Shit From an Old Mixtape vol. 3: A Completely Untitled CD Mix

{A Completely Untitled CD Mix}
I really don't have much to say about this mix. I apparently didn't have much to say about it then either, since I didn't give the thing a name. I could have just tossed it accidentally, which would have been a real shame. Cause it's good listening. And that seems to be the only theme: I really like all of these songs. I wish I had something deeper to go along with it. But I don't. Sometimes it is what it is.

1) The Verlaines-"Jesus What a Jerk" Some Disenchanted Evening (1990)
Every songwriter wants to write a tune that eviscerates some guy for being a total douchebag. That instinct never comes out more than in the city of Los Angeles. I adore this Verlaines album.
2) Shellac-"The Rambler Song" The Rude Gesture: A Pictorial History 7" (1993)
I don't know if the ee-lectric gee-tar can sound better than on this song. Strings of barbed wire wrapped around the neck/body of a bull. "She's a winner!"
3) Gang of Four-"What We All Want" Solid Gold (1981)
Obviously the go-to record of the GO4 catalog is Entertainment!, but Solid Gold isn't as far behind as you might think. I think I had just found this on vinyl somewhere on the cheap...
4) Volcano Suns-"The Central" Bumper Crop (1987)
And I must have found this one in the same bin. It's sort of the sloppy sound and vocals that lure me into this song. And the mantra of the tune: "When I didn't know any better, I was plugged into the central." Pete Prescott from Mission of Burma's Post Burma band, which then led me to....
5) Mission of Burma-"Wounded World" ONoffON (2004)
New MOB! (New circa 2004. As in a couple decades after they initially said goodbye.) The song has the intensity of original Burma material, but a little simpler in the songwriting column. "I'm a puppet, you're a puppet too" was Reagan-esque commentary for the W-era.
6) Constantines-"Young Offenders" Constantines (2001)
A sign that you're a pretty consistent band is if I can't remember which record which song is from. Like I would have sworn this song was from Shine a Light, as opposed to their self-titled debut. Though for the Constantines, the more it sounds like Fugazi, the earlier in the 00s it's from. Also, always good to blend Rod Stewart and James Brown lyrics into your song.
7) Sufjan Stevens-"Chicago" Come On Feel the Illinoise! (2005)
This is my fave from Illinoise! But I'm sure that's true for a lot of people.
8) Low-"California" The Great Destroyer (2005)
I adore Low. This was their "rock" record. I don't play this one a lot, because I never liked the production on it. But I could listen to Alan and Mimi harmonize The Black Eyed Peas and somehow enjoy it.
9) Crayon-"Reason 2600" Brick Factory (1994)
From Crayon's only record which is chalk-full of awesome twee-noise-pop goodness. I'm glad Sean Tollefson is still making tunes in Tullycraft. I think I would miss his voice.
10) Heavens to Betsy-"Playground" These Monsters Are Real EP (1992)
I just love these pre-Sleater-Kinney tracks from Corin Tucker. But you know who doesn't? My wife. Not so into the riot grrrl movement. If Lisa was in the car and this song came on, she would be reaching for the >> by note two.
11) Sleater-Kinney-"Little Mouth" Call the Doctor (1996)
Same for this one. I love it. Wife doesn't. Marriage, right?
12) Modest Mouse-"Convenient Parking" Lonesome Crowded West (1997)
This album is just one of the best of the 90s. I don't think there's anything else in their discography that comes even close. Which always weirds me out about a band.
13) Spoon-"This Damn Nation" The Nefarious EP (1994)
I bought this record from the drummer from Spoon at a show they did in NYC in the summer of '95. They were opening up for the Grifters and the drummer was telling me how they just signed with Matador Records. And now they're indie giants. I don't know when they ditched the chick bass player/singer.
14) Mule-"A Hundred Years" If I Don't Six (1994)
What an underrated songwriter P.W. Long is/was.
15) The Arcade Fire-"Haiti" Funeral (2004)
No idea why I picked this track of all of the tracks off of Funeral. Boredom, maybe? It's a good song, but I don't know how well it stands alone on a mix.
16) Seaweed-"Let Go" Actions and Indications (1999)
Another absurdly underrated band. I thought this record was a great way to go out.
17) Colder-"Shiny Star" Again (2004)
And for a second this guy was being pimped as the next big thing. The electronica French Joy Division. Never happened, but a good track nonetheless.
18) Lali Puna-"Micronomic" Faking the Books (2004)
Certainly I was getting into the Morr Music sound around this time. As evidenced by this song...
19) Ms. John Soda-"Solid Ground" Blue Skied an' Clear comp (2002)
And this one from the Blue Skied an' Clear Morr Music comp, which if you like any sort of electronica pop, is a great comp to have. A 2-disc tribute album from various Morr Music artists of Slowdive. But you don't have to like Slowdive one bit to get into it.
20) New Order-"Temptation" Substance (1987)
The grandfathers of electronic pop. One of their earlier songs that showed where their evolution was heading after getting out from under the legacy of Ian Curtis and Joy Division. This is the shorter and tighter version from Substance and not the original 1981 Factus 8 EP release.
21) Styrofoam-"If I Believed You/Back Into Focus" I'm What's There To Show That Something's Missing (2003)
The closer from that album. Works as a closer here as well.

