Mixology: December Decibels

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

December Decibels (12/07)

Part of the fun of doing some of these mix CD writeups is having to figure out what some of the songs are, since I don't have tracklistings for most of them and the iTunes playlists no longer exist. I still have all the MP3s, though, so eventually I figure it out. I only have the full album for 11 of the 19 songs on this mix, so some digging was required.

The one I had the most trouble with is "Fader" by Todd Fancey, whose day job is as a guitarist for the New Pornographers. I have the album but hadn't listened to it in a few years, and the song is a dead ringer for one of the more mellow Foo Fighters tracks. So I was going through the songs on the 2007 Foo album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, but couldn't find this song. Googled some of the song's lyrics but that didn't help. Took me four listens before I realized I could sort my iTunes by song time and eventually found that it wasn't Dave Grohl's band at all.

A similar case with the song "X Marks the Spot" by Frankel, an artist whose sound is reminiscent of many others and another song I hadn't heard in a long time. It took me a while to figure out who he was. Pretty sure I downloaded the track from an MP3 blog. And really, it's a great song.

For the most part, this mix is pretty midtempo, but it's good midtempo. Besides, the opening song "Tyrants" by Black Mountain is 8 minutes of epic asskickery that can sustain you through the remaining 65 minutes.

Tyrants - Black Mountain
Pill Gone Girl - Robert Pollard
Rich Woman - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
Shotgun Wedding - Jason Isbell
Man in the Long Black Coat - Mark Lanegan
The Wicked Messenger - Black Keys
Is There a Ghost - Band of Horses
Ada - The National
Fader - Fancey
How Legends Love - Ginger
Delivery (demo) - Pete Doherty
Someone Great - LCD Soundsystem
All I Need - Radiohead
Stop Drop and Roll - Foxboro Hot Tubs
1957 - Buck 65
Paper Planes - M.I.A.
The Silence Between Us - Bob Mould
X Marks the Spot - Frankel
Foam Hands - Destroyer





Tyrants:


1957: