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


 

 

Through the Past Dorkily: All Lovers Are Deranged

Editor's note: Through the Past Dorkily is a recurring feature that looks back at the embarrassingly dorky diary I kept as a 16-year-old in 1984.

 Thursday, March 1, 1984

ROGER DALTREY'S BIRTHDAY

Song of the day: Free Me - Roger Daltrey

Top 5 at Five
1. I'll Wait - Van Halen
2. Eat It - Weird Al
3. All Lovers Are Deranged - David Gilmour
4. Heaven - Bryan Adams
5. In the Beginning/Shout at the Devil - Motley Crue

Not much doing today. Mom and JP went to the Methuen Mall with some friends today but I stayed home. I re-taped "Blizzard of Ozz" by Ozzy and "Number of the Beast" by Maiden. The Maiden one went okay, but the Ozzy one got all screwed up. I still don't know what happened!

Mom bought me a jacket. It's beige. I don't know, Ma...

I was watching Live on 4 and Joe Piscopo was on. He said he probably would not be back on SNL next year. Plus last week was Eddie Murphy's last show! Bummer!

I saw a commercial for a new movie, Splash. It's got John Candy and Eugene Levy in it. And it's PG. I gotta see it!

Jeremy called and said he could take me to Methuen tomorrow. Good deal.

- The (bored) Barbarian

Friday, March 2, 1984

Song of the day: Two Hearts Beat as One - U2

Top 5 at Five
1. Heaven - Bryan Adams
2. I'll Wait - Van Halen
3. In the Beginning/Shout at the Devil - Motley Crue
4. Leave It - Yes
5. Tear It Up - Queen

Went to Methuen today. Before going to the mall, Jeremy's mom stopped at the junkyard. I met Jeremy's cousin. Not a bad looking chick (she's 15). She said she might have a jacuzzi party next week, and Jeremy said he'd invite me [and cute girls from school], among others. Can't wait!

At the mall, I bought "Shout at the Devil" by the Crue and two magazines. When I got home, I found that I got a postcard from [aforementioned cute girls, who were in Florida for the week]. Wow, man. Plus I got the new Guitar magazine. Then I went and got a haircut. Sandy, my hairdresser, wasn't there so someone else did my hair. Did a good job, too.

I'm thinking of going skating tomorrow. It's wicked cold out there!

- The Barbarian

Saturday, March 3, 1984

Song of the day: When the Lady Smiles - Golden Earring

Didn't do too much today. Just went to the dump, and then the Carriage Towne Plaza, where I saw the luscious [girl from school]. Then I came home and went skating on the pond for a couple of hours. I listened to my new Motley album. That's it, man.

- The Barbarian

Sunday, March 4, 1984

Song of the day: Hot for Teacher - Van Halen

Today I reached new heights in boredom. The only thing I did all day watch the Bruins-Whalers game on TV. Hartford won 6-4.

Hopefully tomorrow won't be boring.

- The Barbarian

Monday, March 5, 1984

Song of the day: Run Like Hell - Pink Floyd

Top 5 at Five
1. Heaven - Bryan Adams
2. Jump - Van Halen
3. Eat It - Weird Al
4. In the Beginning/Shout at the Devil - Motley Crue
5. Against All Odds - Phil Collins

Just yer typical Monday. Wore that blasted beige jacket and I got ragged on by [a couple of buddies of mine]. Stupid homos. You can bet I'm never wearing it again!

I went for my detention in Bi Sci after school. [Teacher] let me go after 10 minutes. I looked out the window and saw the bus leaving! Then I had to wait 2 hours for the damn late bus. To make things worse, the bus got re-routed because of an accident and I got home at 5. 

Jeremy invited me to his jacuzzi party on Saturday. [Another buddy] is going, too. [Cute girl] isn't going because she has a cheering tournament or something. Damn!

Dad phoned at 5:30 and said he'd be working late. Well, it's 11 right now, and he still isn't home! Mom's working evenings. I'm gonna call his work number. Seeya later.

I called Dad. He was still working and came home at midnite.

- The Barbarian

Postscript: Had to laugh at the beige jacket debacle. That's why you shouldn't let your mom buy you clothes when you're in high school, kids. Not to mention the fact that it was a Members Only-type of jacket, whereas I usually wore a scruffy ski vest. 

I was still in the nascent stages of my home taping, not having discovered the joy of a real tape deck and Dolby sound. You can read about the gazillion mix tapes I made in later years with my Mixology series of posts, which started here. My recording technique in 1984 basically involved putting a boombox in front of my speakers. I bought everything on vinyl at this point, anyway. 

Watched Splash again a few months ago and it still holds up for the most part. I was a huge SCTV fan from my days living in Toronto, so Candy and Levy were the big draws, but I also knew young Tom Hanks from his early '80s sitcom Bosom Buddies, which I enjoyed. I was also a major SNL fan and of course had a big appreciation for the talent of Eddie Murphy (and yes, Joe Piscopo).

David Gilmour's solo album, About Face, came out around this time and even though it's fairly forgotten now, it was pretty good. I particularly enjoyed the first single on rock radio:

    

Mixology: The Joy of Angst-Ridden, Gen X-er Slacker Rock

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.

The Joy of Angst-Ridden, Gen X-er Slacker Rock (2/4/94)

It's been many moons since the last installment of Mixology, mainly because I've been busy with other stuff and my inventory of mix tapes has dwindled down. But I did have this one kicking around. Alas, I just popped it into my tape deck to get in the mood for this post and about halfway through the first song, the tape deck started eating the tape. This has been part of a complete mutiny on the part of my stereo equipment. It started last year when my turntable (purchased in 1989) finally crapped out. Then a few weeks ago, my CD player (purchased in 1993) just stopped working; whenever I put a CD in,  it spins for a moment before being ejected. And today, the tape deck (purchased a few years back off Craigslist) shit the bed. The only thing that still works is the receiver, which I also bought from someone off Craigslist a couple of years ago. I want to replace all these pieces so I can play my CD, vinyl and cassettes from time to time. Granted, most of the time I'm listening to music on my computer or iPod, but every so often I like to crank up something old-school.

Which brings me to this tape, which I've listened to many times in the car (and on the damn tape deck before it decided to defect to the underworld). The title was a reflection of my distaste with the obvious marketing going on at the time targeted at my generation, the so-called "Generation X." It was all pretty lazy stuff, and with movies like Reality Bites hitting the theaters and commercials and TVs shows all portraying flannel-clad, shiftless 20somethings, I was getting pretty sick of the whole thing.

But the music was still good, although it wouldn't be long before grunge copycats would start taking over the rock scene and making alt-rock rather tiresome. This tape is a good representation of what I was into at the time and I still like everything on it except the Counting Crows song (which isn't a bad song, per se, but overplayed and worn out for me. Saw them at Axis before they hit it big and they were fine, but I quickly tired of Adam Duritz and the band got a little too boring for me). I believe I recorded this while I was still living in Middleton, a few weeks before I moved back to Beverly. Things were turning around for me after a depressing stretch of months, and this mix reflected that. Fairly dark stuff, but in a good way.

Alas, I'll never be able to listen to this mix again (unless I make it again). So rest in pieces, faithful mix. You had a good 19-year run.

Side A
Gentlemen - Afghan Whigs
Rotten Apple - Alice in Chains
Veronica - Paw
Monolith - Redd Kross
Solar Sister - The Posies
Dogman - King's X
Crackbabies - Urge Overkill
Blood - Pearl Jam
Only - Anthrax
Scentless Apprentice - Nirvana
Last Chance for a Slow Dance - Fugazi
Latest Monkey - Buffalo Tom

Side B
Reeling - PJ Harvey
Fuck and Run - Liz Phair
Do You Love Me Now? - Breeders
Forbidden World - The Pursuit of Happiness
Dream All Day - The Posies
Time Capsule - Matthew Sweet
Mr. Jones - Counting Crows
Disarm - Smashing Pumpkins
Anything That Way - Buffalo Tom
All Apologies - Nirvana
Can't Fight It - Bob Mould
Take a Walk - Urge Overkill
Rearviewmirror - Pearl Jam

 

Mixology: Rock for Hannah

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.

Rock for Hannah (6/15/02)

It's been awhile since I did a Mixology post and until a minute ago, I honestly had no idea that it was 10 years to the day that I made this one. To give you a sense of how long it's been, this mix was made in anticipation of the 11-hour drive to Toronto that we were going to be doing to attend my cousin Dev's wedding. Hannah was just six weeks old at the time; now she's 10 (duh) and today wrapped up her last day of 4th grade. Pretty mind-blowing.

As for the songs themselves, I actually did choose songs that Deb and I could both agree on that also revolved around a loose theme of the joy Hannah had brought into our lives. And yet it's completely and utterly not mushy. There's some classics like "In My Life" and "Surrender" and even "Everlong," but I also threw in some Tin Machine and Sugar to add a little edge to the proceedings.

As I recall, the drive wasn't bad considering we had a tiny infant in the back. There was the requisite weeping and diaper filling and such, but Hannah was good traveler. Deb and I were new parents, so we were still figuring it out as we were going. But it was a great week up there and when we returned a year later for my cousin Anita's wedding, we had a surprise in tow: Deb was pregnant with our second daughter, Lily.

So my memories of this mix are all good, even though I can't actually play the CD anymore. It literally spent most of the last 10 years in our various cars and has been so scratched up that it's unlistenable. I'll have to redo it again someday.

Rock for Hannah

Surrender - Cheap Trick
Everlong - Foo Fighters
A Girl Like You - The Smithereens
Your Favorite Thing - Sugar
Will - Kevin Salem
Super Baby - Matthew Sweet
Baby Can Dance - Tin Machine
It's in Your Eyes - Sloan
It's Love - King's X
Smile - Pearl Jam
Tangerine - Led Zeppelin
Trip Through Your Wires - U2
Driver 8 - R.E.M.
It's Different for Girls - Joe Jackson
Surround - Dada
It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken - The Tragically Hip
In My Life - The Beatles
Praise You - Fatboy Slim
Hey Hey You Say - Papas Fritas
Citysong - Luscious Jackson

Mixology: Pure Chewing Satisfaction

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.

Pure Chewing Satisfaction (5/4/93)

Nineteen years ago, I was living at this very address, but not for much longer. By July, I moved out and embarked on a fairly lousy nine months or so of solo existence. Not coincidentally, this stretch of time also marked my most prolific period for making mix tapes. It took my mind off other things and gave me something to listen to in the car.