Download here:
Shit From an Old Mixtape Vol. 3 p1
Shit From an Old Mixtape Vol. 3 p2

Shit From an Old Mixtape vol. 2: Shhhh...

Shhhh...
I never use to be able to fall asleep to music. I tried. In high school, I'd turn the CD player next to the bed on and try to drift off. Never worked. I'm a light sleeper.

Then I got to college and discovered alcohol. And that if I used enough of it, I could sleep inside a stack of Marshall amps. Some people call it "passing out." But that sounds so tawdry and crude, doesn't it? I think it's an unfair stigma attached to such a wonderful process. My favorite part of a night of drinking in college was to stumble home, stumble upstairs, stumble to CD collection, stumble through CDs (usually to the "C"s for Codeine or Cat Power), stumble to stereo, stumble fingers to PLAY > button, and stumble to bed, awash in sound. That was a perfect end of a likely enjoyable evening for me.*

(*now that i think about it, college was apparently a lonely time for me. biblically speaking.)

Flash forward from college, and I discovered that somehow I had trained myself to fall asleep with music in my ear. With or without booze. I can't stress how happy that has made me over the past 10 years. It was a psychological wall that I simply drank through. I would like to thank beer. And probably the bartenders at Faegan's in Syracuse, NY.

So as happy as falling asleep to music makes me, I obviously then made mixes that paid tribute to this lovely experience. This was one. Since it's called "Shhhh..." As in "Shhhh... Go to sleep and forget about all the crappy stuff day-to-day life shits upon your shoes." Wonderful melodic peace. Ahhhh...

(aside: as a mix, i can blend applicable tracks from records that as a whole are not conducive to a tuneful sleep into a wonderful new LP of the quiet, restful variety. however, if i was being put in suspended animation for some sort of space exploration, and i had to pick 10 albums to repeat for the next billion light years while i slumbered, i'd probably select the following in no particular order: colleen-the golden morning breaks, mogwai-come on die young, godspeed you! black emporer-f#a#(infinity), cat power-moon pix, codeine-the white birch, mountains-sewn, loren mazzacane connors + david grubbs-arborvitae, low-things we lost in the fire, james blackshaw-a litany of echoes, and the very obvious, brian eno-music for airports. but i don't know why anyone would send me to space.)

