Commonplace Mixtape

Ruined Music with Tom Waits

2008-08-07T19:46:00.003-04:00

In case you were curious, one of the essays that I was using for the mixtape project is now up on Ruined Music. To honor that, let's sample a track from the album in question, the 1973 Tom Waits masterpiece, Closing Time.

Mixwit #2

2008-07-29T02:29:00.002-04:00

Decided to try and have some more fun, fun, fun with Mixwit. This particular mix reeks of hipster-friendly artists, which is cause for apologies. But there are some great ones on there. I'm particularly fond of mixed-genre Avett Brothers song, "Die, Die, Die", which is catchier than it sounds.

My only real complaint with Mixwit would be that a user cannot upload files. You have to use the search engines provided. Yet as frustrated as I get trying to find an Etta James track other than "At Last", I still love that Mixwit manages to capture the vibe of the individual mixtape as it can best be captured through the internet. Maybe it's just the faux acetape reel that tugs at my sentimental heartstrings.

A Common Case of Jealousy

2008-07-08T20:04:00.004-04:00

I'm a regular reader of numerous pop culture blogs, as it sort of comes with the territory about writing about music, movies, etc. When I checked out one of my favorites, Whitney Matheson's Pop Candy, I learned that there's a new mixtape blog in town.

Cassettes From My Ex is an essay project that discusses--what else?--the mixtape. Do they have their own domain name? Yes. Do they have a flashier webpage? Check. Do they actually put up the mixtapes? Hell yeah. Do I feel jealous? You betcha.

That's one thing they never teach you to deal with in grad. school--professional jealously. Maybe I'm just being lazy. Maybe I haven't been writing fast enough. Maybe I should spend more time (and more money) on jazzing things up a bit around here. Maybe I'm still living under the delusion that looks don't matter and that it's quality that the people want. Not a bunch of hipster flash. Or maybe I'm also having issues with the fact that I'm not seeing this project take off like I had imagined. I guess I have a plain, old-fashioned case of envy. While it isn't very becoming, it's true. Perhaps the epitome of envy is represented best through song.

Perhaps it's important to take a lesson from the Stones:

Kate's Quick Summer Mix: A MixWit Experiment

2008-06-24T20:44:00.002-04:00

Testing out another mixtape product for the Commonplace Mixtape project. MixWit is my favorite maker out of the bunch, mainly because it not only looks like it is a cassette, but it has the acetate thread. I'm such an elitist.

The Exploding Hearts - "I'm a Pretender" 2:32

2008-06-05T22:11:00.007-04:00

One of the mixtapes I've always wanted to create is one of those "Only the Good Die Young" sorts of mixtapes--a collection of artists that died before their time but left a significant musical legacy. It is, admittedly, a sick and morbid fascination. I'd probably pull an iconic James Dean image for the cover art, just to play it up.

Recently, I stumbled upon a band via Last.fm radio, which allows you to listen (commercial free and unlimited skips) to radio based on an artist or tag. That just sounded like a sponsored endorsement, but I swear no one's sending any cash in my direction (though I wouldn't complain if they did). Anyway, I had plugged in "The Reigning Sound" for the artist selection (Greg Cartwright is one of my favorite musicians) and it plays a variety of artists. Which is how I found out about The Exploding Hearts. This group of young 20-somethings from Portland, Oregon were poised to lead a neo-'70s punk revival. Their album, Guitar Romantic treads the same ground of The Ramones and the rest of the founding fathers of punk and glam-rock, but the song composition and lyrical harmonies give a shout-out to the under-appreciated mothers of punk--the '60s girl groups, like those tough-as-nails chicks of The Shangri-Las. Though they follow in the glue-sniffin' footsteps of classic punk rock, The Exploding Hearts add their "modern kick."

If you remembered your literary terms from high school English class, you'll know that I've foreshadowed that The Exploding Hearts reached an untimely end. According to the Wikipedia:

On July 20, 2003 the band was in a car accident which claimed the lives of three members. Their touring van flipped over on Interstate 5 just north of Eugene, Oregon while en route from San Francisco to Portland. Jeremy Gage and Adam Cox were thrown from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene. The driver, Matthew Fitzgerald, died at a hospital. Terry Six and band manager Rachelle Ramos both survived with minor injuries.

There were no attempts made by surviving member Terry Six to reform the band. There was a compilation of demos and unreleased material, and there is a website available, but that is it. Nothing more.

The Exploding Hearts ran from 2001-2003, but I can't but wonder what would have been. Would America's youth be listening to them instead of, well, whatever over-produced, manufactured garbage the children are listening to these days? Would The Exploding Hearts have made a follow-up album as impressive as their Guitar Romantic debut? Would they have peaked, fizzled out, and ended up on a VH-1 "Where Are They Now?" special? Would they have continued to make great music?

I will never know.

If you had to choose between dying before your time or dying a washed-up has-been, but either way still make a significant contribution to the musical landscape, what would you choose? It's kind of like asking whether you'd want to be Buddy Holly or Elvis Presley. On the one hand, you die. On the other hand, you end up a bloated Vegas lounge act in Bedazzled jumpsuits, which is a metaphorical death in itself. Either way, you'd score with Billboard and the chicks and end up in the Rock 'n Roll Hall of ~~Shame~~ Fame. Is one more dignified than another? Does the end justify the means?

Jon Brion - "Theme (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)" 2:24

2008-05-28T10:22:00.001-04:00

It's a snowy November day in 2005 and I'm sitting in the conference room with Josh, a guy from my Postmodernism course. We're supposed to be meeting our other two group members, but they aren't going to show. Secretly, I'm pleased. He pulls out a portable cassette/CD boombox and pops in an unlabeled cassette.

"Have you seen 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'?" asks Josh. Josh is my first real exposure to anyone truly counterculture. I'd associated with my share of wannabe punks and anarchists, but Josh is something new. Josh sings of Whitman, lauds Kerouac, and carries around books on Van Gogh.

Josh is my first college crush.

"No," I reply, but I know I should if he says so. I'm 19. Before the piercings. Before the tattoos. Before anything truly tragic has happened. I'm wearing my favorite knee-length green corduroy skirt and long-sleeved pink cotton t-shirt. I am as frumpy as a schoolmarm.

"This is the soundtrack. It is beauty and chaos." Josh always makes rather grandiose statements about things he likes. We listen as we pour over photocopied articles by Jean-Francois Lyotard. But as we talk, as our words mix with the music blaring from his speakers in an empty conference room, something is happening.

"This soundtrack. It's--" Words fail me. My mind is images. I can see the snow falling outside on the campus quad, covering picnic tables and naked trees in a dusting of white. I can hear the wind shake the branches of those trees and the way they crack and clatter together.

"It's like nothing you've ever heard, right?" he asks me, his brown eyes searching my face with earnest. I nod. "That's the way I felt too when I first heard it." He gives me a list of musicians that I should listen to. He tells me about Brian Eno, Philip Glass, a quick run-through of the avant-garde.

My head spins. All these musicians I don't even know. I should know. I want to know everything. My innocent curiosity makes Josh smile. He finds it fascinating that I am so young and yet so old. My naive affection for him aside, Josh is the first person I've met that actually understands all the things I cannot say.

Before we leave, Josh ejects the tape from the boombox and hands it to me.

"Take it," he says.

"Really?" No one has ever given me anything like this before.

"Yeah. You get it, Kate," he says, and he presses the bare cassette into my hands, closing my fingers around the black plastic shell.

The Ruts - "In a Rut" 3:35

2008-05-14T14:55:00.004-04:00

Maxell C90 under the red light.

I've been debating about what to do with the mixtape project. I want to pursue it and make a big deal out of it. I do. But in order to do it right, I need a space in which to work. Sure, I can drive to the nearest coffeeshop, but it's not the same. I need my turntable and my box of records at my side. I need a physical space to call my own. A space in which I can blast Van Halen records and nobody will judge me.

And I need my record store boys. It was wonderful having that one day a week in which to speak geek. They'd give me all this music that I'd never heard and they were interested. They were a part of it. I was doing this for me, but they were there for me. They listened to my mad woman ramblings and crazy thoughts and I think that they were my muses--my inspiration--week after week. I'm sure they didn't think as much of me, but I cannot get them out of my mind.

Yesterday, I stopped at a record store on my way to yoga class. I'd been to this record store before, but never in the springtime. I walked in and, of course, I was made to feel like a chick in a record store. Two hipsters were having a discussion about The Clash, but the way in which they talked about The Clash, one of my favorite bands, was not the way in which I would ever discuss them. They were too busy trying to one-up one another by making comparisons to The Sex Pistols and talking about record labels and it was just stale corporate mumbo-jumbo. I wanted to talk about how I love Strummer's work with The 101'ers, but I wasn't welcome. The two braggadocios carried on and I went to yoga class in need of a good workout.

I'm going to try and work on the mixtape project, but I don't think I'll be stepping into any record stores in the near future.

Found: Mixtapes

2008-03-29T22:46:00.004-04:00

On my regular trips scouring thrift stores for media objects, I happened to find three (3) mixtapes just sitting in a bin. While the average person may not have been thrilled to bits at such a find, I was ecstatic. I was in possession of three anonymous mixtapes. I also happened to come across unlabelled Maxell and TDK cassettes (both blank) and a 90 minute Memorex who's A-side was hiding a copy of Bob Dylan's 1967 Greatest Hits collection. I grabbed them (and an assortment of cheap vinyl) and rushed to the register. I highly doubt anyone else at the Salvation Army was gunning for mixtapes, but I didn't want to rush to judgment. Here are the three mixtape tracklistings (click for a larger view).

TDK D90--"The Dan Rutledge* 'I Wish I Was a Striker**' Mix"
I must say, Dan Rutledge (or whoever made this mixtape) is the only person I know who would sandwich an Indigo Girls song between Nine Inch Nails and Mötley Crüe and place a Seal song before a Nirvana track.