Fortunately, there was plenty of good new music out at the time. It was the period just after the big grunge releases had hit--Nevermind, Ten, Badmotorfinger, Dirt--and there was a lot of interesting stuff happening. I was particularly digging new albums from Cracker (David Lowery's first post-CVB record), Dinosaur Jr., Sloan, Buffalo Tom, Mudhoney, Sonic Youth and Living Colour. Plenty of guitars all over each album, but all were very different and presented a promising future for alternative rock. Of course, the next wave of bands included the likes of Bush and Silverchair, so that didn't turn out so well. I was also enjoying new albums from some of my favorite Canuck bands like The Tragically Hip and The Pursuit of Happiness.

Call this mix the rock before the storm. I knew the future was uncertain, but I didn't know how shitty things would be until I actually got there. That axiom unfortunately applied on several levels. But in May 1993, I was still quite unaware of how things would work out.

Side A
Fifty-Mission Cap - The Tragically Hip
Cigarette Dangles - The Pursuit of Happiness
Underwhelmed - Sloan
Purr - Sonic Youth
Drawerings - Dinosaur Jr.
This Little Pig - Living Colour
April Fool - Soul Asylum
Staples - Buffalo Tom
St. Cajetan - Cracker
Are You Gonna Go My Way - Lenny Kravitz
Buttercup - Brad
Dear Ol' Dad - Blind Melon
Let Me Let You Down - Mudhoney

Side B
Don't Fuck Me Up - Cracker
In Her Dreams - The Pursuit of Happiness
Locked in the Trunk of a Car - The Tragically Hip
Lemonzinger - Sloan
I'm Spun - Mudhoney
Orange Rolls, Angel's Spit - Sonic Youth
Hide - Dinosaur Jr.
Half Ass Monkey Boy - Mother Love Bone
My Fingers - Brad
Change - Blind Melon
Bi - Living Colour
Believe - Lenny Kravitz
Live Another Day - Stevie Ray Vaughan

Mixology: Ito is Neato

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.

Ito is Neato (9/2/95)

It has been just over a year since the last installment of Mixology, mainly because I had run out of mixes to write about. But yesterday I was going through some old bins of stuff that had been stashed away in the attic eaves and sure enough, I found a few more tapes including this choice selection.

The name of the mix was an obvious reference to the judge in the infamous OJ Simpson murder trial, which was at its peak in September '95. A month later, the jury delivered the not guilty verdict that shocked many who felt Simpson was obviously the killer. The evidence was pretty overwhelming, but so was the terrible way the prosecution handled the case.

At any rate, it was a good time for me, albeit one that wouldn't last. I was about to give my notice at the newspaper for a writing position at the healthcare publishing company for which I still work, and was having a lot of fun in general. In the span of a few months, my girlfriend would dump me, I was having trouble adjusting to the new job and my dad's health would get progressively worse. But in early September, I was loving life.

I still dig every song on this tape, to varying degrees. By '95, the grunge explosion of the early '90s (and Kurt Cobain's subsequent death in '94) had begun to deliver its first wave of copycat acts that started to clog up rock radio: Stone Temple Pilots, Candlebox, Bush, et al really brought the suck. Fortunately, I had started branching out with more interesting artists like Morphine, Bjork, PJ Harvey, Elastica, Pavement and The Jayhawks. The original grunge acts still interested me, but what came after was fairly shitty. Fortunately, mixes like this helped me ignore that stuff.

Side A: Ito
Weird-out - Dandelion
Summer - Buffalo Tom
I'll Stick Around - Foo Fighters
Bed for the Scraping - Fugazi
Execution Style - Mudhoney
More Human Than Human - White Zombie
I'm Above - Mad Season
Ono Soul - Thurston Moore
Waydown - The Catherine Wheel
Act of Love - Neil Young and Pearl Jam
Eternal Life - Jeff Buckley
Serpentine Pad - Pavement

Side B: Neato
Army of Me - Bjork
Long Snake Moan - PJ Harvey
Shimmer - Throwing Muses
Super Baby - Matthew Sweet
Will - Kevin Salem
Din - Chris Whitley
I'd Run Away - The Jayhawks
Free Love - Morphine
Stutter - Elastica
Los Vargos - Green Apple Quick Step
X-Static - Foo Fighters
Trailer Park Girl - Dandelion

Mixology: March Mix Madness

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.


March Mix Madness (March 2008)

Three years ago, I was in the midst of training for the New Jersey Marathon, the Leafs were on the way to missing the playoffs yet again, the terrific HBO series "The Wire" wrapped up its final season, I was gearing up for big rock shows from the Gutter Twins and the Drive-By Truckers, and we got the news that the city was planning to close my daughter's elementary school because of budget cuts.

Three years later, not too much has changed. Except that I'm not doing a marathon this spring and I have two kids going to a different school across town, I have a different vehicle and I'm going to see Queens of the Stone Age in a few weeks.

This mix is pretty strong. Most of the artists on it are ones for which I have multiple albums. The R.E.M. song was from their "return to rock" album, Accelerate, which many critics wrote off as the band trying too hard to rock out, but what the hell's wrong with that? Especially after the string of disappointing albums they recorded after Bill Berry left the band. Now the band just released its new album, Collapse Into Now, which is being hailed as a true return to form. I've heard a few songs from it and they sound good.