Onto the mix:
1) Low/Dirty Three-"I Hear...Goodnight" In the Fishtank EP (2001)
What an opener for a mix. A literal blend of two great sleepy bands in Low and The Dirty Three. And then the song title ends in "Goodnight"? Should have just repeated this track 20 times.
2) Gillian Welch-"Revelator" Time (The Revelator) (2001)
Another nice opener. There's an acoustic guitar solo in here that I wish I could play even just a bar of. And I hate guitar solos.
3) Crooked Fingers-"Sunday Morning, Coming Down" Reservoir Songs EP (2002)
Such a good cover, bleeding into the guy who made the song famous....
4) Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash-"Girl From the North County" Nashville Skyline (1969)
...on another tune with some Bob dude. This is really the only Bob Dylan record I ever feel a need to listen to. And this is my favorite track off of it. Heart-wrenching regret spilled over 3 chords.
5) Cat Power-"Good Woman" You Are Free (2003)
I've said enough about Cat Power before: (http://thefmtana.blogspot.com/2009/07/no-ground-is-being-broken-to-say-chan.html) This song is a sad, sad goodbye.
6) Kings of Convenience-"Singing Softly to Me" Quiet Is the New Loud (2001)
This tune might be a little too swingy to be on a mix like this. But the title is very apropos.
7) The Mountain Goats-"Have To Explode" Tallahassee (2002)
My favorite Mountain Goats record, and this is the Shhhh...-iest song on it. (Not shittiest, Shhhh...-iest.) If you were the character in this song, you'd want to sleep it all away too.
8) Nick Drake-"Which Will" Pink Moon (1972)
Pink Moon always reminds me of when I first met my wife, which is a nice thing to think about as you fall asleep.
9) Califone-"Stepdaughter" Quicksand/Cradlesnakes (2003)
There's a really drowsy slide steel guitar that's working very well in this song. A nice closer to a great album.
10) Bonnie Prince Billy-"Wolf Among Wolves" Master And Everyone (2003)
When I play this diddy on my gee-tar, I can almost knock myself right out.
11) The Kingsbury Manx-"Piss Diary" The Kingsbury Manx (2000)
I haven't listened to this song in years. A nice rediscovery.
12) Gastr Del Sol-"Each Dream Is An Example" Camoufleur (1998)
Sometimes, Gastr Del Sol can get kind of scronky and frantic, but this track never does. You can really hear the Jim O'Rourke in this one. One of the most unique groups of the 90s.
13) B.Fleischmann & Ms. John Soda-"Here She Comes" Blue Skied An' Clear comp (2002)
This is off a Morr Music comp that has a lot of great bands. I'm not a wikipedia of electronica lingo, but I believe this would be considered "downtempo."
14) Scott Walker-"Montague Terrace (In Blue)" Scott (1967)
Scott Walker is kind of a weird choice. And this song's not that quiet in parts. But he did* have a very soothing baritone. (i use a * not because he's dead, which he isn't, but because later scott walker records like tilt and the drift would wake dead dudes for miles.)
15) M.Ward-"Let's Dance" Transfiguration of Vincent (2003)
Man, I just have always had a hard time getting into M.Ward, but it's a nice cover of a good song, so I guess that's where he works for me: recording nice covers of good songs.
16) St. Thomas-"I'm Coming Home #2" I'm Coming Home (2002)
Another song I haven't listened to in years. And another good closer, if you like your closers 10 minutes in length.

Download here:
Shit From an Old Mixtape vol 2 pt 1
Shit From an Old Mixtape vol 2 pt 2

Shit From an Old Mixtape vol. 1

Mix #6 Karl Hendricks Trio, Verlaines, Stereolab, CCR
So the other day, I found this mix I made. It was in my wife's car under the passenger seat. Her car has a CD player. Mine never did. But now it doesn't matter. We all have iPods. So who gives a shit? Right?

But I use to love to make mixes. From the 8th grade on when I got my JVC Dual Cassette/CD Player boombox (which I only said goodbye to last year), I became obsessive with them. I bullet-sweated the details, from song order to lengths to transitions to themes. If you love/loved music, you love/loved mix tapes. And now I don't make them. Because again, what's the point? But it seems like this is more than just a scratched up CD found under the passenger seat. It's a little time capsule of where my musical head was at a very specific point in time. And archiving these rediscovered mixes here seems more deserving than chucking them into the trash.

So a new addition to The FMTana: "Shit From an Old Mixtape." Click the links at the bottom and you can download the whole thing. I think this one is from 2005. I must have made 5 others at some point, since this one is "#6." Seems like I had just figured out how to convert vinyl into mp3s, because more than a few of these tracks, I only had on record in '05. Not much presentation, so it must have just been for personal listening. No idea where the other ones are. But if I find them, they could end up here.

1) Karl Hendricks Trio-“Naked and High On Drugs”
A great opener from Pittsburgh’s favorite non-football related son.
2) Butterglory-“Our (Proud) Mascot”
There are 3 Butterglory songs from Crumble that I feel very comfortable putting on mixtapes. This is one of them.
3) Further-“Ferrets and Weasels”
These were LA locals from before I became an LA local. They always seemed to have a chip on their shoulder about being compared to Sebadoh or something. They have a lot of good stuff on their own, so I don’t know what they were getting all worked up about.
4) Small Factory-“So What About Love”
Certainly my favorite folk-pop band, if not my favorite pop-pop band.
5) The Verlaines-“Whatever You Run Into”
I “liberated” this album from a college radio station I was doing time at. Fantastic Kiwi pop.
6) The Who-“Odorono”
I never went through a Who phase, even when I was ear deep in Classic Rock radio (both at times by choice and at times by no choice at all.) I don’t know why. There’s stuff of theirs that just has never sat right with me. But I like a lot of the songs off of The Who Sell Out.
7) The Talking Heads-“Warning Sign”
It is a blemish on my record to not know the Talking Heads as well as I should. I think I had just snagged this on vinyl for cheap.
8) Cat Power-“Speak For Me”
You Are Free has a lot of movin’ (as in groovin’) tracks. Especially for Cat Power. This is one of them.
9) Broken Social Scene-“Almost Crimes”
Scrawk.
10) Stereolab-“The Seeming and the Meaning”
I keep thinking this is a Modern Lovers song every time it starts. Then that beautiful Frenchified voice of Laetitia Sadier’s comes on, and it all becomes very obvious. Early S-Lab goodness.
11) Sufjan Stevens-“The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders”
Circa 2005, this is an obvious choice. I’m a Michigan man over an Illinois man, but this is an enjoyable track.
12) Peter Gabriel-“White Shadow”
These first three Gabriel solo records are all titled Peter Gabriel and they’re all reeallllllly good.
13) Pink Floyd-“Fearless”
The standout song on Atom Heart Mother.
14) Palace Songs-“All Gone, All Gone”
Right in the heart of a time period where Will Oldham changed my ears. From the now-titled Days in the Wake to this EP, Hope, to the following year’s Viva Last Blues.
15) Creedence Clearwater Revival-”Good Golly Miss Molly”
This is a weird choice. But it is a nice bridge, blending the countrified air of Palace with the R&B funk of…
16) James Brown-“Down and Out in New York City”
I think there’s something really gutty in this song. James Brown can be kind of mechanical for me. Even with songs of very passionate sentiment. This song has something kind of earnest at the heart of it.
17) A Tribe Called Quest-“Excursions”
Boom-boom-boom, ba-boom-boom, ba-boom-boom, boom-boom-boom, etc. etc.
18) Kanye West-“Spaceship”
I know everyone’s all worked up about some bullshit that Kanye did at the VMAs, as if that still has, or ever had, some sort of relevance in what makes music important and good and life-changing, but I don’t care. This is a great song off a great album. That actually means something.
19) Common-“Go!”
Kanye’s on this track too. This album came out right around the time I made this mix. It’s good, but it’s a little too “clubby” probably. I’ve never been to an afterparty in my life, so I don’t know what’s that all about. But I think Kanye has a good touch. (As if that's a groundbreaking statement...)
20) Stevie Wonder-“He's Misstra Know It All”
Innervisions, bitches.

Download here:
Shit From an Old Mixtape vol 1 pt 1
Shit From an Old Mixtape vol 1 pt 2