Mixology: Totally Intense Tunes, Vol. 1

Editor's note: 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.

Totally Intense Tunes, Vol. 1 (2/14/86)

It's been four years since I've done a Mixology post, because I ran out of mixes to write about. But while I was driving around this weekend listening to a mix, I remembered that there was a lost mix, one I had taped over. After I got home, I dug through my cassette collection to see if I could find the tape I had recorded over the lost mix. Sure enough, I got to literally the last tape, a recording of Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime, when I found the original playlist of Totally Intense Tunes underneath the inlay card.

The tape, which I had oh-so-cleverly dubbed "T.I.T.," was made in the spring of my freshman year at UNH, a full 30 (and a half) years ago. It was made on Valentine's Day, which I suppose says something about the state (or lack thereof) of my love life at the time. It was made on the Panasonic all-in-one stereo I had, which was a cheapo receiver/dual cassette deck/turntable combo. No Dolby sound, so it wasn't the best-sounding tape, but it was okay for my purposes.

The tape was made from my extensive collection of vinyl; I had come to school with two boxes of records, one marked "Basic" and one marked "Metallic." My Springsteen-loving buddies got a kick out of the latter and loved to rib me about my love of metal. This mix certainly reflected that love: healthy doses of Zeppelin, Rush, Van Halen, as well as more of the hair metal variety like Dokken, Ratt and Motley Crue. Still, as I hung out with more pop-minded folks, my tastes began to broaden and I started to turn away from the metal somewhat. Not totally, but I kept it under wraps a little more. When I would go home for school breaks, I would hang out with my buddy Chris and crank the hard stuff, but at college, I started listening to more alternative stuff like R.E.M., U2 and the Cure as well as top 40 shizz.

Indeed, it was Chris who lent me me the vinyl of Operation: Mindcrime in the summer of '87, which led me to tape over T.I.T. If anything, it was more metal than the mix, but I was so impressed with the concept album that I had no regrets. Nevertheless, T.I.T. lives on here. Rock on, rocker.

Side A
Territories - Rush
No Quarter - Led Zeppelin
D.O.A. - Van Halen
Battle Scar - Max Webster
Back for More - Ratt
Somebody Get Me a Doctor - Van Halen

Side B
Something for Nothing - Rush
Tooth and Nail - Dokken
Love Ain't No Stranger - Whitesnake
Shapes of Things - Gary Moore
Louder Than Hell - Motley Crue
22 Acacia Ave. - Iron Maiden
Cool Down - Triumph