Many of the bands on this mix have released consistently good albums over the last decade or so, including the Raveonettes, Ladyhawk, Jay Reatard (R.I.P.), Andrew Bird, Destroyer, the Black Angels, Greg Dulli (via the Gutter Twins, Twilight Singers or solo), the Drive-By Truckers, Centro-Matic, Black Francis and the Dirtbombs. I'm a pretty faithful music fan. If a band releases an album I really like, I'll stick with its future releases until it really disappoints me. All these acts have delivered the goods on a regular basis. And they make this mix sound particularly good.

Bang On - The Breeders

Aly, Walk With Me - The Raveonettes
Hang Them All - Tapes 'n Tapes
Night You're Beautiful - Ladyhawk
Always Wanting More - Jay Reatard
International Bullet Proof Talent - Bauhaus
Silence - Portishead
Oh Sister - Andrew Bird
My Favorite Year - Destroyer
You On the Run - The Black Angels
'Till Kingdom Come - Dead Meadow
Salt of the Earth - The Rolling Stones
Front Street - Gutter Twins
3 Dimes Down - Drive-By Truckers
Right Hand on My Heart - The Whigs
I The Kite - Centro-Matic
The Seus - Black Francis
Indivisible - The Dirtbombs
Living Well is the Best Revenge - R.E.M.


Front Street:


Living Well:

Mixology: Rock This Joint

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.

Rock This Joint (January 2009)
A lot can happen in two years. When this mix was made, Barack Obama had just been sworn in as our new president and things were looking up (unless you were a Republican). Two years later, things don't look a whole lot different than they did in '09. Sure, there have been some superficial changes, but the economy still blows, we're still in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Gitmo's still open. Call me jaded, but we've seen this before. The party in the White House may change, but behind the scenes, it's a lot of the same players. Same shite, different year.

Mix-wise, I dig this one. The Sabbath song is from the 1983 album Born Again, which featured Ian Gillan of Deep Purple on vocals. It was post-Dio and was extremely heavy and dark (natch). Unfortunately, it was marred by really shitty
production and sounded really muddled. I still dug it as a 16-year-old when it came out. There's a great back story to the album, as it was plagued by an awful cover that was a rip-off of a Depeche Mode cover from a few years earlier. I had a t-shirt with the devil baby on it that freaked the hell out of my very religious mother, so I never wore it around the house. The subsequent tour featured some classic Spinal Tap moments (even though the movie had already been made by that point) with dwarfs and a Stonehenge stage set gone awry. Classic stuff. Nonetheless, I was psyched in January 2009 to find an entire album's worth of demos online that sounded better than the released product. I listened to that a lot for a few months. Same with the Gary Numan album The Pleasure Principle; I knew "Cars" from back in the day, but I downloaded this album from eMusic and really enjoyed it. It's always fun to rediscover old music in a new way.

Daily Grind - Bob Durling
Trashed - Black Sabbath
Automatic Thrill - Gluecifer
Sometimes I Don't Know - The Hellacopters
Nobody's Fault - Aerosmith
Now I'm a Fool - Eagles of Death Metal
Total Fucking Madness - Carbon/Silicon
We Call Upon the Author - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Metal - Gary Numan
Great Expectations - The Gaslight Anthem
Pop Lie - Okkervil River
Come On Over (Turn Me On) - Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan
Why Do They Leave? - Ryan Adams
Postcards from Tiny Islands - The Walkmen
I Feel My Stuff - David Byrne and Brian Eno
Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer - A.C. Newman
Atomic Heels - Secret Machines
Fitz and the Dizzyspells - Andrew Bird


Trashed (ah, '80s videos):



Metal:

Mixology: April Amplification

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.

April Amplification (April 2006)

What were you doing (almost) five years ago? I was watching my wife run the Boston Marathon (and joining her for the last nine miles), training for the Vermont City Marathon, watching the Leafs miss the playoffs and celebrating Hannah's 4th birthday.

I was also making this mix, which featured plenty of the so-called indie rock. Five years later, I'm digging it for the most part. Wolfmother definitely doesn't hold up, but pretty much everything else does. That first Arctic Monkeys album still stands out as an amazing collection of tunes by a young band. I've enjoyed both of their albums since, but their debut was a startlingly good surprise.

The mashup of "Eminence Front" by the Who and "Root Down" by the Beastie Boys is a lot of fun. This was probably the height of mashups and there were some pretty good ones. I used to enjoy it when WBCN DJ Bradley Jay would mash up songs back in the mid-'80s; he was good at matching seemingly disparate songs. I don't have a ton of mashups but the best ones seamlessly graft different songs together in an original way.

I Gotta Feeling (Just Nineteen) - Eagles of Death Metal
I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor - Arctic Monkeys
Rifle Called Goodbye - The Minus 5
Aftermath USA - Drive-By Truckers
Frontin' on the Root Down - I-Train (mashup of The Who and Beastie Boys)
Twin Killers - Deerhoof
The Funeral - Band of Horses
Your Blood - Destroyer
Publish My Love - Rogue Wave
Star Witness - Neko Case
Louisiana - The Walkmen
I Burn Today - Frank Black
The Bones of an Idol - The New Pornographers
I Love You - Matthew Sweet
Spider's Web - Mission of Burma
World Wide Suicide - Pearl Jam
Revenga - System of a Down
Feeding Frenzy - Early Man
Dimension - Wolfmother
Step on It, Jean - Sloan
Hockey Monkey - The Zambonis with James Kochalka


Dance floor:


Hockey monkey:

Mixology: Sonic Boomlet

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.