*Dan, if you're out there, I have your mixtape.
**For those of us not so athletically-inclined (myself included), I looked up the Wiki definition:

Strikers, also known as forwards and attackers, and formerly inside forwards, are the players on a team in soccer in the row nearest to the opposing team's goal, who are therefore principally responsible for scoring goals.

Thanks, Wikipedia!

TDK D90--"Mix"
This is a '90s flashback. Not only do I get a dose of They Might Be Giants (I think they're the only band whose audience has gotten younger) but the Spin Doctors as well. I think there was that one summer where the Spin Doctors song, "Two Princes" was played repeatedly on the radio, television, and every movie released that summer. I don't remember the year and I'm glad about that because it would only serve to remind me of how old I really am.

Memorex HBS II 90--"Mix-2"
I'm not 100% certain, but I'm pretty sure that the same person made all these mixes, in which case Dan Rutledge has some pretty eclectic taste. The staples on these mixes are Nine Inch Nails and Midnight Oil. Though I am no expert, the handwriting seems to match up. I cannot create a chronology for these mixes, but I'm assuming that the order I've placed them in is the correct one, just by trying to date the bands and their periodic popularity. I could be wrong, but the order I've created seems to flow.

Thrift Store Find

2008-03-24T22:53:00.005-04:00

Normally, the thrift store finds of a reluctant hipster would not be noteworthy or related to my project, but as I was browsing through records and some milk crates of cassettes at my neighborhood Goodwill, I found this lovely blank cassette still in its shrink wrap:

Isn't it a beauty? I haven't seen a 60 minute Memorex cassette like this since I was a young girl oh-so-many years ago. I spoke to the clerk and asked how often they get these beauties in and she told me that they usually come in bundles every couple weeks or so. Very exciting news. I have options beyond the plain Sony 90 minute cassettes that are so bland and boring.

For Buffalo Plaid Cowboys On Blue Mornings

2008-03-22T02:09:00.004-04:00

For a while, I've been working on this particular mixtape and I finally finished it tonight. I recorded it the other night after tweaking the track listing for the umpteenth time. It sounds pretty awesome and I'm quite pleased with it. Yet I also have to brag about the packaging because I did a pretty sweet job on that as well. If you recall, I've never actually made a mixtape that was an audio-visual experience. It wasn't until I interviewed one of the record store clerks that I learned about the fine art of the visual mixtape. So I decided to get crafty and here's what I did:
This is a burlap cover for the cassette that I sewed myself. I picked up a needle and thread and actually stitched it without covering my fingers in pinpricks. It's good to know that the Home Economics award I won in junior high still holds true.

Just another photograph of the burlap and the cassette case.

The two pieces together! The cassette case was first covered in red cardstock. Onto that, I glued the fabric, which was actually recycled from a shirt I bought at the thrift store. Further recycling, I took a piece of the shirt and made a mini-pocket on the front of the cassette case. To clean it up a bit, I added some black ribbon for definition.

Since this was a 90 minute cassette, I was able to put on a bunch of tracks, much to my delight. In order to provide the liner notes, I opted to use a piece of brown paper bag and write out the track listing onto that, as you can see in the above photograph.

For Buffalo Plaid Cowboys On Blue Mornings
A-side
1. Sufjan Stevens - "Riffs and Variations on a Single Note..."
2. Kate Maki - "Blue Morning"
3. Thunder in the Valley - "Come Now Virginia"
4. The High Llamas - "Doo-Wop Property"
5. John Doe - "Golden State"
6. House of Mercy Band - "Trouble Coming"
7. Jackie Greene - "Honey I Been Thinking About You"
8. Elvis Presley - "Lawdy Miss Clawdy"
9. Bob Dylan - "Lay, Lady, Lay"
10. Eilen Jewell - "Too Hot To Sleep"
11. Rosewood Thieves - "Honey, Stay Awhile"
12. The Jayhawks - "Bad Time To Be In Love"
13. Neil Young - "Harvest Moon"

B-side
1. Tom Waits - "Ol' 55"
2. Kings of Leon - "Slow Night, So Long"
3. Ricky Nelson - "Lonesome Town"
4. Eddie Cochran - "Cotton Picker"
5. Amos Milbourn - "One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer"
6. The Beach Boys - "Heroes and Villans" (Alternate Take)
7. Bright Eyes - "Tourist Trap"
8. The Comforters - "Lazy Sundays"
9. Cat Power - "The Greatest"
10. The Beatles - "Happiness Is A Warm Gun"
11. Queen - "'39"
12. The Rolling Stones - "Wild Horses"

Mixtape Links

2008-03-16T20:37:00.004-04:00

Conducting further not-so-scholarly research into the art of mixtapes, I came across some interesting web finds.

Just in case I forgot, this handy article tells me "How to Copy Anything Onto Audio Cassette Tape"

Should I require further instructions, there's this WikiHow article on "How to Make a Perfect Mix Tape or CD". I loved the instructions and the warning:

There's really no such thing as the definitive, be-all, end-all, PERFECT, mix CD. The guidelines established here are things to keep in mind to help you mold your CD into being, not a list of rules that are meant to be strictly adhered to. Play around, try new things, be creative, but always take your audience into consideration or all of your hard work will be for nothing!

BBC article on "How to Make a Good Mixtape" referencing the use of mixtapes as demo tapes for DJs. I felt that many of the same rules can apply. I'm no Jazzy Jeff, but any mixtape maker knows that she is the DJ of her own destiny.

Newvine published this 5 part series on the art of the mixtape. Interesting to hear what the hipsters have to say on the subject.
Vol. 1 - Ground Rules
Vol. 2 - Themes and Approach
Vol. 3 - Song Selection
Vol. 4 - Mixing
Vol. 5 - The Results

Salon article tells us that "PCs Killed the Mix Tape Star"

Another list of Cassette Tape [D]Evolution

Last, but not least, is this super-fabulous art project looking at Audio Tape Cassette Nostalgia

Neutral Milk Hotel - "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" 3:22

2008-03-12T00:18:00.003-04:00

As part of the research portion for this essay projects, I've been hitting the books. One of the books I came across over the course of my research was Kim Cooper's 2005 entry into the 33 1/3 series on Neutral Milk Hotel's quintessential indie album, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. It happens to be one of my desert island discs and listening to the album makes me weep in a way that only listening to The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds in winter can.

I remember stretching my body out under the sprawling limbs of the oak tree in my front yard. My family was on vacation and I had the day off from a suffocating summer job. It was a blissful August afternoon in those precious final weeks before I had to return to college life. There was a slight summer breeze that shook the cellophane leaves and tickled the luscious green grass. I played the title track over and over again on my boombox. The sounds on that track are like nothing I've ever heard. It's not a cacophany, but it's not an overwhelming symphony. It's the sort of sound that creeps under my skin and into my bones and can send shivers down my spine on even the hottest of August afternoons. It is still a sound that I cannot put into words because it does bother me. Those ghostly sounds that echo from bandsaws and the acoustic guitar and Jeff Mangum's voice so raw and earnest haunt me.

I think it's knowing that Jeff Mangum, the lead singer and one of the talented visionaries behind Neutral Milk Hotel, pulled a Brian Wilson and just disappeared off the map that makes it so jarringly personal. He resurfaces occasionally, contributing to albums and such, but he has yet to release any recordings that he's made under the Neutral Milk Hotel name. He used to have a program on WFMU under the moniker of "Jefferson" and willing listeners can still access the archives. I've listened. The Dec. 16, 2002 show is one of my favorites. It's intriguing to me.

If you were to ask me how I would use the song on a mixtape, I would use it cautiously. I don't think that everyone is ready for Neutral Milk Hotel. I certainly wouldn't have been able to appreciate it years ago. I'm very hesitant to use this song on a mixtape or even a mix CD. I have used it before and I was unhappy with the reception it received. I don't think people understand it and why it is so beautiful. It has a stripped-down simplicity that will always bring tears to my eyes. If I know someone will not shudder when listening to this song, I know they aren't ready for it. This song is one of those songs that will change the way in which you think about what a composition can be. It is one of those most beautiful love letters that I've ever heard.

A Mixtape Tracklisting

2008-02-26T22:06:00.005-05:00

After much debate and numerous rewrites, the tracklisting for my latest mixtape masterpiece is complete.

For Buffalo Plaid Cowboys on Blue Mornings

A-Side
1. Sufjan Stevens - "Riffs and Variations on a Single Note..."
2. Kate Maki - "Blue Morning"
3. Thunder in the Valley - "Come Now Virginia"
4. The High Llamas - "Doo-Wop Property"
5. John Doe - "Golden State"
6. House of Mercy Band - "Trouble Coming"
7. Jackie Greene - "Honey I Been Thinking About You"
8. Elvis Presley - "Lawdy Miss Clawdy"
9. Bob Dylan - "Lay, Lady, Lay"
10. Eilen Jewell - "Too Hot To Sleep"
11. Rosewood Thieves - "Honey, Stay Awhile"
12. The Jayhawks - "Bad Time To Be In Love"
13. Neil Young - "Harvest Moon"
14. She & Him - "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?"

B-Side
1. Tom Waits - "Ol' 55"
2. Kings of Leon - "Slow Night, So Long"
3. Ricky Nelson - "Lonesome Town"
4. Eddie Cochran - "Cotton Picker"
5. Amos Milbourn - "One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer"
6. The Beach Boys - "Heroes and Villans" (Alternate Take)
7. Bright Eyes - "Tourist Trap"
8. The Comforters - "Lazy Sundays"
9. Cat Power - "The Greatest"
10. The Beatles - "Happiness Is A Warm Gun"
11. Queen - "'39"
12. The Flying Burrito Bros. - "Wild Horses"

Mixtape-in-Progress

2008-02-19T23:43:00.004-05:00

In an attempt to imagine what my latest mixtape project would look like, I decided to try out the previously-mentioned Cassette Generator:
So far, this project is pretty swell. I've compiled a list of tracks and I'm just narrowing them down at the moment before actual recording begins. I love the title because it really just fits the whole vibe of the mix--that of the lonesome traveler, the drifter. It's a gritty mixtape--the kind that is perfect for schlepping off the winter blues and takes me to the open fields with visions of tumbleweeds rolling in my head.

