around the time that my buddy Chris got married. He was the first of my college friends to get hitched. Just hung out with him last weekend; he and Carolyn are coming up on their 20th anniversary next year.

It's safe to say 1991 was a great year for music, but not just because Nevermind and Ten came out then. At this point in the year, I was listening to Elvis Costello's Mighty Like a Rose a lot, but also Lenny Kravitz's Mama Said and Living Colour's EP Biscuits. Metallica would release "The Black Album" this week; I dug it at first, but it was nowhere near as good as their previous albums. The coming months saw the release of Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion double-album, Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger, Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend, the Pixies' Trompe Le Monde, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik, U2's Achtung Baby, Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque. Just a sick string of albums (not so much the GNR, but certainly everything else).

Pretty much everything on this mix still holds up, with the possible exception of R.E.M.'s "Shiny Happy People." Hard to listen to that song anymore. Of course, there's also one of the great one-hit wonders of the early '90s, "3 Strange Days" by School of Fish (I would include the video, but stupid EMI won't allow embeds). Just a transcendent summer song. It's amazing that the band was never able to follow it up in any meaningful way. Nevertheless, that song definitely takes me back to the summer of '91. Good times.

Side A
Talkin' Loud and Saying Nothin' - Living Colour
Miss Freelove '69 - Hoodoo Gurus
Always on the Run - Lenny Kravitz
Ramblin' - Royal Crescent Mob
Make Out Alright - Divinyls
Bitter Tears - INXS
Shiny Happy People - R.E.M.
Playboy to a Man - Elvis Costello
Bridegroom Blues - John Wesley Harding
Night and Day - U2
Twist My Arm - Tragically Hip
3 Strange Days - School of Fish

Side B
Stop! - Jane's Addiction
Jet City Woman - Queensryche
Higher Ground (Daddy-O mix) - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Money Talks - Living Colour
Pushin' Forward Back - Temple of the Dog
Pretty Good Life - Royal Crescent Mob
Two Tongues - Blue Rodeo
Fields of Joy - Lenny Kravitz
A Place in the Sun - Hoodoo Gurus
Fifty-Fifty Split - John Wesley Harding
So Like Candy - Elvis Costello






Miss Freelove:


So Like Candy (live on SNL with sweet beard):