Sonic Boomlet (April 2007)

This was one of the last mixes I made for which I actually printed out the tracklist. I'm not sure exactly when I stopped doing so, but I guess my life got so busy that it was no longer a priority. Soon I was burning discs of the monthly iTunes playlists I made but just labeling them with simply the date and occasionally a name. After all, I had all the playlists in iTunes, or I did until I had to get my PC wiped clean of contaminants and I lost them all.

It reminds me of the cassettes I made back in the mid-80s. I used to write the song titles out in different colored markers...for a while until I just went with plain ol' blue or black pen ink. I even went through a phase when I'd decorate the inlay card with some cool picture I'd cut out from a magazine; of course, this would mean there would be no song information, but hey, it looked good.

I did the same thing with burned CDs, mixes and others, using interesting fonts for the artist names and album titles. I did it with this mix, using a cool font that I can't recall for the title. Again, this only lasted a short while.

Something always gets in the way, I suppose, and the frivolous leads to the practical. But no matter the look, fancy or boring, at least I've still got the music to recall a time when it was no big thing to spend some time on a mix CD.

Bomb. Repeat. Bomb. - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Death or Life We Want You - The Dears
No Cars Go - Arcade Fire
This is All I Came to Do - Dinosaur Jr.
No Backbone - Lemonheads
Creeping Up the Backstairs - The Fratellis
Hunting for Witches - Bloc Party
Brianstorm - Arctic Monkeys
Everything is Average Nowadays - Kaiser Chiefs
Dashboard - Modest Mouse
Gronlandic Edit - Of Montreal
Spit Shine Your Black Clouds - Blood Brothers
Kreative Kontrol - Hot Snakes
We've Come So Far (To Be Here Today) - Radio Birdman
Province - TV On the Radio
Fiery Crash - Andrew Bird
Impossible Germany - Wilco
The Kids Don't Get It - The Tragically Hip
Before the End of the Race - Sloan


All I came to do:


Province:

Mixology: Jumpstart Jukebox

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.

Jumpstart Jukebox (January 2008)

January can be a real killer of a month. It's dark, cold and miserable. There's not a whole hell of a lot to do except wait for it to be over. This doesn't change from year to year, but at least there's rock to get us through.

Despite January being pretty much a wasteland in terms of new releases, this mix contains all new stuff that had come out in the preceding few months. It was a heady time in these parts: At the end of January 2008, the Patriots were 18-0 and heading to the Super Bowl to face the Giants. I don't remember what happened after that, just like I don't remember what happened to the Pats last weekend. It's all a blank and it's gonna stay that way.

I had just begun training for the New Jersey Marathon, which remains my fastest race (3:43). The Leafs fired GM John Ferguson Jr. and optimism reigned supreme; alas, three years later, they still suck big time. The more things change...

Idle Hands - The Gutter Twins
Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution - The Black Crowes
Baltimore - Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
(My Head)/R.I.P. Allegory - Times New Viking
Bamboo Banga - M.I.A.
Tell Me - Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
I Want Oblivion - Heavy Trash
Navy Nurse - The Fiery Furnaces
Bad Phone Call - Buffalo Tom
Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife - Drive-By Truckers
Devastation - The Besnard Lakes
Angels - Black Mountain
(I Don't Need You to) Set Me Free - Grinderman
Tight Black Rubber - Black Francis
Skinny Love - Bon Iver
Society - Eddie Vedder
Wonderful Witches - Thurston Moore
Phantom Limb - The Shins
Conquest - White Stripes




Idle Hands:


Tight Black Rubber:

Mixology: Lighten Up, Francis

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.

Lighten Up, Francis (April 2009)

Sometimes an old mix can really pick you up. Tuesday night, I had to go pick up my mom from the airport because her flight had been canceled due to the impending snowmageddon. It was 9:30 p.m. and I had been looking forward to a nice relaxing evening, but had to jump in the van and head to the airport.

I grabbed this mix randomly as I was running out the door, with no idea of what was on it because I never took the time to print out a track listing. One of the opening songs, Art Brut's "Alcoholics Unanimous," was my favorite song of that year. And it was a good year for music, indeed. It was nice to be greeted with one kickass song after another, all collected during April of '09.

Contrast this with last weekend, when we drove up to my mom's place. I didn't grab any CDs, opting instead to just listen to the radio. Problem is, between commercials and crappy songs, I tend to do a lot of jumping around with the radio dial. This, of course, drives my wife nuts. But I have no patience for ads and crap anymore. Why do you think I started making mixes all those years ago?

Easy - Deer Tick
Angela - Jarvis Cocker
Alcoholics Unanimous - Art Brut
Son of a Gun - The Vaselines
Watch This! - Dananananaykroyd
Prophets - A.C. Newman
Gauze - Red Red Meat
Vampire - The Pink Mountaintops
Idiot Heart - Sunset Rubdown
Black Hearted Love - PJ Harvey and John Parish
Halfmast - The Dears
Frozen in My Tracks - The Tragically Hip
I'm Sorry, Baby, but You Can't Stand in My Light Anymore - Bob Mould
Sacred Trickster - Sonic Youth
Fate to Fatal - The Breeders
I Want You to Know - Dinosaur Jr.
Divinations - Mastodon
Halcyon Days - And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead


Alcoholics:


Black Hearted:

Mixology: Smarch Rocks

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.