For the case, I'm going to get some buffalo plaid fabric and some button accents. Make it look like the flannel shirts that I love so much. I'm thinking I might actually give this one away. We'll see what happens.

Current tracks in consideration:
1. John Doe - "Golden State"
2. Tom Waits - "Ol' 55"
3. Kate Maki - "Blue Morning"
4. Rosewood Thieves - "Honey, Stay Awhile"
5. The Beach Boys - "Heroes and Villans (Alternate Take)"
6. Bob Dylan - "Lay, Lady, Lay"
7. Cat Power - "The Greatest"
8. Bright Eyes - "Tourist Trap"
9. Neil Young - "Harvest Moon"
10. Queen - "'39"
11. M. Ward - "Get to the Table on Time"
12. The Flying Burrito Bros. - "Wild Horses"
13. Amos Milburn - "One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer"
14. Eddie Cochran - "Cotton Picker"
15. The High Llamas - "Doo-Wop Property"
16. Jackie Greene - "Honey I Been Thinking About You"
17. Thunder in the Valley - "Come Now Virginia"
18. Beirut - "Elephant Gun"
19. The Jayhawks - "Bad Time to Be in Love"
20. Kings of Leon - "Slow Night, So Long"
21. Think About Life - "The Blue Sun"
22. Thunder in the Valley - "94 in Reverse"
23. House of Mercy Band - "Trouble Coming"
24. The Beatles - "Happiness is a Warm Gun"
25. Eilen Jewell - "Too Hot to Sleep"
26. Elvis Presley - "Lawdy Miss Clawdy"
27. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - "I Came to Hear the Music"
28. Ricky Nelson - "Lonesome Town"
29. Sufjan Stevens - "Riffs and Variations on a Single Note..."
30. The Langley Schools Music Project - "Desperado"
31. Turin Brakes - "Moonlight Mile"

At present, it clocks in at an hour and fifty minutes, so I've got to skim it down by about 20 minutes give or take. I'm not sure which tracks I'll omit yet. It depends on what kind of story I want to tell.

Mixtapes Logged In

2008-02-18T13:50:00.004-05:00

In a quest to find some mixtape-related secondary materials, I came across some interesting paraphanalia. Did I find an actual cassette? No, can't say as I did. But I did find that kitsch has conquered the integrity of the mixtape. Oh yes, hipster nostalgia has truimphed.

Thanks to Fuzz, you can sign up and upload songs and images to create a digital mixtape. From what I can see, it's pretty close to keeping with the concept, but an mp3 is no substitute for the whirl of the tape.

Urban Outfitters is cashing in on the craze by offering this Mix Tape USB Stick Sure, it's cute packaging. I can admit that. But if any guy tried to offer this to me in lieu of a real mixtape, I'd kick his ass. Seriously. Take the time to show me I'm worth more than 64 MegaBytes. What will truly keep me awake at night is that it comes with the following instructions:

The fashionista in me finds it hard to resist this cute little accessory. What could be cuter than the cassette tape tote? Why wear your heart on your sleeve when you can sling your mixtape over your shoulder?

Another gem: The Cassette Generator. After choosing between the Pre-Recorded or Mixtape options, you can choose from a plethora of cassette tapes and fonts to accent your special message. After generating the image of a mixtape, you can save it to your computer and upload it to your blog, website, whatever. Or, as the website offers beneath the image, you can get the image imprinted on a 3" round magnet for $1.95. Can you guess what everyone's getting for Christmas this year?

The folks at Tiny Mix Tapes actually ask for user suggestions and then create a track listing for you. Where do I begin with my list of grievances? Doesn't the act of making a mixtape imply that you should have a hand in the creative process (such as track selection)? Or maybe we're all just a bunch of lonely people who need to believe that somewhere out in the cosmic splendor of cyberspace are a bunch of record geeks who care. I know I'm so harsh, but these people are using cassettes in their advertizing, making me believe they operate within the parameters presented by the medium (cassette) when their "mixtape robots" do not consider the A and B sides to a cassette. I call that false advertising. It's bad form.

Judging by this list, I don't know what to think about my generation. It makes me wish I could get traded to another.

Cassette Tape Art

2008-02-18T00:45:00.002-05:00

Conducted yet another interview in the name of ~~science~~ mixtapes. This one was with another employee of the record store I frequent. We started talking about tracks and musicians, but for this guy, it was more about the album art than the actual cassette. This was fascinating.

