This one’s a long one…a three-taper made in late Spring 1998 in the middle of my stint at HMV Records. This was kind of a transitional time for me — purging old personal drama, starting a brand new science fiction novel and writing more songs and poems, working down in the Belfry at night, going on long road trips, learning how to get rid of all that negativity from the first half of the decade. I stopped hiding and started living again, especially now that I could once again afford to do so.
This mixtape got a lot of play in my first car — a 1992 Chevy Cavalier I’d named the Mach V, in which I’d recently had a tape deck installed — and contains a mix from two sources: the current playlist of WFNX which I’d listened to constantly to and from work, and the extreme expansion of promotional copies of cds that I’d begun to acquire at work. Some songs are alt-rock radio standards today (Flagpole Sitta, The Way) while others are loved deep cuts (Playboys, Fall On Tears), Belfry regulars (God Lives Underwater, Superdrag) and soundtrack songs (mostly from Great Expectations, which I listened to on the regular).
Out of most of the multi-tape mixes, I think this one holds up as one of the best. It’s consistent with only one or two filler tracks, and it contains quite a few of my favorite late 90s tracks.
[Only one track missing and not available on Spotify: Foo Fighters’ cover of Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street”, placed between Goldfinger’s “This Lonely Place” and Tonic’s “If You Could Only See”.]
What to name a mixtape you truly enjoy, but can’t come up with a decent one? By this time I had Walk in Silence, Listen in Silence, The Last Home Year, Cimmerian Candlelight, and so on…names for themed series. But what about a chaotic mix that was essentially my favorite indie tunes at that point in time?
And so the Untitled series was born. Cheeky, but it worked.
This is a mix of songs I’d heard on Amherst College’s WAMH, WMDK out of Peterborough, recent 120 Minutes episodes, with a sprinkle of deep cuts, records borrowed from Chris, and to top it off, promo singles he and I had “borrowed” from the local radio station that they were obviously never going to play. The original mix features versions taped from the radio or off the TV speaker as well as actual source material.
Like Listen in Silence II, it was a mix primarily made as a catch-all for songs I liked but didn’t necessarily have in my collection. This would explain the strong beginning and the somewhat meandering end…but yet it works and still stands up so many years later. Also like LiS II, it was a mix to be listened to while mowing the cemeteries for my summer DPW job. Since my favorite college radio station was off the air for the season, this was my mix to fill that gap.
[Missing from the Spotify mix due to unavailability: The Feelies’ “Away” (after “Makes No Sense at All”) and Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians’ “Swirling” (after “Charlotte Anne”).]
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”
The first Walk in Silence mixtape, made October 1988 at the start of my senior year, and the Sony CFS-300 boombox (aka the Jonzbox) it was made with.
Walk in Silence, the mixtape series I’d started in 1988, was not the first mix I’d created (that goes to an unnamed multi-cassette collection from late 1982, taping songs off the radio and MTV), nor is it the first of the thematic mixes (that would be the noisy Stentorian Music from May 1988), but it’s the first one I’d made specifically to fit the mood I’d found myself in at the time. It was sort of a sibling thematic mix to the Listen in Silence mix I’d made in August, which was essentially “my favorite college radio tunes of the moment”. Walk in Silence, named of course after the first line in Joy Division’s “Atmosphere”, was meant to be more about dealing with my darker side. I was still feeling the sting of nearly all my closest friends having escaped our small town for college and the bigger world out there, and I’d made this to deal with that.
College radio was indeed my oasis during my senior year, alongside those Sunday episodes of 120 Minutes. I was doing my damnedest to deal with the frustration of still being stuck in a small town. The sources of these mixtapes were equally from the records I’d bought from Main Street Music and Al Bum’s, vinyl borrowed from the local radio station I’d worked at, taped off WAMH 89.3 (Amherst College), or second-hand dubs of albums I’d borrowed from that same group of friends. I wanted to start making more of these mixtapes, now that I understood how to create a smooth mix, and more importantly, fit as many songs onto each side of a 90-minute tape with minimal leftover blank space.
I still remember opening up a new cassette from its wrapper and smelling that fresh slightly plastic scent. I was super careful with the boxes they came in and would buy empties whenever I found them. I treated these tapes just like I treated my purchased albums: I made sure they were wound correctly, had a readable label, and didn’t get worn out or erased. I rarely bought the fancy expensive hi-def brands — I usually stuck with the affordable and reliable Memorex dBS 90s — because I didn’t care so much about the quality as much as I just wanted the music itself as part of my growing library.
I cataloged these mixes in notebooks primarily so my friends could see what was on them if they wanted to borrow them. It’s only because of this that I was able to successfully recreate nearly 99% of my mixtape library digitally, missing maybe only four or five lost and unavailable songs total. I used the Walk in Silence theme off and on, and currently I make at least two of them a year alongside two Listen in Silence and end-of-year mixes.
I bring this up to personally thank Lou Ottens, who helped invent the compact cassette tape, who recently passed away at age 94. I used so many blank tapes over the years for so many things: mixtapes, recordings of jam sessions for jeb! and The Flying Bohemians, live shows, soundtracks for my novels, dubbed albums, and maybe even a few class lectures now and again. I completed then hard-to-find discographies of favorite bands. I will totally admit to spending food and lunch money on blank tapes. I’ve put scotch tape over those holes on the top to use actual albums nobody wanted as fresh blanks. I came across a blank or two recently while cleaning out and rearranging things here in Spare Oom. I have a storage box full of my mixtapes, a few I’d remade around 2000 but many of them still the originals.
And now I see that cassettes are making a comeback, believe it or not. Indie bands are selling them on Bandcamp. And Amoeba Records has a nifty little corner full of cassettes new and old.
Thanks, Lou. Your invention was a huge and important part of my life.
It’s a few days late, but as promised, here’s my best-of list for 2019! I have KEXP to thank for pretty much all of my listening habits these last few years…after slipping between a few online and satellite stations, I found myself returning to a station I’d listened to briefly a few years ago, and realized just how much their playlist resonated with my musical tastes. So much so that when I moved back to the office for the Day Job, I found I truly missed listening to that station. [I’ve since found that I can stream the station on my phone, which I am doing only for a few hours a day so my phone data isn’t all screwy.]
This past year’s soundtrack and purchases also showed a significant change, in that there’s a lot more in terms of inclusivity as well as flavor. So many more albums and songs in different genres, different countries, different genders. I found myself listening less in terms of “this is a great writing soundtrack” and finally returning to “this is just a damn fine album/single” enjoyment. And I haven’t had that in a long time.
So without further ado…
TOP 15 ALBUMS 15. Hot Chip, A Bath Full of Ecstasy 14. Hatchie, Keepsake 13. Honeyblood, In Plain Sight 12. Jay Som, Anak Ko 11. American Football, American Football (LP3) 10. Lamb, The Secret of Letting Go 9. Lemolo, Swansea 8. Elbow, Giants of All Sizes 7. The Beatles, Abbey Road Anniversary Edition 6. The Cinematic Orchestra, To Believe 5. Sleater-Kinney, The Center Won’t Hold 4. White Lies, Five 3. Drab Majesty, Modern Mirror 2. Coldplay, Everyday Life 1. Haelos, Any Random Kindness
TOP 15 SONGS 15. True Damage, “GIANTS” 14. Deserta, “Hide” 13. Beck, “Saw Lightning” 12. Boy Harsher, “Face the Fire” 11. Drab Majesty, “The Other Side” 10. New Age Healers, “Satellites” 9. Hatchie, “Without a Blush” 8. Jay Som, “Superbike” 7. Toro y Moi, “Freelance” 6. Silversun Pickups, “It Doesn’t Matter Why” 5. White LIes, “Tokyo” 4. Haelos, “End of World Party” 3. Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, “Life On Mars?” 2. DJ Shadow feat. De La Soul, “Rocket Fuel” 1. The Quivers, “You’re Not Always On My Mind”
**
And of course, here’s my Singles 2019 mixtape for your pleasure…
Yes, the current volume of Listen In Silence is number twenty-four. Not bad for a mixtape series I started back in 1988, yeah? Missed a few years in between, but I’m glad to say after I resurrected it, it’s still going strong. The links are for the YouTube videos because I can’t be arsed to attempt to build a Spotify playlist right now. Enjoy!
I know, I know… they call it making a playlist now. You grab a few tracks from Spotify and gather them together and call it done. Where it used to take a good couple of hours to make one on a 90-minute cassette, now it only takes an hour, if that.
As I’ve explained before, my current mixtape creation process is by way of copying mp3s into a new folder, shuffling them into some semblance of order, and retagging them accordingly. I’m keeping it old-school by having a sort-of-physical end result instead of a playlist.
I’ve noticed over the past few years that one thing hasn’t changed: the urge to make a mixtape usually comes from hearing a specific song that I truly love. For instance, my current obsession with Bob Moses’ “Heaven Only Knows” has inspired me to throw the next Listen in Silence mix together. From there I’ll think a bit about what other songs caught my attention over the last few months. They’ll just as often be tracks I’ve been hearing on Indie617 or SiriusXM as they’ll be deep cuts from newer albums I’ve downloaded. The rest of the process is still the same, asking the same questions: what’s the best opening track? Closing track? Which songs segue the best? Which ones sound awkward? The only thing really missing is writing out the tracks on the c-card.
Do I listen to these after I’ve made them? Sure! I listen to them a lot, actually, just as I always have. I listen to them during writing sessions, during the Day Job, or when I’m at the gym. And they’re great to listen to on long flights as well. I’ll even listen to older ones I’d made a few years previous.
I don’t share them as much as I used to, though. Back in high school I’d give my buddy Chris the track list or make a copy of it for him. I used to make the occasional mixtape for my then girlfriends of course, but for the most part I made them for my own enjoyment. And that’s cool too. Come to think of it, I should probably start posting some of them here. I haven’t used my Spotify account in ages, so perhaps it’s time to dust it off and create some of my mixtapes for your enjoyment!
What’s that, you say? Is this an official follow-up to the original four compilation volumes from 1997-98? Didn’t I make a bunch of semi-official compilations for the trilogy over the next decade and a half? Am I just recycling the same damn mixes over and over again at this point?
What’s the diff, anyway?
Well, the original Songs from the Eden Cycle mixes were made when I was writing The Phoenix Effect and were used to get me inspired, rather than songs that were assigned to specific scenes (with a few exceptions). The follow-up mixes, on the other hand, were when I wrote and revised the Bridgetown Trilogy and were specifically focused on those stories.
Thus, this new “Volume 5” is a return to the original reason for the series: music to get me inspired to write the new Mendaihu Universe book(s). Like the original four, these will be mixes that will be made over an extended stretch of time, as certain tracks pop up.
Here are a few that I’ve gathered so far…
Blonde Redhead, “23”. This song popped up on my radar in 2015 when I was playing around with MU story ideas, and caught me at the right moment with its unrelenting, twisting power. Beauty and tension at the same time.
Kasabian, “Club Foot”. I’m surprised I never put this song anywhere on any of my major compilations other than a half-assed one I threw together in 2005, because it’s one of my favorite badass bass lines. Also surprised I never used it in any Mendaihu Universe stories, either. Admittedly the video (again, one of my favorites) did give me a bit of inspiration as well.
U2, “The Blackout”. Say what you will about U2’s last two albums, personally I still think they’re the best and strongest albums they’ve had in years. Pretty sure they’re both going to get a lot of play when I start writing the new stuff.
Editors, “No Harm”. These guys consistently blow my mind with each release. In Dream was quite the dark affair — not as creepy as In This Light and On This Evening, but emotionally raw — and got a hell of a lot of play when I was revising the original trilogy. Pretty sure it’s gonna get play here as well.
Dot Allison, “Message Personnel”. This track actually dates back to the original TPE/trilogy sessions and popped up on one of the “Mendaihu Universe” mixes, but I’ve chosen to add it to this one because it’s the soundtrack to one of the first scenes I’d come up with for the new story. This is one of the few exceptions where I had a perfect song in mind for a specific scene.
The Horrors, “I See You”. I think I need to look into this band more, because they totally slipped under my radar until I heard their Luminous album a few years back. I love their dark post-punk sound, which fits in quite nicely with what I’m trying to achieve with the new story.
I’m still working on this one right now, and it is in fact a mix of newer and older songs (note: the original four volumes did in fact have the same type of content as well). With the exception of maybe one or two songs, the rest of these haven’t been put on an official Eden Cycle mix as of yet.
Yes, I know…I’ve got two other novels I have to finish first before I can get anywhere serious with this new Mendaihu Universe novels, but it doesn’t hurt to get an early start with the notes and the soundtrack, right?
May 1988: A good portion of my closest friends are graduating quite shortly, and will be taking off in various directions for their college careers. Thus starts the era of me being a moody bastard for about six years. Meanwhile, after about five years of recording songs off the radio and creating my own proto-mixtapes, I finally decide it’s time for me to create my own mixes straight from my own growing collection. I call them ‘compilations’ instead of ‘mixtapes’ because it sounds more professional, considering how detailed I get in creating them. Thirty years later I’m still making them, digitally.
Wire, A Bell Is a Cup Until It Is Struck, released ?? May. The second album in their ‘beat combo’ era, the band moves closer to their eventual electronic experimentation, using samples, loops, and treated instruments. I played the hell out of this album for a good couple of years after it came out.
Colin Newman, It Seems, released ?? May. In tandem with the above, Wire co-lead singer Newman dropped an even more electronic and experimental album. While the Wire album is more rock oriented, this one’s for sitting back and listening.
Heavenly Bodies, Celestial, released ?? May. A somewhat obscure album featuring vocalist and 4AD friend Caroline Seaman (who would pop up on a few This Mortal Coil albums) and a few ex-Dead Can Dance members, it’s a proto-darkwave album with a moody groove to it. “Rains On Me” got some serious airplay on a lot of the college stations when it came out.
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Nothing Wrong, released ?? May. The noise-punks from Leeds released an excellent album of sludgy, growling alt-rock that might not have been to everyone’s tastes, but those who did like it (like me) absolutely loved it.
Living Colour, Vivid, released 3 May. Loud, abrasive, political, funky, humorous, and absolutely amazing. Lots has already been said about this album, and it’s all true. I got to see these guys at UMass Amherst in 1989 (it was part of MTV’s college campus tour, with the Godfathers opening up), and they put on one hell of a great show.
Depeche Mode, “Little 15” single, released 16 May. The last single from 1987’s Music for the Masses. It’s also one of my favorite tracks from it due to its amazing dynamics, starting off quiet and delicate and ending up Wagnerian and bombastic. It’s one of those songs you need to hear in headphones to get the full power of it.
Fairground Attraction, The First of a Million Kisses, released 16 May. It took me years to finally buy this album, but I remember the above track getting played incessantly on WMDK and the other AOR stations in the area. A fun and irresistibly catchy tune. The rest of the album is great too!
Compilation: Stentorian Music, created 20 May. The first of many compilations was an ongoing experiment of a themed mix; this one featured songs from groups like The Sisters of Mercy, Love and Rockets, The Cure, and The Screaming Blue Messsiahs among others, and designed to be played loud. It was put on a 60 minute tape and it came out reasonably well, considering. Not bad for a first try.
Compilation: Preternatural Synthetics, created 20 May. Yeah, even then I knew I was getting a bit ridiculous with the titles, but it was just something for fun, after my titling the old radio mixtapes with corny ‘Love & Rock & Roll’ titles. This one was a 90-minute tape featuring all synth and/or electronic-sounding bands, such as Pet Shop Boys, New Order, Depeche Mode, and so on. It’s a perky mix, and rather enjoyable!
The Timelords, “Doctorin’ the Tardis” single, released 23 May. A ridiculous single from the KLF/Justified Ancients of MuMu/JAMMs/etc. gang. Mixing Gary Glitter’s “Rock & Roll Part 2” and the Doctor Who theme, it’s one of those earworms that the college crowd loved.
Camper Van Beethoven, Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart, released 24 May. Another college rock band that went from indie (Pitch-a-Tent) to major (Virgin) in 1988, this record was indeed beloved by a quite a few fans, both old and new. I particularly loved this single, which also got a lot of play on the AOR stations.
Morrissey, “Everyday Is Like Sunday” single, released 31 May. Say what you will about his current nutjob shenanigans, his early post-Smiths records were fantastic. This second single from Viva Hate was another ‘borrowed’ single that popped up at the radio station I worked at. I soon fell in love with the gorgeous deep cut “Will Never Marry”, which would end up on quite a few of my future compilations.
The Sugarcubes, Life’s Too Good, released 31 May. This album was an instant hit for the college crowd, with its eclectic mix of often bizarre lyrics, infectious melodies and the balance of its two lead singers: the pixie-like Bjork and its weirdo horn player, Einar. Not to mention its dayglo album cover! Another band I got to see at UMass Amherst around that time.
New mixtape/mp3 playlist! This one’s Songs from the Apartment Complex, and I have to say this is probably one of the quirkiest mixes I’ve made in a while. The Apartment Complex story (still working on the title, folks) has evolved into an unexpected direction for me. Unlike previous book-centric playlists where most of the songs are there to set a mood, many of these tracks here are aimed at specific characters and what kind of person or being they are. Hope you enjoy it!
EDIT: As you may have seen over at Welcome to Bridgetown, I’ve put the Apartment Complex story on hiatus as I’m having even more problems with it than I thought, and need to put it aside for a while. Frustrating, yes. VERY frustrating. But I’m still keeping this up, because I think it’s a pretty interesting mix, and something I’ll listen to when I come back to the project. [And I *am* coming back to it — I just don’t know when.]
Walk In Silence 