Smarch Rocks: A spring-loaded mix (3/24/06)

Ah, the spring of aught-6. Twas a magical time, what with the MP3 blogs and what not. This is a fun mix to reflect upon. Hard to believe it was almost five years ago that I made it.

About half of the 20 songs were discovered through the various music blogs I was following at the time, including the songs from Runner and the Thermodynamics, Thunderbirds are Now, We are Scientists, Wolf Parade and Tom Vek. The song by The Cloud Room had already achieved some notoriety for the Internet popularity it achieved while actually generating not much in the way of actual sales.

At the time, I was training for the Vermont City Marathon, which was two months later. Lily had just turned the ripe age of 2. I can't even remember her being so little. Weird.

Probably the best thing about this mix and the time period was the diversity of stuff I was listening to. A lot of new stuff, some old, some heavy, some wussy. It was all good. I mean, how nuts is following up My Morning Jacket with Scissorfight? You won't hear that on some lame-ass commercial rock station.

Steady as She Goes - The Raconteurs

Hey Now Now - The Cloud Room

Fire Eye'd Boy - Broken Social Scene

Ramblin' Man - Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan

Rise Up With Fists! - Jenny Campbell with the Watson Twins

It Beats 4U - My Morning Jacket

Granite State Destroyer - Scissorfight

Powerlines - Runner and the Thermodynamics

It's All in My Mind - Teenage Fanclub

Eat This City - Thunderbirds are Now!

Goodbye to Guyville - Urge Overkill

The Rat - The Walkmen

Mothra vs. We Are Scientists - We Are Scientists

Instinct Blues - White Stripes

The People That Life Forgot - The Wildhearts

You are a Runner and I am My Father's Son - Wolf Parade

Instant Karma - Yo La Tengo

Lay It On the Line - Triumph

Nothing But Green Lights - Tom Vek

No Threat - The Tragically Hip

Hey now now:


The Rat:

Mixology: Angry and Old--Briggy Turns 40

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.

Angry and Old: Briggy Turns 40 (4/4/05)

Two posts in one day and they're both about my buddy Dave Brigham. When he reads this in a month or so, he'll be flattered. I made this mix back in 2005 in honor of Briggy's 40th birthday. Dave's wife Beth threw a great party at their place, so I whipped this up as part of his gift. Being old and such, I've made a few such mixes in the last few years for friends of mine (as well as for my own 40th).

It helped that I was very familiar with Dave's musical likes from working side-by-side with him for a few years at the ol' Webnoize concern. Hence the robot references by GBV, Kraftwerk and Brainiac, as well as the tunes from At the Drive-In, Fu Manchu, Von Bondies and Bullet Lavolta. This was all stuff we were digging back in '99-'01.

Making mixes is always fun, but it's especially fun when you're making them for someone else. I know Briggy dug the CD and I like to pop it in the hi-fi from time to time because it kicks an appropriate amount of arse. Which is good when you've hit the big 4-0. No Seals & Crofts to be found on this compilation.

Happy Birthday to Me - Cracker

Birthday Cake - Cibo Matto

Old Man - Neil Young

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Devo

Gold Star for Robot Boy - Guided by Voices

The Robots - Kraftwerk

I am a Cracked Machine - Brainiac

Quatro Fromagii - Bea Arthur's Revenge

One Armed Scissor - At the Drive-In

Weird Beard - Fu Manchu

Freedom Rock - Frank Black

It Came from Japan - Von Bondies

Swan Dive - Bullet Lavolta

On a Rope - Rocket from the Crypt

Romantic Rights - Death from Above 1979

The Enthusiast - Mission of Burma

We are the robots:


Romantic Rights:

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:

Mixology: Look Out! Soul is Back

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.

Look Out! Soul is Back (August 2007)

Ah, the summer of 2007. I was just about to hit the big 4-0 and a young politician named Joe Piscopo was considering running for governor of New Jersey (actually, not sure about that last part). This mix is one of the monthly playlists I've been compiling in iTunes for the last several years (although the ones I never burned to CDs are unfortunately gone since I switched computers).

It's a combination of new stuff I stumbled across through MP3 blogs and songs from albums I recently purchased. The title track is from The Nation of Ulysses, a Dischord band I totally missed when they were together in the early '90s. I had just read a George Pelecanos book (Shame the Devil) that referenced the band and I was intrigued enough to download 13-Point Program to Destroy America from eMusic. Total and utter ass-kickery. It's a shame they broke up after only a few albums.

I put the mix together throughout the month, but wrapped it up in the last week of August, when I was on vacation. We didn't go anywhere, just hung out and enjoyed Deb's last week of summer vacation.

Several of the songs ended up being used in my podcast, which by the end of August '07 was at episode 36; three years later, the show's up to 153 episodes and counting. A personal favorite was Mark Lanegan's "One Hundred Days," which featured Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age on vocals. Great slow-burn tune. And I enjoyed M.I.A.'s "Hit That" primarily for the shout-out to "Rumpshaker."