I hadn't even considered album art in the equation. I'm mentally scolding myself through this whole interview because I really had nothing to add to the conversation. It threw a wrench into the works, that's for sure. Luckily, my subject was very kind and actually approached me twice post-interview to tell me about two other notable mixtape art projects he'd completed.

I felt like a shame. Have I really been making mixtapes if I haven't even considered cassette tape art? Perhaps I was just masquerading all these years, skating by on the merits of my playlists.

I thought about why I make mixtapes and something akin to revelation hit me--I make mixtapes for me. Come to think of it, I cannot remember actually ever giving anyone one of these cassettes. The only cassette I even gave away was a copy of Weezer's Blue Album to a friend because I had purchased it on CD and I told her she needed to listen to this album because it was the greatest thing I'd ever heard. It was quite true at the time, though my love/hate relationship with Rivers Cuomo has made me rethink this numerous times. But I digress.

The fact of the matter remains: I am making these mixtapes for me. Many of them are inspired by people I know or about events that have happened, but they are mine. I didn't give them away when I was growing up, because I was the only person I knew at the time making mixtapes. My brother would listen to them, but mainly these mixes had an audience of one. I suppose I was selfish when it came to my mixtapes, but with the advent of the CD and then CD burning technologies, who wanted a cassette?

Making these for me, I wasn't too worried about the cassette cases. Those plastic covers that cracked or were lost in the post-apocalyptic wreckage of a teenager's bedroom. I had never considered decorating these cases, adorning them in creative ways to reflect what gems they held. I missed out on a whole other aspect of the culture.

In the spirit of research and old-fashioned curiousity, I decided to try my hand at making some art. I covered one cassette case in cardstock and added a nice ribbon accent along the top edge of the case. On another, I used fabric and ribbon. Both had some lovely results. Mind you, I'm no Martha Stewart, but I'm a few steps away from decoupage. It's delightful fun, really, and gives a whole new dimension to the mixtape, especially when one is gifting the mixtape. Or if one is just being selfish (like myself), it just makes your mixtape collection look even more fabulous.

Happy crafting!

James Darren - "Goodbye Cruel World" 2:21

2008-02-07T00:00:00.000-05:00

The first cassette I ever used to record a mixtape was the B-side of a Sesame Street story cassette. The A-side was the reading of a specific Sesame Street story (I recall one involving Bert and Ernie) that a child would follow along with, turning each page of the companion book with the chime on the tape. The B-side was blank. I'm assuming that the theory was that the parent or the child would record a reading of the story for the B-side. Somewhere along the line, I decided the B-side of the cassette would be more useful to record songs off the radio.

I had to be about four or five years of age. I'm pretty sure of this, though my memory may be selective. I used to put in the B-sides of these storybook cassettes into my Playskool cassette player with microphone. This last vestige of my childhood is currently valued at $3.99 on eBay. I'd turn the radio dial to Oldies 97.7 (now defunct) and I would listen for the songs I loved. At the time, "oldies" were mostly songs from the '50s and '60s with the early '70s and the very late '40s thrown in for good measure. When I heard a song on the radio that I wanted to play over and over again, I would simultaneously press the large REC and PLAY buttons and hold the microphone carefully between the two radio speakers for the duration of the song.

I didn't think of playlists. I wasn't writing down these songs in Crayola in the large, bumbling letters of a child's scrawl on a ream of butcher paper. We always had butcher paper for our art projects. In fact, I remember just knowing that I'd hear these songs in the car with my mother and I would hear them on constant rotation in my head. My mother always said that I was "wired for sound." In order to quiet the songs in my memory, I would track them down on the radio and record them onto these cassettes, putting them onto tape that could be stopped and rewound and played back whenever I wanted. It allowed me the freedom to memorize every word, to sing along without inhibition.

The James Darren track is one that I have only ever heard on the radio during my childhood. I tracked down the mp3 last year, but I've never heard it on the radio since those days when I was just a little girl unknowingly making mixtapes. James Darren is best known for the Gidget movies, which, for a kid who dreamed of being a little surfer girl, were the cat's pajamas. I wanted to date a guy named Moondoggie and ride the wild surf. This song was never featured in any Gidget movie I recall, but I do remember it being played on the radio and loving it. It's ironic, though, as I've always abhorred clowns.

Listening to the song now--comprehending the lyrics with my jaded sense of reality--is quite surreal. It's all about the act of performance, something I've always found fascinating. Reality as performance and such things that would make Baudrillard proud to know that someone is carrying on his beliefs in the simulacra. Granted, it is the sort of saccharine song that was made for teenage consumption--One in a long line of short and sweet, bubblegum pop songs that are easily forgotten. Being a teenager and riding the rollercoaster of emotions is exactly why the bubblegum pop song is so perfect, so utterly fantastic. It is made for mixtapes.

Typing all of this makes me feel so old. An old bag o' bones that just keeps poking and prodding at the cobwebs of memory.

