Category Archives: mixtapes

Mixtape: Untitled VI

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This one was made during my last summer living in Boston. I was living in a two-bedroom apartment with a Berklee piano student on Brighton Avenue in Allston and working full time at the old Sony Theater that used to be up near Assembly Square Mall in Somerville. (A half-hour commute by the T, so of course I listened to a lot of tunage there and back.)

A lot of this mix came from different places: used CDs from Nuggets in Kenmore Square, album dubs from friends, a few Columbia House purchases, and a lot of taping off the radio, mostly WFNX. [I know, I know. I should have saved my money for things I needed, but I somehow made it work.] The title Untitled comes from a mix I’d made back in 1989, where I’d made a really great tape but could not for the life of me come up with a decent title. Calling it such seemed to fit somehow, and that particular series became one of my favorites to make. [I am currently on Untitled XXV, made last October. I need to catch up and make another one.]

There’s a lot of peak 90s bands here, and many songs that were highly popular with the alt-rock crowds. It was what got the most play on Boston radio at the time, plus there were some great tracks dropped then. I’d been listening heavily to Alice in Chains’ Jar of Flies, Soundgarden’s Superunknown, Stone Temple Pilots’ Purple and Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral at the time (among other things) and they’d pretty much become my personal soundtrack for the 1994-95 season.

I really like how this mixtape worked out, and I still listen to it from time to time. It’s not as adventurous as some of my other mixes, but it’s solid from start to finish and has some of my all-time favorite mid-90s songs on it. It also has a sense of humor to it; silly and lighthearted songs bump up against gloomy and angry songs, and each side ends in extremely short and funny filler. And in early 2003 I’d make a two-cd “reissue” of this mix featuring nine extra songs from the era that I’d loved but couldn’t fit on the original.

Bonus: That U2 song, which would be featuring on the Batman Forever soundtrack later that summer, had been recorded off WBCN in early April when it was world-premiered by DJ Carter Alan, a close friend of the band.

Untitled VI, June 1995

Side A:
1. Bad Religion, “Stranger Than Fiction”
2. Green Day, “Basket Case”
3. Live, “I Alone”
4. Pizzicato Five, “Twiggy Twiggy/Twiggy vs James Bond”*
5. Nine Inch Nails, “Closer”
6. Frank Black, “Headache”
7. Dig, “Believe”
8. The Flaming Lips, “She Don’t Use Jelly”
9. Alice in Chains, “I Stay Away”
10. Grant Lee Buffalo, “Mockingbirds”
11. Jeff Buckley, “Last Goodbye”
12. They Might Be Giants, “Spider”

Side B:
1. Blur, “Girls & Boys”
2. Danzig, “Cantspeak”
3. Ween, “Voodoo Lady”
4. The Afghan Whigs, “Gentlemen”
5. The Smashing Pumpkins, “Never Let Me Down Again”
6. Soundgarden, “Black Hole Sun”
7. Nirvana, “All Apologies”
8. Stone Temple Pilots, “Interstate Love Song”
9. Blur, “Parklife”
10. U2, “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me”
11. Bjork, “Army of Me”
12. Pearl Jam, “Bugs”

* – Not available on Spotify

Mixtapes: Music from the Waystation

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I’ve been meaning to do this for ages, and I may as well start it now: I’ve been making mixtapes since I was a wee lad in the early 80s, well before I even knew what mixtapes were other than songs I taped off MTV and the radio that I liked. I usually average about six or so mp3 mixtapes per year nowadays, but back in the late 80s it would be upwards of maybe twice or even three times that.

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to share my mixtape playlists with y’all for ages because I’ve always gotten a positive reaction from them. In previous posts I’ve posted them as YouTube links, but now I’ve finally started getting around to building them as Spotify playlists. [I’m still annoyed that musicians’ earnings on the site are laughable, but I’ve come around to thinking that maybe pushing these mixtapes will help put a penny or two more on their paycheck.]

SO! Without further ado, I’m going to start off with a triple-play (heh) of mixtapes curated as soundtracks for one of my current novel WIPs. I’ve been listening to these quite a bit lately, so hope you enjoy them too!

Theadia: Music from the Waystation
1. Secret Machines, “3,4,5, Let’s Stay Alive”
2. Haelos, “End of World Party”
3. Bob Moses, “Love We Found”
4. Sault, “I Just Want to Dance”
5. Pretenders, “Message of Love”
6. Throwing Muses, “Dark Blue”
7. Billie Eilish, “My Future”
8. Bob Mould, “Everything to You”
9. PVRIS, “Good to Be Alive”
10. Algiers, “Dispossession”
11. We’ve Got a Fuzzbox and We’re Gonna Use It!!, “Versatile for Discos and Parties”
12. Doves, “Carousels”
13. Bob Moses, “Hold Me Up”
14. Secret Machines, “Everything’s Under”
15. Haelos, “Hold On”
16. Cut Copy, “Love Is All We Share”
17. Doves, “Universal Want”
18. Secret Machines, “Everything Starts”
19. BRONSON, “Dawn [feat. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs]”

Theadia 2: More Music from the Waystation
1. Annie, “The Countdown to the End of the World””
2. Hatchie, “Sleep”
3. Pearl Jam, “Alright”
4. Georgia, “Started Out”
5. Shadow Show, “Glass Eye”
6. Field Music, “Money Is a Memory”
7. Låpsley, “Bonfire”
8. Hayley Williams, “Simmer”
9. Stone Temple Pilots, “Three Wishes”
10. Spectres, “The Head and the Heart”
11. The Cinematic Orchestra, “A Caged Bird/Imitations of Life [James Heather Rework]”
12. Phantogram, “Ceremony”
13. Georgia, “About Work the Dancefloor”
14. ADULT., “Why Always Why”
15. Caspian, “Flowers of Light”
16. Soccer Mommy, “Yellow Is the Color of Her Eyes”
17. Ultraísta, “Mariella”
18. Nicolas Godin, “What Makes Me Think About You”
19. San Fermin, “The Hunger”
20. Bob Mould, “Next Generation”
21. K/DA, “I’ll Show You”

Theadia 3: Waystation Blues
1. Grandbrothers, “Silver”
2. Roosevelt, “Echoes”
3. Flyying Colours, “Goodtimes”
4. Girlfriends and Boyfriends, “Your Touch”
5. Jane Weaver, “The Revolution of Super Visions”
6. Middle Kids, “I Don’t Care”
7. Anna Schulze, “A New Way”
8. Brian Vander Ark, “In Your Eyes”
9. Jeremiah Fraites, “Maggie”
10. Miss Grit, “Blonde”
11. Shame, “Human, for a Minute”
12. Field Music, “Orion from the Street”
13. Siamese Youth, “So Far from Home”
14. Anna Schulze, “Satisfied”
15. Grandbrothers, “Unrest”
16. Sorry, “Heather”
17. Jane Weaver, “Modern Reputation”
18. Flyying Colorus, “White Knuckles”
19. Roosevelt, “See You Again”
20. Quivers, “You’re Not Always On My Mind”