Captain Pasty - Black Francis
Only Anesthesia - Blake Morgan
Don't Make Me a Target - Spoon
Take Me to the Riot - Stars
Myriad Harbour - New Pornographers
Look Out! Soul is Back - The Nation of Ulysses
How Long Do I Have to Wait for You? - Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
Hit That - M.I.A.
Like I Give a Care - You Say Party! We Say Die!
Down Boy - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
I'll Thank You Later - Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right
Hate and Jealousy - Lucero
The Equestrian - Les Savy Fav
Afterburner - Winnebago Deal
Paper Thin - Mondo Generator
Christian Brothers - Queens of the Stone Age
One Hundred Days - Mark Lanegan Band
Mistaken for Strangers - The National
Common People - William Shatner
Radio Nowhere - Bruce Springsteen

Look out!


One Hundred Days:


Rumpshaker:

Mixology: Plan 9 Mix

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.

Plan 9 Mix (2007)

In recent years, I've been making mixes primarily based on new MP3s I listen to each month. But every so often, a special occasion arises that causes me to put more thought into my compilations. This is one such occasion. This mix came about because of a podcast I listened to fairly religiously, The Plan Nine Rock Show. Host Jasper Borgman asked listeners to send in mix CDs of what they were digging, so I decided to throw one together. The show's primarily about the garage rock and occasionally metal, so that's what I went with.

This mix is all over the place, with a few new songs (at the time) from the White Stripes, Grinderman, Mondo Generator, Mastodon and the Blood Brothers mixed in with classic stuff from the Stooges, Descendents, Def Leppard and Black Sabbath. Jasper never did mention the mix on his show, but the exercise was worthwhile because I still go back to this mix from time to time. There is much kicking of the proverbial arse going on throughout.

At the time, I was still a podcast neophyte and liked supporting and communicating with podcast hosts. I still do to a certain degree, because feedback is a great thing no matter how big your show is. Jasper only does the Plan Nine show occasionally, but he spends most of his podcast time on Good Clean Fun, a show he does with the great Michael Butler. That one's mostly talk and occasionally music, but I enjoy it just the same.

This mix is great for highway driving. Before you know it, 68 minutes have gone by and you've passed 37 cars and hopefully not been pulled over by a statie.

Loose Take 2 - The Stooges
Pretty Lightning - New Bomb Turks
Everything Sux - Descendents
Hi-Lites - Hot Snakes
Heart of a Rat - Rocket From the Crypt
Love Bomb - Grinderman
I'm Through with White Girls - The Dirtbombs
Bone Broke - White Stripes
Just Like the Rest - I Walk the Line
I Can't Get It - Hanoi Rocks
Rocket Queen - Guns n' Roses
Granite State Destroyer - Scissorfight
Colony of Birchmen - Mastodon
Wrathchild - Iron Maiden
Let It Go - Def Leppard
Neon Knights - Black Sabbath
Lie Detector - Mondo Generator
Nausea Shreds Yr Head - Blood Brothers
Pirate Love - Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers


Everything Sux:


Let It Go:

Mixology: Rock On, Rocker

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.

Rock On, Rocker (7/2/04)

This mix was made entirely from CD tracks because I still hadn't gotten on iTunes yet. I had just picked up a bunch of new CDs (remember when people used to buy CDs?) from Modest Mouse, Sonic Youth, PJ Harvey, Wilco and the Tragically Hip, so there was plenty of good new music to choose from.

The previous weekend we went down to Sesame Place, an amusement park not far from Philly, and I was listening to a bunch of the discs on the drive down and back. I also had recently purchased a CD from one of the first dates of the Pixies reunion tour, so that was represented here as well.

I had also subscribed to eMusic, which at the time was an all-you-can-eat service: unlimited downloads for a monthly fee. It was pretty great, and I discovered a lot of new indie music that way: !!!, the New Pornographers, McLusky, etc. I was also finding a lot of great bootlegs, like the Franz Ferdinand one I sampled for this mix. The French DJs yapping all over it just add to the enjoyment in my book.

All told, this mix was a good representation of that summer. I spent much of it changing diapers, as Lily was a few months old and Hannah was only 2. If I try hard enough, I can still smell that nasty trash bin we had designated just for diapers. Ugh.

The name of the mix came from a saying often used by my good friend Senor Breitling. Says it all, really.

Summer's Killing Us - The Tragically Hip
The Good Times are Killing Me - Modest Mouse
Take Me Out (live) - Franz Ferdinand
When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Karazzee - !!!
So Says I - The Shins
At Least That's What You Said - Wilco
Who the Fuck? - PJ Harvey
Unmade Bed - Sonic Youth
Hunt Again - Mission of Burma
C'mon C'mon - Von Bondies
U-Mass (live) - Pixies
Can't Keep - Pearl Jam
The Laws Have Changed - The New Pornographers
Ball and Biscuit - White Stripes
Fix Up, Look Sharp - Dizzee Rascal
Wrong 'em Boyo - The Clash
Are You Done? - Consonant
KC Accidental - Broken Social Scene
Faster Gun - The Wrens

The good times are killing me:


Faster Gun:

Mixology: Otto's Hot Rock Pile

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.