What makes all of this fascinating to me is that, at the time, I was not making these tapes with the knowledge that what I was doing was apart of the grand tradition of the mixtape. I was just a girl who liked music, who loved songs so much that I wanted to save them, listening to the radio for hours until I heard the songs I could capture like fireflies in a mason jar. I love the whirl of the tape as it threads its way from one side to the other, driven by a complexity of gears that are still so foreign to me and yet I love their mystery. These synthetic materials have a hold over me that is indescribable yet irreplaceable.

Buddy Holly - "True Love Ways" 2:51

2008-02-03T20:49:00.000-05:00

February 3 marks the day the music died, according to Don McLean. While that song may not necessarily do justice to the cause, the deaths of Ritchie Valens, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, and Buddy Holly are worth noting for any true music afficianado (or a humble music junkie such as myself).

I've always been a fan of all three, but I am particularly fond of Buddy Holly. I think it was those glasses. His voice was distinct, with that lilt and clarity. Holly's voice had that way of making me feel the lyrics.

Tonight, Buddy Holly lives. Well, at least on vinyl. I have the 1978 compilation album, Buddy Holly Lives on the turntable at the moment. It is one of my favorite compilation albums ever. Probably one of my favorite albums, if I want to be specific.

For me, the craft of making a mixtape is my way of saying everything I'm feeling. As adept as I may be with a keyboard or as articulate I am in face-to-face conversation, I am awful with discussions pertaining to the difficult matter of navigating the stormy seas of L-O-V-E.

It's so easy to fall in love. The difficulty lies in expressing it.

I cannot say what I feel. Part of that could be because words often fall short to describe our deepest emotions. If emotions operated within the realm of words, therapy would be obsolete--We'd be able to articulate everything. That's why I always disagree with the sentiment that, to paraphrase, "Writing workshops are not Oprah. They are not therapy sessions." See, I think that they are--we are working out our neuroses on the page to be dissected by a panel. We are trying to say what we feel through narrative because the words do not exist within the realm of our human vocabularies. So we string words together with all the complexity of a double helix.

I was working on a mixtape for a fellow with romantic potential. He hadn't made me a mixtape, but I thought if I could pick the right tracks and arrange them with deft precision that maybe, just maybe, he could understand all the things I could not say. I wasn't thinking about the fact that he had not acknowledge me as anything other than some entertaining oddity, a Ziggy Stardust in our modern times. I wish I was being self-flattering, but I'm well aware of what I am (a subject for another track). I toiled on tracks, possible track listings, and had even started to record the cassette. I had copied some tracks from vinyl and others from my computer. I had even tracked down some tracks through the WFMU archive, timing them just right so that they would record perfectly. It was a complicated process, I assure you. I wanted 90 minutes on a Sony Hi-Fi cassette to be an answer, an explanation, for my confusing, complicated behavior. It would be the antidote that would cure my lonely nights. I was Scheherazade weaving together a series of stories that might save my [love] life.

You get the gist.

One of the tracks I used was the Buddy Holly & the Crickets song, "True Love Ways". It isn't one of the more well-known songs, but that doesn't make it any less memorable to me. It's a different sort of love song, the kind that says that together, as a couple, we'll have something to offer the world. That's what I was thinking when I considered putting this track on the mixtape. See, this fellow and I, we fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. We filled in all the right places with our differences that allowed us to complete the larger picture of our similarities. It was just enough. It wasn't some sort of grand love affair that makes you climb to the top of the Empire State Building or give sheath to a happy dagger. It was the kind of pleasant, innocent affair that, had it blossomed, would have led us to experience the sort of great transcendence that I dream can exist when people really, truly love one another. I don't know if I loved him, but I thought I could. And having even the slightest inclination towards love is, for me, quite an emotional achievement.

The mixtape was beautiful. It was probably one of the greatest mixtapes I have made to date. But I couldn't bring myself to give it to him. Instead, I made him a mix CD featuring some of the songs we'd often talked about. It had a nice, lukewarm reception. It wasn't what it was supposed to be. But then again, nothing ever is.

As for the mixtape, I kept it for myself. I don't plan on recycling it on another guy, as it was made with one audience in mind. I never recycle a mixtape. To give a mixtape to someone other than the intended listener undermines the purpose of the craft. It is an art. I should have destroyed it, erased it, or otherwise annihilated the mixtape. I keep it as a reminder, a way to preserve the integrity of my words of love.

Lloyd Dobler: A Mixtape Mystery Revealed

2008-01-29T00:29:00.000-05:00

I came home tonight with a new tech device. Don't worry, you won't be required to have one in order to woo me. I purchased the Olympus J300 microcassette recorder. Truth is, I was kind of excited about it. I even bought extra AAA batteries and several 90-minute microcassettes. I'm conducting several interviews over the course of this semester and I wanted something I could reference. I would have splurged on a digital voice recorder, but unfortunately they are not Mac-compatible. Somewhat disappointing to realize that I am incompatible with technology, too. Yet when I think about it, having the microcassette recorder gives the whole project further integrity, as I'll be recording onto (micro)cassette instead of digital audio files. They are mixtapes in miniature.

As I was driving home, I was thinking about one of the most famous users of a voice recorder: Lloyd Dobler. He's in his car, after Diane has given him that pen (That still annoys me), and he's addressing his friend Corey in the voice recorder:

Lloyd driving around in the Malibu

It's me. I know I haven't called you lately. I guess I didn't want to be reminded of the Diane nightmare. By the way, I hardly remember her. I've wiped her from my mind. I don't remember the time or place when I knew her. This is it. The site of our controversial first date. I met her in a mall.

I should have known our relationship was doomed. And to our left we have the street where she broke up with me, and there's the path we took... Corey, I guess in a way I blamed you, held it against you for letting me send that letter. I don't know, I thought it was the right thing to do. I think I know too many girls. I should hang out with more guys. I should be like one of those guys who hangs out at the AM-PM or the Gas 'n' Sip on a Saturday. I don't know, guys like that really know the answers.

Post Gas 'n' Sip

That was a mistake.

The rain on my car is a baptism. The new me. Iceman. Power Lloyd. My assault on the world begins now. Believe in myself, answer to no one.

You probably got it all figured out, Corey. If you start out depressed, everything's kind of a pleasant surprise.

I didn't talk this out in the car because I cannot multitask while driving. I was thinking about Lloyd, though, as my other project happens to be an essay on Say Anything and other '80s pop culture icons. The main reason I'm conducting this project is that I had all this excessive research into mixtapes that did not fit into the whole '80s iconography. Neither Jake Ryan nor Lloyd Dobler had made a mixtape. There were tapes, to be sure, lurking in the console of their respected rides, but they did not use the mixtape as a way to win a woman's heart--or mend their own.

Come to find out, I was wrong.

I was viewing Say Anything for the umpteenth time during my semester break. After sitting through the film, I decided to plow through the deleted, extended, and alternate scenes available on the special edition DVD. Turns out, one of the extended scenes features Lloyd giving Diane a mixtape for her trip to England on their second date. I do not know why Crowe chose not to include this in the film--if anything, it makes Lloyd even more of a catch.

So there you have it--Lloyd Dobler officially made mixtapes. Way to set the bar even higher for men everywhere, Lloyd.

Arthur Alexander - "Soldier of Love" 2:18

2008-01-27T23:57:00.001-05:00

I went to Last Vestige yesterday for the first time since returning to town. You can read the full details of my shopping expedition here.

The trip proved to be worthwhile in one very important way--I networked, so to say, with the clerks. It just so happened that one of them is making a mixtape for a woman he's in love with, but, as he mentions, "I'm in love with her--she just doesn't know it yet." What better way to tell someone you care than with something crafted for the sole purpose of giving?

During the course of our discussion about records and women, he asked me an important question: "How does one woo in the 21st century?"

I wanted to be able to give him an answer and tell him exactly what to do that would win this woman's heart, but I was at a loss. What is courtship in the 21st century? I thought about the trials and tribulations I've experienced in the trenches. From what I understand, modern courtship is all about being tech-savvy. I am expected to be a willing recipient of email, text messages, and cell phone calls. In addition, I am expected to have the technology, the skill sets, and the energy in which to reply to the blitzkrieg.

The mixtape isn't common courtship practice in our modern times. The mixtape has been replaced by mix CDs and iPod playlists. These CDs and playlists take some time to arrange, but they are digital--they are easily arranged, archived, and replicated for repeat uses.

A mixtape is not something that you can throw together or easily duplicate in case things "just don't work out." One can spend days, even weeks, hand-crafting the perfect mixtape. There's track listings, liner notes, and, for the hardcore artists, cover art to be arranged, written, and created. It is your personal Manhattan project and the mixtape is the atomic bomb that will end the war and determine where you stand vis-a-vis your relationship status.

Perhaps that extended metaphor was overdramatic, but people who don't have to date cannot comprehend what it's like out there in the minefield. I am, as Arthur Alexander would say, a Soldier of Love and frankly, I'm a little shell-shocked. Perhaps that's why I've considered taking my fashion cues from Patty Hearst for all future dates:

The modern female dater has to be armed and ready for battle. In my jumpsuit pockets I've got my cell phone--complete with texting keyboard and photo/video message capabilities--and my iPod with personalized playlists. My kit bag has my Mac laptop and my digital camera. The kit bag is crucial. If he decides to make us exclusive I'm going to need proof. This evidence needs to be uploaded to the internet in less than 24 hours, as I am expected to immediately update all my Facebook information (profile picture, relationship and personal stats, etc.) and send out an electronic A.P.B. in the form of mass emails with photo attachment so that my suitor can be properly evaluated by friends, family, and arch-enemies. And of course you need the gun and the beret, because no jumpsuit ensemble is complete without the proper accessories. But the gun also serves as self-defense, because the 21st century man has the (wrong) impression that a woman is just another tech accessory and therefore can be mauled at random. Apparently, he didn't get the text message.

In a world where the love letter has disintegrated to a barrage of text messages, I need the mixtape.