Music To Warm a House By, Volume One
1996

The title should make it fairly clear what kind of party this tape was made for. The house in question had already been heated adequately for me; I'd been living there for around a year-and-a-half at the time of the party. However, I had new roommates, including my fellow 90FM alumnus point_cowtown. Since I was anticipating a more social atmosphere with the new collection of residents (marathon sessions of simultaneously smoking pot, playing Nintendo hockey and listening to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness were the nightly default plan of the previous people who shared the lease), it seemed a perfect time to rechristen the house.

I made two mix tapes for the party. I think they got played at the very beginning, and then probably only once as a houseful of former college radio DJs tends to lead to people taking over the stereo for extended intervals. Also, this was during the era when the draining of hard liquor bottles inevitably lead to viewings of Muppets Tonight! so the music didn't always last anyway.

SIDE ONE
TALKING HEADS, "Burning Down the House"
MADNESS, "Our House"
THE SMITHEREENS, "House We Used To Live In"
The ever-so-clever "house" song trifecta to kick off the tape. There's immediate proof that I made the tape in the production studio of the commercial "new rock alternative" station where I was working at the time. I didn't own any of these songs (or at least these versions, since I absolutely had "Burning" on a vinyl copy of the Stop Making Sense soundtrack.
THE REFRESHMENTS, "Banditos"
GOO GOO DOLLS, "Girl Right Next To Me"
HOLE, "Gold Dust Woman"
And there's a triumvirate that provides a decent example of the fairly limited range of the music played on that "new rock alternative" station.
HUSKER DU, "Could You Be the One?"
FISHBONE, "Sunless Saturday"
And two songs that we had at the commercial station that got nowhere near the airwaves, except occasionally during the deadest spot of the overnight shift when I broke the rules by deviating from the computer-concocted playlist. This is why I tend to be unkind when I discuss my time in commercial radio.
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, "True Men Don't Kill Coyotes"
NO DOUBT, "Spiderwebs"

SIDE TWO
BEN FOLDS FIVE, "Philosophy"
SMASHING PUMPKINS, "Tonight Tonight"
You know what apparently goes great with this song? Smoking pot and playing Nintendo hockey. For hours.
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS, "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head"
LUSH, "Ladykillers"
THE POLICE, "Murder By Numbers"
I wonder if there's any other instance of a solo career coloring perceptions of the band the solo artist came from as much as the exponentially increasing uncoolness of Sting's solo career damaged retrospective views of The Police. They were a pretty cool, tight, even edgy band, but they're rarely invoked by the cool kids. It's like "Fields of Gold" echoed all the way back to the late seventies and early eighties and distorted the sound of all those other records. Weirdly enough, I think I included this song in part because I enjoyed the way it was used in the mediocre film Copycat.
BUTTHOLE SURFERS, "Pepper"
"I'm a surfer!" Sometimes I think Rod and Todd Flanders may actually be my favorite Simpsons characters.
THE MUFFS, "Kids in America"
ELASTICA, "Stutter"
RAMONES, "Sheena is a Punk Rocker"
HOWLIN MAGGIE, "Alcohol"
Here's an instance where I don't remember a song, not in the slightest. I assume I included it because of the title. It was a party, after all.
TRACY BONHAM, "Mother Mother"
CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN, "Pictures of Matchstick Men"
BEN LEE, "How Can That Be?"
R.E.M., "White Tornado"
This song, besides being one of those wonderfully short tracks needed to fill up the last bit of a tape, is notable for serving as the soundbed for the Trivia Focus team interview segments during the 1989 edition of The World's Largest Trivia Contest. I have many, many unnecessary things in my head.

(Posted simultaneously to "Drilling Holes in the Wall.")

...where you used to play pinball
2005

This tape was made as a part of the flurry of mix activity that preceded a road trip to Athens, Georgia. Selections from this batch of cassettes have made prior appearances as part of this process of purging.

This particular tape was purely an exercise in nostalgia. I thought back to my days as an impressionable student at 90FM and tried to come up with some of the artists and songs, in roughly chronological order, that I connected with most dramatically at that time. Basically, I'd been concentrating so much on discovering new music at that point that I wanted to a couple of sides that let me revel in the "old."

The photo on the cover accompanied an online article I found while conducting a Google Image Search. The water stain is not some attempt at artsy cover design. Instead, it's merely evidence that I'm a messy boy.

SIDE ONE
GRAHAM PARKER, "Back in Time"
This is the one little cheat on the mix tape since the album that's home to this song, The Mona Lisa's Sister came out before I ever set foot on that college campus. It was close though, and the song's theme of nostalgic longing for the simpler days of youth (and the futility of indulging in that longing) seemed the appropriate beginning.
LOU REED, "There Is No Time"
VIOLENT FEMMES, "Nightmares"
FROGS, "Smile"
In terms of the music chronology, the tape really begins with my time serving as Assistant Program Director at the station. I started merely volunteering in the role during our winter break. When we went upstairs to the Communication Department office to retrieve the stack of mail that had accumulated, there was a wondrous bounty of splendid releases, including 3, the "comeback" album for Violent Femmes, and New York, arguably the last really brilliant Lou Reed solo album. The Frogs song came from a self-titled album from that notoriously oddball band that was amidst of pile of older records we culled from the music cabinet. While almost ever other Frogs release kind of scares me, that album was a constant presence on my personal turntable through that spring.
ROBYN HITCHCOCK 'N' THE EGYPTIANS, "Wax Doll"
XTC, "Mayor of Simpleton"
ELVIS COSTELLO, "This Town"
THE REPLACEMENTS, "Talent Show"
TOO MUCH JOY, "Clowns"
I recently wrote about the powerful hold Too Much Joy had over us at the station. This is from the album that started that collective swoon, Son of Sam I Am. This song is a perfect example of why we identified with them so fully, the lyrics explaining how every authority figure could be defined as a clown ("A clown was my boss at every job I ever had/Clowns run all the record companies that ever said we're bad").
GUADALCANAL DIARY, "Always Saturday"
This was off of an album, Flip-Flop, that strangely took an awfully long time to arrive at the station. We didn't get it upon its initial release and had to request it repeatedly before it arrived. This happened to us with some regularity with the smaller labels, but this was on Elektra. In a way, it wound up working out fine since its insertion into our rotation closer to summer suited the single "Always Saturday" just fine.
LOVE AND ROCKETS, "Rock 'n' Roll Babylon"
HOODOO GURUS, "Come Anytime"
BOB MOULD, "Sinners and Their Repentances"
Here I believe I was just trying to include a Bob Mould selection from Workbook that I hadn't already put onto countless mix tapes.
POGUES, "Boat Train"
JESUS AND MARY CHAIN, "Blues From a Gun"
PRIMITIVES, "Secrets"

SIDE TWO
PUBLIC ENEMY, "Welcome to the Terrordome"
A fairly atypical song for me to include on a mix, but this song did provide the moniker for the house I lived in (with several other 90FM staffers) for one year. We had a band crash with us after a show they played and they were completely perplexed about the derivation of the nickname. They kept looking for the dome, which our crumbly, decrepit house certainly did not have.
MICHELLE SHOCKED, "On the Greener Side"
SINEAD O'CONNOR, "Nothing Compares 2 U"
Honestly, despite the sheer amount it was played, I don't think I ever got sick of this song. It remains a stunning vocal performance.
CONCRETE BLONDE, "Joey"
SONIC YOUTH, "Mary-Christ"
SOUP DRAGONS, "I'm Free"
KITCHENS OF DISTINCTION, "Drive That Fast"
This was a song that didn't really register for me when the album was at the station. It took some inspired testimony from a friend many years later to make me realize its charms.
GEAR DADDIES, "Wear Your Crown"
FEELIES, "Sooner or Later"
MATERIAL ISSUE, "Chance of a Lifetime"
MATTHEW SWEET, "I've Been Waiting"
VOICE OF THE BEEHIVE, "Say It"
U2, "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses"
The release of Achtung Baby roughly corresponded with a break-up that I took fairly hard. It was nice to have this (and Workers Playtime, and Blood on the Tracks, and...) on hand.
THE JUDYBATS, "Margot Known As Missy"
R.E.M., "Sweetness Follows"
The inclusion of this song, or more accurately this band, had more to do the destination of the trip the tape was prepared for than any sort of rigid adherence to the tape's theme.

(Posted simultaneously to "Drilling Holes in the Wall.")

CMJ Anniversary Compilation III
1989

It's been a while since we've done one of these, so a quick refresher might be in order. When I replaced my car stereo last spring, I found myself without a cassette player in my motor vehicle for the first time in years, with little to no likelihood that I'd have that sort of device again. While there's a couple cassette players in the house, it's not likely I'll opt for those over the wall of CDs we have available of the wondrous, continuous personalized radio station available on my iPod. So, I decided to retire the hefty batch of mix tapes I've been toting around, some of them, like the one delineated today, for around twenty years. Before they hit the magnetic tape graveyard, I track through the respective mixes here.

This particular mix tape is dubbed off of a collection of CDs that CMJ, the trade publication of college radio, released in conjunction with their twentieth anniversary. I've gone through the details of that collection previously, but I'll note again that this release represented an invaluable audio tutorial for me in the summer between my freshman and sophomore years.

SIDE ONE
TALK TALK, "It's My Life"
STYLE COUNCIL, "You're the Best Thing"
ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN, "The Killing Moon"
This is one of the bands that I knew of peripherally in high school, mostly familiar with them because of the goofy name and one single that doesn't exactly represent one of their high water marks. Hearing this long, lush, piercingly dark pop was part of the long, sustained process in teaching me to set aside my dopey preconceptions and dig deeper into the music I may have thought I already had all figured out.
MICHAEL HEDGES, "Aerial Boundaries"
NEW ORDER, "Blue Monday"
SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, "Institutionalized"
While it went against my radio programming instincts at the time, I did love the jarring transition from New Order's icy techno to this thumping adolescent scream. Just one Pepsi, fer chrissakes.
RUN-D.M.C., "Rock Box"
Another eye opener. Like a lot of sheltered suburban kids, Run-D.M.C. first crossed my peripheral vision when they unearthed a few Boston mummies for a cover song that may have been hailed as revolutionary by the tentative souls at MTV, but didn't give me much flavor of the real power and potency of their music. This song corrected that.
U2, "Pride (In the Name of Love)"
SPECIAL AKA, "Free Nelson Mandela"

SIDE TWO
PRINCE, "When Doves Cry"
On the other hand, I will admit it would have been helpful if the CMJ collection had dug a little deeper in the Purple One's bag of tunes. I can stand apart and recognize the impressive nature of this track, but I was already developing a weariness for the overly familiar, and "Doves" fits that descriptor. Any sort of Prince epiphany would need to wait for another day.
REPLACEMENTS, "Unsatisfied"
BILLY BRAGG, "A New England"
It's a huge signature song from an artist who'd already become a new favorite, but I was so immersed in Workers Playtime (in rotation when I started at the college radio station) that it was helpful to have this poking at me to look and listen earlier.
SUZANNE VEGA, "Marlene on the Wall"
LOS LOBOS, "Will the Wolf Survive?"
HOODOO GURUS, "I Want You Back"
HUSKER DU, "Pink Turns to Blue"
I actually prefer the mildly mellowed version of Husker Du that followed Zen Arcade, but the strident ferocity of this track is incredible and rejuvenating. The Walkman usually got turned up to problematic levels when this started to unspool.
THE SMITHS, "How Soon Is Now?"
THE WATERBOYS, "The Whole of the Moon"
MINUTEMEN, "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing"
Like most college radio stations, WWSP had huge, heartbreaking holes in our collection, usually caused by the volunteer DJs surreptitiously supplementing their own music libraries with station property. The Minutemen loomed large as a band I was supposed to know, but had no ready access to their music. For ages, this song was one of the only samplings I had of their efforts. Happily, it's a fine introduction. Still, given how many of the songs selected from the other artists represent their consensus pinnacle, how did the compilers bypass "History Lesson - Part II"? Had that not settled in as the song yet? Did it actually take Michael Azerrad to make that happen?

(Posted simultaneously to "Drilling Holes in the Wall.")

Sheboygan Confidential
1998

This has come up before. I had a long-standing tradition with my old college roommate of following the annual announcement of the Academy Award nominations by convening as quickly as possible to engage in what we termed "instant Oscar predictions." This was fine in college, but became more difficult as pesky adulthood cast us to different corners of our mutual home state. Of course, during many of those years I was always looking for an excuse to take a roadtrip and compile a new mix tape for the occasion. So another part of the tradition for me involved transferring some carefully chosen songs to a cassette and hitting the road.

The title of the tape honored one of the most nominated films of the year in question, tweaking it to recognize the unique destination I embarked to in order to meet my cinematic combatant.

SIDE ONE
GRANDPABOY, "Psychopharmacology"
I've whined about Paul Westerberg's solo career previously out here in the electronic wilds, so I'll try to avoid repeating that lament. Instead, I'll note it only to contextualize the fleeting thrill I had when the former Replacements frontman first took on this odd persona given to sloppy, reckless rock'n'roll songs. Back then, it took some real hunting to get this e.p., somehow adding to the intoxicating sense that it was some sort of Hootenanny second coming.
5 CHINESE BROTHERS, "I Can See"
RICHARD BARONE, "Something Happens"
BEN FOLDS FIVE, "Emaline"
ANI DIFRANCO, "Gravel"
This is the version that showed up on Living in Clip. I clearly remember hearing it for the first time while driving in my car across West Madison, the kind people at WORT-FM living the righteous babe's music a rare trip across broadcast airwaves.
BOB MOULD, "Brasilia Crossed with Trenton"
Clip from the "Meatball Court" segment on MEATBALL RADIO
This is a radio comedy show I was involved in nearly twenty years ago. Typing those last four words freaked me out a little bit, so I don't think I can elaborate at this time.
LIVING COLOUR, "Type"
THE VENTS, "Colleen"
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, "Sherry Darling"
GEAR DADDIES, "Goodbye Marie"
JACKSON BROWNE, "Rosie"
We all thought we were pretty clever when we figured out that this song off of Running on Empty wasn't the sweet little love song it superficially seemed to be, but was instead an ode to the dependability of masturbation. Given that, it was a little weird to hear it reworked into a sweet little song paying tribute to Marge on an episode of The Simpsons.
Clip involving mouthwash rolling behind the tub from MEATBALL RADIO
SONIC YOUTH, "Mildred Pierce"

SIDE TWO
FOO FIGHTERS, "Everlong"
BARENAKED LADIES, "Brian Wilson"
This is hardly the coolest one-two punch I could have used to kick off side two, but I do need to admit that both these songs still sounded pretty good to me when I listened to the tape in preparation for this post.
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS, "They'll Need a Crane"
JONATHAN RICHMAN, "Let Her Go Into the Darkness"
I often made half-hearted attempts to include music that had been featured in films from the prior year when I made these particular tapes, and my first thought when listening back was that this must have been included because of its conspicuous use in There's Something About Mary, but that was still a few months away from release at the time. The version used her comes from the live compilation culled from Conan O'Brien show performances so it may have been as simple as me wanted to use the coolest track from that relatively recent acquisition.
Clip from MEATBALL RADIO asking "How'd you like to wake up next to Keith Richards?"
ROLLING STONES, "Dead Flowers"
See what I did there? I'm ever so smart.
BEN LEE, "My Drifting Nature"
VICTORIA WILLIAMS, "Train Song (Demise of the Caboose)"
There's a very brief portion of this song that sounds so much like a long lost Schoolhouse Rock song that it always seemed mildly unfortunate to me that Victoria Williams wasn't enlisted to revive those animated bumpers.
BILLY JOEL, "Worse Comes to Worst"
JEN TRYNIN, "Love Letter"
Clip from the "Amish Motocross" sketch on MEATBALL RADIO
R.E.M., "Second Guessing"
For a time back then, I dependably went through a Reckoning phase every few months.
THE SILENCERS, "Razor Blades of Love"
VAN MORRISON, "Tupelo Honey"

Posted simultaneously to "Drilling Holes in the Wall.")

CMJ Anniversary Compilation Part IV
1989

I've previously included a mix tape constructed by someone other than me in this nostalgic exercise, but this time is a little different. In some respects, this isn't a "mix tape" at all.

Some explanation: In 1989, during my first year at the college radio station at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, the venerable trade journal focusing on the left end of the dial celebrated its twentieth anniversary. I can't remember if the official name connected to the weekly New Music Report was College Media Journal or College Music Journal at the time. It's probably irrelevant because it was always just CMJ to us. Back before "Pitchfork" and a thousand bloggers we're keeping music fans abreast of developments on a minute-by-minute basis, CMJ was like a treasure map freshly redrawn every seven days (or so; the delivery schedule was as unpredictable as Iggy Pop on an amphetamine bender).

The anniversary couldn't have arrived at a better time for me, still floundering around the shelves of obscure vinyl wonders, desperately perplexed after mistakenly studying the canon of great music as defined by the already antiquated tastes of Rolling Stone. During the summer, CMJ sent subscribing stations an amazing combination: a handsome trade paperback commemorating their two decades with troves of tightly written capsule reviews of the most important and memorable albums and songs released during the publications life, and an accompanying four CD set featuring many of the seminal songs. Needing the schooling, I took the discs into the production studio and made copies onto cassette (there was no means of burning them to CD-Rs or dumping them into computers, young people).

Within a few weeks, the CDs and the book were stolen from the radio station after I foolish left them out where they could be accessed by station personnel more dedicated to supplementing their own collections that preserving station property. Most of the songs of the CDs have made their way into my library in other formats, so the collection would be simply nostalgic for me now.

I'd love to read that book again, though.

SIDE ONE
FISHBONE, "Party at Ground Zero"
CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN, "Take the Skinheads Bowling"
LIL' ED & THE BLUES IMPERIALS, "Pride & Joy"
BUTTHOLE SURFERS, "Moving to Florida"
This is one of the artists that existed in a netherworld of idle discussion completely disassociated from actual heard music before I on the discs that fed this mix. It was a dirty name that had enough recognition to earn some back hallway giggles amongst my friends and me in high school. We had no idea what they sounded like, but probably imagined it was akin to the sound of static on the radio in Hades.
JESUS AND MARY CHAIN, "Just Like Honey"
SONIC YOUTH, "Death Valley '69"
...speaking of static on the radio in Hades...
LIVING COLOUR, "Cult of Personality"
METALLICA, "Battery"
SUGARCUBES, "Birthday"
This band was holding mighty sway on the world of college radio when I arrived in it. I, with a kneejerk skepticism of anything that could described with the term otherworldly, took some time to warm to it. It probably didn't help that the albums which followed Life's Too Good were, frankly, not very good. Eventually I came to see the thrilling ingenuity of this work, but it took longer than I'd care to admit.
THE CULT, "She Sells Sanctuary"

SIDE TWO
INXS, "What You Need"
LOVE AND ROCKETS, "No New Tale To Tell"
MIDNIGHT OIL, "Put Down That Weapon"
For awhile, Midnight Oil was the obscure band of the moment. Their album Diesel and Dust was championed in multiple quarters and MTV offered them saturation airplay, at least for one of their songs. It was significant just being introduced to the notion that another song was worth being singled out as the sole addition to a compilation aspiring to being definitive.
SINEAD O'CONNOR, "I Want Your Hands On Me"
THE CHURCH, "Tantalized"
10,000 MANIACS, "Don't Talk"
This is the only song on this tape that I owned before packing up for college. My gradual development from someone who coveted the Eric Clapton box set to a devoted assembler of the entire Replacements discography included a few dalliances with the safer residents of the 120 Minutes nation. No matter what anyone says, In My Tribe is still a great record.
PIXIES, "Gigantic"
THE GODFATHERS, "This Damn Nation"
It's often amusing to take stock of a collection like this several years after it was issued. There's a tendency to include some of the bands of the moment, those performers who might be anticipated to become the pivotal artists of their era. I suspect if CMJ assembled a collection from their first twenty years now that the Godfathers would be entirely absent from the track list.
STEVE EARLE, "Someday"
DINOSAUR JR., "Freak Scene"
PUBLIC ENEMY, "Don't Believe the Hype"
This three-song sequence represents something that I loved about college radio at the time, something that was almost revelatory to me. There was something stirring about going from a fierce song with a distinct country twang to a molasses-thick guitar rocker to a rap manifesto that sounded like the first guncrack of the new revolation, the trio unified by only one characteristic: they're damn good. The treatise of what radio could be was contained into the pauses between the songs, the anticipation that anything could be coming next.

Further North
2003

This tape was one of two made specifically for a roadtrip from Florida to Wisconsin. We're talking about a lot of miles, so this journey wasn't made often during our time wilting in the sunshine state. I'm not even entirely certain what inspired the trip. I do know that we had our first dog, Parker, with us in the car. We made the mistake of stopping at a Macon, Georgia ice cream stand know for serving up free scoops (complete with a biscuit on top) for dogs. She enjoyed it and it was very cute. Until twenty minutes later when we discovered a certain degree of lactose intolerance in our canine companion. The smell of vanilla ice cream dog vomit was an unexpected and unwelcome component to the trip.

I made a cover for the tape, using a bit of the online map of our route. That's what's pictured above.

The first tape was called, as you may suspect, North. That's also a better movie than you've heard.

SIDE ONE
BENNY GOODMAN, "Sing, Sing, Sing"
LUCINDA WILLIAMS, "Righteously"
WATERBOYS, "We Will Not Be Lovers"
Clip of JAKE JOHANNSEN speculating on the sort of advice a dog might offer
HINTON BATTLE with MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG, "What You Feel"
If anything, I'm a little surprised I don't have every last song from "Once More With Feeling" scattered amongst various tapes. By now I certainly would have moved on to Dr. Horrible songs. Neil Patrick Harris is a much better singer anyway.
CAT POWER, "I Don't Blame You"
R.E.M., "Letter Never Sent"
RILO KILEY, "The Execution of All Things"
THE E TYPES, "Put the Clock Back on the Wall"
This is one of those tracks afforded a honored place in the pantheon of Rhino reissue approved Nuggets songs. I'm not sure which derivation (or derivations) of that series it appeared on. Right around the time of this tape, I had gone through several samplers housed in the radio station and crafted my own CD compilation of classic, ferocious garage rock. For purposes of the mix, this comes from that disc.
WISKEY BISCUIT, "Santa Ana River Delta Blues"
NEKO CASE, "Pretty Girls"
THE CLASH, "Koka Kola"
STUD COLE, "Feels Good"
Around this time, my addiction to Mojo Magazine was at its most irresistible. I'd pour through the record reviews to find new music to seek out, but the real problem area was the "Reissues" part of the magazine. Having long since grown weary of the limited array of classic rock songs deemed worthy of perpetual preservation through unimaginative radio playlists, I was completely flummoxed by the sheer array of music contained monthly in those pages that I'd not heard of and that sounded, through the top-notch writing dedicated to it, phenomenal. The reissue of this completely obscures artist's repertoire was described as the sound of Elvis Presley in his prime fronting a garage band. That was enough for me to ask my favorite central Wisconsin record store proprietor to secure it for me.

SIDE TWO
BOB DYLAN, "Things Have Changed"
MITCH & MICKEY, "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow"
A couple of movie songs to kick off side two. I remain amazed at how effectively "Kiss" manages to be a pitch-perfect spoof and a sweet little song simultaneously.
Clip of JAKE JOHANNSEN discussing just how motivational a "night out with the guys" is (about on par with sitting home alone watching TV with a loaded gun in his mouth)
THE BELLRAYS, "Say What You Mean"
SOUL ASYLUM, "Chains"
EURYTHMICS, "I've Tried Everything"
Clip of JAKE JOHANNSEN on a common conflict between men and women
PATTI SMITH, "Space Monkey"
HONEY CONE, "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show"
You see what I did there? I'm fairly certain the Patti Smith was pulled out specifically because I wanted to include this song from three extraordinary canaries, another piece of music I picked up because of my slavish devotion to the Mojo. I'm a little surprised the monkey run didn't extend for at least a couple more songs. I clearly didn't own any James Kochalka records at the time of the tape's assembly.
Clip of JAKE JOHANNSEN discussing the different approaches of Republicans and Democrats when they reach office
THE KILLS, "Superstition"
TACKHEAD, "Mind and Movement"
NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS, "Wonderful Life"
THE STROKES, "Is This It?"

The New Hampshire Avalanche Bantam C Team
2005

I was uncertain about the precise date this mix was assembled. Then I realized precisely why the first song on the tape was selected.

I made this to accompany my long solo trip to Athens, Georgia a couple of years ago. It was a mini-vacation with the intention of preparing the syllabus and other materials for the first college course I would teach. Athens loomed large for me when I was in college, as was probably the case for more than few people who worked on the left end of the dial back when R.E.M. was the seminal band.

It's a 60-minute tape, a length that's always given me some difficulty and there's a certain haphazard quality to it. I also think, given some of the songs present, that I probably made the mix on the computer, burned it to a couple CDs and then transferred it to audio. All this contributes to it feeling, to me, like a somewhat haphazard mix.

The title of the tape derives from a Google Image Search on the two-word phrase "just once," which appears prominently and repeatedly in the first song on the tape. I surveyed the page of results that came up and picked the picture that most amused (or maybe in this case perplexed) me. The talented youths in that photo gave me my odd title.

SIDE ONE
TOO MUCH JOY, "Grandma Went to Athens, Once"
DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979, "Better Off Dead"
I was using Mojo magazine mercilessly during this stretch, pouring through every issue, looking for ideas about songs to try to track down, either through download or prowling through the stacks at WPRK. I believe this particular track derives from one of the compilation CDs the publication routinely glues to the cover.
ORANGE JUICE, "Falling and Laughing"
ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN, "Silver"
EVERYBODY ELSE, "I Gotta Run"
I'll confess that I had no idea what this was when it came up during the listen I recently gave the tape to determine the track listing. An Internet search pulled up an album that didn't look familiar familiar in the slightest. Finally, I figured out that I pulled this from a comp that came into the radio station during a stretch when I was helping the music director knock through a backlog of releases. As previously noted, I usually tried to throw on a hearty collection of songs I wasn't entirely familiar with on these things as a means of always trying to expand my musical vocabulary, but it's rare that something is such anonymous filler that I'm completely stumped by it later.
LOVE AND ROCKETS, "No New Tale To Tell"
BOBBIE GENTRY, "Chickasaw County Child"
EDIE BRICKELL, "Carmelito"
SIMON & GARFUNKEL, "America"
The bulk of the Simon & Garfunkel catalog is overly familiar to such a degree that I can get very cynical about it. That is, until I hear this song again. "'Kathy, I'm lost,' I said, though I knew she was sleeping/I'm empty and aching and I don't know why" remains one of the most devastating lyrics I know of in all of pop music.

SIDE TWO
BOB MOULD, "Gauze of Friendship"
THE DAMNED, "Stranger on the Town"
My appreciation for Fred Armisen increased significantly when he included Strawberries by The Damned on a "Must Have" list of CDs (it doesn't hurt that he's got Husker Du and two--count 'em, two!--Sleater-Kinney discs on there).
THE ADVERTS, "One Chord Wonder"
NEKO CASE, "The Tigers Have Spoken"
I cited this song in the first Five for Friday. It remains one of the saddest songs I know. Seriously.
TOM WAITS, "Hold On"
WHITE STRIPES, "I Bound to Pack It Up"
There's not a lot of my cutesy little tricks on this mix. In fact, this seems to be the only one, shifting from Waits' quietly elegant plea to hold on to Jack White wearily announcing he's taking off.
THE BRAVERY, "Open Heart Surgery"

It's Too Late To Cut the Grass, Not Much To Rake Anyway in the Fall
Circa 2000

There's not much backstory to this one, beyond the detail that this was during a stretch when I was cranking out a fresh mix with some regularity, in part because of a somewhat lengthy commute and the early deterioration of commercial radio. I was buying new music at a healthy clip and taking less and less time to sit and listen to the albums, so dropping tunes onto cassettes was my best means to get something of a working knowledge of the additions to my collection.

The title is a line from a song on the mix. It's probably fairly identifiable to many of the people perusing this slice of the Web.

SIDE ONE
BILLY BRAGG, "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards"
SARGE, "Detroit Star-Lite"
Due credit for this selection goes to slomack who testified to the value of this Illinois band, particularly songwriter Elizabeth Elmore. This song is off of Distant, the stray bits collection that heralded the end of the band. The less polished and live versions found here are far better than what wound up on their proper albums. I should have seen them live when slomack invited me to join her at UW-Madison.
THE KINKS, "Everybody's Gonna Be Happy"
HALF MILER, "Here Comes a Regular"
FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE, "Lost in Space"
ELLIOTT SMITH, "Ballad of Big Nothing"
firthofforth can make the claim to being our household's more dedicated Elliott Smith fan, but I had a stretch in which I was going out of my way to wedge his songs onto these mixes. As I recall, I specifically selected this song because some other musician had singled it out as a favorite in the Spin's "Best Albums of the Nineties" issue. I wasn't a big fan of the magazine by that point, but I was a sucker for those sorts of list issues. I can't imagine buying a "Best of the Aughts" issue this time next year.
ANI DIFRANCO, "Not a Pretty Girl"
XTC, "You and the Clouds Will Still Be Beautiful"
CRACKER, "My Life is Totally Boring Without You"
MARSHALL CRENSHAW, "That's It, I Quit, I'm Movin' On"
Around here, I was apparently duplicating (or anticipating) that tape I made with a side filled with lengthier song titles. This is a fine, if obscure, bit of Crenshaw songwriting.
HARVEY DANGER, "Flagpole Sitta"
This is an interesting song. It's engaging in the manner of a big dumb action movie. I feel a little guilty every time I derive some enjoyment from listening to it, especially when truly atrocious lines like following up "Been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding/the cretins cloning and feeding" with the idiotic retort "And I don't even own a TV" (oh, you're so daring).
RAMONES, "Listen to My Heart"
YO LA TENGO, "Sugar Cube"
Before I even knew about the greatness of the music video, which I will clearly link to each and every chance I get.
JAMES, "I Know What I'm Here For"
I credited slomack for the Sarge song, it's only fair that I note this song is in our collection because pointcowtown threw the import-only CD Millionaires on at a party and at least one member of our household found it irresistible.

SIDE TWO
MOBY, "Honey"
LOS LOBOS, ""Oh Yeah"
This is from the This Time album, which I bought at Amoeba Music in San Francisco, in part because I was certain it would sound especially good emanating from the speakers of the convertible we'd rented for our drive down Route 1. I was correct. We also got an Apples in Stereo CD, a couple Cat Power discs, and a Fishing with John DVD. That was a productive shopping trip.
CORNERSHOP, "Sleep on the Left Side"
TLC, "No Scrubs"
THE GET-UP KIDS, "Holiday"
MIKE WATT, "Against the 70's"
Featuring the vocal styling of Eddie Vedder. This represents, I do believe, the only time I sullied a tape with the oversinging of the Pearl Jam frontman. Such was the allure of Mr. Watt. You can understand why this would have been the lead single of Watt's debut solo album, given it coincided with the peak popularity of Vedder's band. It's perhaps more in keeping with Watt's sensibility that the second single was about urinating in a bottle to avoid stopping during long car trips.
TODD RUNDGREN, "Wolfman Jack"
BOSS HOG, "Fear for You"
TORI AMOS, "Crucify"
ROBYN HITCHCOCK, "Elizabeth Jade"
POGUES, "Lorelei"
One of the rare instances in which a Pogues song without Shane MacGowan lead vocals is worthy of attention. Since I'm handing out credit, I was introduced to the merits of this song by someone whose name showed up in, of all places, a New York Times Magazine article today.
ABRA MOORE, "Four Leaf Clover"
THE FACES, "Ooh La La"
Yes, there was a time when I was determined to get every song from the Rushmore soundtrack onto mixes. I came surprisingly close.

Just Another Tuesday Night in Sunnydale
1999

It's strange to think of it now, with our DVD box sets nestled into the collection and certain spin-off products equally welcomed into our home, but we resisted the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer for quite some time. Sure, it was getting endless, breathless raves from Entertainment Weekly and other trusted sources, and our household had a well-established openness to entertainment on the geekier tip. It may have been lingering animosity towards the original film, a reluctance to commit to another weekly program or just a a prejudice against a show set in high school. Whatever the reason, we didn't watch any of it until we were looking for a distraction during chores on a Tuesday night and tuned in the episode "Dead Man's Party." It was good enough that we were willing to watch again, becoming really impressed around the time of "Lovers Walk," and full-fledged fans around the time of "The Zeppo."

For me, the hopeless devotion started at "Doppelgangland," appropriately enough, an episode written and directed by series creator Joss Whedon. I'm not sure if that episode specifically inspired this tape, but it's certain all over it.

The title of the tape, naturally, is a wonderfully self-aware line from Buffy.

SIDE ONE
NERF HERDER, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme"
ANI DIFRANCO, "Angry Anymore"
LIZ PHAIR, "What Makes You Happy"
THE KINKS, "Nothing In This World Can Stop Me Worrin' Bout That Girl"
Here's where two of my mass media obsessions from the late nineties collide. No matter where this song first appeared, it is always a vital, stirring part of the Rushmore soundtrack to me. So a mix tape layered with Buffy references includes a touch of Max Fischer, too.
THE STRANGLERS, "Duchess"
Audio clip of NICHOLAS BRENDON as Xander, asking "What's going on? Is there a funny thing?"
BRUCE McCULLOCH, "Daves I Know"
Following Xander's excitement over the prospect of a funny thing, I try to oblige. Usually, anything that can be categorized as comedy rock wears thin for me quickly, but we're talking about Kids in the Hall here. The usual rules don't apply.
JOHN MELLENCAMP, "What If I Came Knocking?"
MARSHALL CRENSHAW, "You're My Favorite Waste of Time"
Audio clip of ALYSON HANNIGAN as Willow saying, "It's really nice that you guys missed me. Say, you all didn't happen to do a bunch of drugs, did ya?"
ROBYN HITCHCOCK, "Madonna of the Wasps"
Clearly, I was using the sound clips selected--all beloved lines from the episode in question--to help me figure out where to go next on the tape. No matter what else I may have in my music collection at any given time, I can always count on Mr. Hitchcock have some of the druggiest selections. This pop song, crystalline in its perfection, isn't necessarily so odd. The spoken word intro is plenty strange, though. (When he performed the song on Late Night with David Letterman, the intro was even weirder.)
MADONNA, "Skin"
From "Madonna of the Wasps" to Madonna. You see what I did there?
TOO MUCH JOY, "Pirate"
Audio clip of ALYSON HANNIGAN as Willow saying, "It's horrible. That's me as a vampire? I'm so evil, and skanky... and I think I'm kinda gay."
CONCRETE BLONDE, "Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)"
THE BEATLES, "Happiness is a Warm Gun"

SIDE TWO
SISTERS OF MERCY, "More"
This is a song that's just waiting to be expertly used in a ultra-cool horror movie.
Audio clip of NICHOLAS BRENDON as Xander saying, "So, um, in your reality, I'm like this bad-ass vampire, huh? People afraid of me? Oh, yeah. I'm bad."
THE PASSIONS, "I'm in Love With a German Film Star"
PULP, "Look Like Me"
THE WEDDING PRESENT, "Let's Make Some Plans"
R.E.M., "Furry Happy Monsters"
Since we're already wallowing in Buffy connections, in an interview with The Onion, Seth Green talked about getting on Sesame Street by essentially calling up the producers and asking if he was famous enough to appear on the show. That gets at the sensation of seeing the little ol' band from Athens, Georgia cavorting with monsters that were equally furry and happy (and also briefly sad, until Michael Stipe gives them a pep talk). This was well before such a musical lark was readily available through the magic of the Interweb, so some VCR gymnastics were required to preserve it.
HOLE, "Awful"
MATERIAL ISSUE, "I Could Use You"
JONATHAN RICHMAN, "Velvet Underground"
VELVET UNDERGROUND, "Heard Her Call My Name"
You see what I did there? Oh, it's ever so clever.
LYLE LOVETT, "Bears"
LUCINDA WILLIAMS, "Still I Long For Your Kiss"

He Would Have Made A Fine Pastry Filling
Circa 2000

Thus far in this series I've focused exclusively on mix tapes that I assembled. There's an inherent inaccuracy to that sample since those overstuffed Converse shoeboxes of mine contained tapes with several different editors. Those now need to go by the wayside, as well, and they are equally (if not more) worthy of celebration and commemoration.

This tape is the handiwork of firthofforth. I used to regularly embark on cross-country journeys with my esteemed cohort satchpaige. He's an artful mix-maker himself so we usually had a hefty assemblage of freshly written upon little boxes the approximate size and shape of a deck of playing cards (not to mention some actual playing cards that were fairly unique). But we always had a lot of ground to cover, making us especially excited when other friends would donate songs collected in 90 minute increments to the cause. firthofforth provided this to us with the express instructions, commonplace amongst our crew, to avoid looking at the playlist until we'd listened to the whole tape. The point, naturally, was to keep us from guessing the theme too early. Despite the major hint on the cover, we were embarrassingly deep into the tape before we figured it out. I'll bravely reveal the extent of our shame below.

The derivation of the tape's title should be readily apparent to the cool kids among you.

Incidentally, many of these tapes are discarded after being detailed in this space. I think I'm going to keep this one for a bit longer.

SIDE ONE
APOLLO SMILE, "Thunderbox"
Apollo Smile's self-titled CD was nothing more than a blip at our college radio station upon its release, but it got a strange second wind when Spin magazine designated it as one of the great unheard records of the year (or some such thing). On that basis, I snapped it up the first time I saw the CD used. Despite several attempts, it remains one of those CDs that sits unloved in the case. While Googling around in preparation for this post, I discovered this song is featured on the soundtrack to a truly terrible movie.
BILLY BRAGG and WILCO, "Hoodoo Voodoo"
THE CHILLS, "The On Coming Day"
ANI DIFRANCO, "Gravel"
It's fitting that the Righteous Babe shows up on the tape since it was firthofforth who introduced me to her music. Many of the songs for this mix were pulled from the chunk of the collection that had my fingerprints all over it, but she made sure that her signature artists (at least at the time) were duly represented.
ED'S REDEEMING QUALITIES, "Met a Man"
FASTBALL, "The Way"
GUADALCANAL DIARY, "Always Saturday"
a true favorite from back in the college radio days. Both satchpaige and I ensured ample airtime for this particular tune, making it an excellent choice for the mix. It's a great driving song, too.
ROBYN HITCHCOCK, "This Could Be the Day"
IVORY LIBRARY, "Small"
One of those Madison, Wisconsin bands that came and went too early to leave much of an electronic trace on the Interweb, although their follow-up outfit can easily be found.
THE JUDYBATS, "Margo Known As Missy"
PAUL KELLY, "Extra Mile"
BEN LEE, "Red Slurpee"

SIDE TWO (labeled as "I Say We Bake Him in a Quiche")
MADONNA, "Ray of Light"
Maddie was always, at best, a curiosity to me with a handful of songs that qualified as pop song guilty pleasures. Then she released Ray of Light, and, briefly, she had a honored place in our CD player. As I recall, satchpaige liked this song, too, but then we were always uncharacteristically susceptible to silly pop songs on those trips.
NOISE ADDICT, "Brinsley"
SINEAD O'CONNOR, "Mandinka"
This is a song that encourages you to press a little more forcefully on that gas pedal. For that reason, it's a dangerous mix tape offering.
IGGY POP, "Lust For Life"
QUEEN, "Stone Cold Crazy"
THE REPLACEMENTS, "Alex Chilton"
Sadly, it took us until this point to figure out the fairly clear theme of the tape. It only came to us after we openly asked "Why on earth did she go from Iggy Pop to Queen to The Replacements?" In our defense, we were trying to concentrate on the road. And I think it was late. And we were having a miserable time trying to find a place to sleep in Indiana.
SPACEHOG, "Goodbye Violet Race"
TOO MUCH JOY, "How to Be Happy"
URGE OVERKILL, "Sister Havana"
VOICE OF THE BEEHIVE, "Playing House"
WILCO, "Some Day Soon"
XTC, "Poor Skeleton Steps Out"
It's probably, what, 95% of mixes engaging in a similarly alphabetical theme that includes either this band or a certain Los Angeles band in this slot. Then there's the other 5%.
YOUNG FRESH FELLOWS, "Looking Around"
MARTIN ZELLAR, "Problem Solved"
A final word from ZORAK