Otto's Hot Rock Pile (or songs to crash a bus by) (8/14/02)

Well, it was bound to happen. After nearly a year of documenting the mix tapes I compiled, I've finally run out. I'm pretty sure there are a few more that I just haven't found yet, but for the time being, that's all of 'em. But a few years after my tape deck died in early 2000, I got my first CD burner. Which meant I was able to create mixes again, albeit ones without an A and B side. For about three years, I made mixes using a couple of different burners, ripping tracks from CDs. Then I downloaded iTunes for the first time and discovered the joy of playlists. I was making a monthly playlist of MP3s I had just downloaded and burned a lot of them to CD for a while, until the last two years or so, when I got lazy and just listened to them on iTunes. Alas, when our old PC was starting to croak a little (aka ye olde Blue Screen of Death), we had it wiped clean. Which unfortunately wiped out all my iTunes playlists. But I still have plenty of CD mixes to talk about here.

This particular mix was one of the first ones I burned, back in the summer of 2002. I wanted a mix of songs that just totally kick ass, regardless of whether I'd put them on mixes in the past. The name of the mix was a nod to metal-lovin' stoner Otto ("I like to get blotto") the bus driver from The Simpsons, although there was probably a lot of stuff on here that he probably would never listen to, like Fugazi, Mission of Burma, Big Black, Pavement, etc.

The song that probably best typifies the Otto mindset is one of the most rockin' songs of all time, Fu Manchu's "Evil Eye." Mainstream rock fans won't know the Fu, and I hadn't heard of them until late 1999 when I picked up a free cassette single previewing a couple of songs from the band's upcoming album King of the Road. I snagged it at the Webnoize 1999 conference in LA and immediately dug it and bought the previous album The Action is Go! "Evil Eye" is the opening song and just melts your brain from the get-go. Pure awesomeness.

Most of this mix came in handy when I was running the 2003 New York City Marathon. I put a good chunk of the songs on my old Rio 600 MP3 player; ended up listening the mix four times as I ran the race. It was a hot day for November and I needed that mix to keep my legs moving as I struggle through the last few miles. I think the song that got me the most fired up was Motorhead's "Killed by Death." It was as if Lemmy hisself was yelling at me to keep going.

You Didn't Need - Rollins Band
Unsung - Helmet
Bed for the Scraping - Fugazi
Jesus Christ Pose - Soundgarden
Negative Creep - Nirvana
In 'n Out of Grace - Mudhoney
Leash - Pearl Jam
I'll Stick Around - Foo Fighters
The Wagon - Dinosaur Jr.
Youth Against Fascism - Sonic Youth
That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate - Mission of Burma
What's Going On - Husker Du
Hit the Plane Down - Pavement
Kerosene - Big Black
Evil Eye - Fu Manchu
Killed by Death - Motorhead
Peace Dog - The Cult
Let There Be Rock - AC/DC
Paranoid - Black Sabbath


Evil Eye!


Killed by Death:

Mixology: More Music Your Mom Hates

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.

More Music Your Mom Hates (11/4/92)

The year was 1992. I was 25 and fairly happy with the way my life was going at the time. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, I liked the Spin Doctors. Cut me some slack: They wrote catchy tunes, there was some decent guitar and...yeah, I know. They quickly rose and fell, victims of the massive radio oversaturation and the wave of darker themed music that was taking hold of the rock world. Chris Barron and the fellas didn't have the staying power once "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" and "Two Princes" finally stopped getting MTV play.

I was getting into the whole alt-rock scene that emerged in the wake of Nirvana and Pearl Jam: Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Alice in Chains. I was digging it all. In fact, a few weeks after this tape was made, my brother and I went to see Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees and Gruntruck at the late great Channel nightclub in South Boston. It was a pretty terrific show. I was impressed with Gruntruck, who were more of a metal act than anything else, but they rocked. The Trees provided the interesting visual counterpoint of Mark Lanegan standing statue still while the Conner brothers were bouncing and rolling all over the stage. And then AiC came out, Layne Staley singing while in a wheelchair because he had a broken leg. The album Dirt had just come out a few months earlier and was blowing up, and despite all the lyrics about heroin and death, Staley seemed to be fairly with it. At one point during the show, he jumped out of his chair and grabbed ahold of one of the overhanging pipes from the low ceiling, singing as he held on literally right over our heads. The Channel was a great little claustrophobic club and that was one of the last shows ever held there. I think it became a strip club after that before closing down for good. Staley descended into a nasty heroin addiction in the years that followed, doing one more album with AiC and becoming a recluse. He died in 2002.

My life, thankfully, was much more boring by comparison.

Side A
Jimmy Olsen's Blues - Spin Doctors
All in the Groove - Blues Traveler
My Morning Song - Black Crowes
Ignoreland - R.E.M.
World's Such a Wonder - Kim Mitchell
Digging in the Dirt - Peter Gabriel
Dyslexic Heart - Paul Westerberg
Rest in Peace - Extreme
Paper Scratcher - Blind Melon
Suck My Kiss - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Suck Me Dry - Mudhoney

Side B
Them Bones - Alice in Chains
In Bloom - Nirvana
Nearly Lost You - Screaming Trees
State of Love and Trust - Pearl Jam
Make It Now - Mudhoney
Naked in the Rain - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Soak the Sin - Blind Melon
Hotel Illness - Black Crowes
Midlife Crisis - Faith No More
Seasons - Chris Cornell
What's Good - Lou Reed
Man on the Moon - R.E.M.

My Morning Song:


Them Bones: