The Long of It, The Short of It
Circa 2000

The scheme behind this one should be apparent. I'd been stewing on this idea for some time before perching in front on the stereo to pull it together. This would be so much easier in the iTunes era, just for the relative ease in scanning the thousands of titles at my disposal.

SIDE ONE
THE GODFATHERS, "Just Because You're Not Paranoid Doesn't Mean To Say They're Not Going To Get You!"
In the most recent Five for Friday, the man who wears number 19 for the Cakers reminded me of this British band that had a minor hit in the late 1980's with a succinct cataloging of the rigors of life. Despite the relatively small splash they made, there was still a "best of" release, which is where I pulled this from.
BEULAH, "If We Can Land a Man on the Moon, Surely I Can Win Your Heart"
YO LA TENGO, "Ultra-Powerful Short Wave Radio Picks Up Music From Venus"
FLAMING LIPS, "Guy Who Got a Headache and Accidentally Saves The World"
The lyrics are fairly vague, but this song somehow always felt fully fleshed out to me. Like the saga of Yoshimi that eventually followed, it seems like a completely, weird short story.
LYLE LOVETT, "Ballad of the Snow Leopard and the Tanqueray Cowboy"
THE JUDYBATS, "Down in the Shacks Where the Satellite Dishes Grow"
AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB, "How Many Six Packs Does It Take To Screw In A Light?"
MANIC STREET PREACHERS, "If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next"
On the rare occasions that I invoke Manic Street Preachers in this slice of the Web, I inevitably feel like I'm pleading for forgiveness from ilikemusic for not liking them more.
THE MAGNETIC FIELDS, "The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Dancing"
U2, "Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around the World"
BUFFALO TOM, "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here"
I dislike grammar enough that despite an Bachelor of Arts in English and this song representing one of my favorite Schoolhouse Rock's, I'm still can't tell you what an adverb is with any authority. I love those old Saturday morning lessons-in-catchy-disguise and the idea of the covers record seemed somewhat inspired at the time. It wasn't a great CD to listen to all the way through, but it was nice to have around for mixes.
DUSTY SPRINGFIELD, "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself"
MASSIVE ATTACK WITH TRACEY THORN, "The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game"

SIDE TWO
DJ RAP, "Go"
DANCE HALL CRASHERS, "Go"
Ha ha, see what I did there?
NED'S ATOMIC DUSTBIN, "You"
R.E.M., "You"
Ha ha, see what I did there?
GREEN DAY, "She"
THE BREEDERS, "Hag"
VIOLENT FEMMES, "Fat"
CONCRETE BLONDE, "Sun"
GAY DAD, "Joy"
I recall pouring through the high stack of CMJ New Music Monthly compilation CD's, figuring that if I was going to make my song selections largely on the basis on the relative length of the song titles, I may as well find some stuff I wouldn't otherwise think to listen to. The name of this band is awful enough that I may have regularly bypassed them, but this song is damn catchy.
BEN FOLDS FIVE, "Army"
I probably should have tried to stick with two-letter and three-letter songs titles, but, as I recall, I really wanted to get this Ben Folds Five song on a tape. I was still several months away from a move to the south, so I didn't know that the reference to Chick-Fil-A was about an actual restaurant chain.
LIZ PHAIR, "Ride"
ANI DIFRANCO, "Itch"
BIG STAR, "Feel"
ELASTICA, "Blue"
THE REPLACEMENTS, "Otto"
Those were the days.

Track 4, Volume 3
2005

In advance of my solo road trip to Athens, Georgia I decided I was woefully lacking in fresh mix tapes. I would have a lot of pavement to cross with no companionship other than that I coaxed out of my car stereo speakers. For a few days, I went of something of a mix tape preparation frenzy, but I didn't have the time to do it the proper way with deep consideration of each track and the overall flow of the tape. I needed a different scheme. I decided to pull out a big stack of CDs and populate my cassettes with the fourth track from each one.

I don't remember if there was a particular fourth track that I wanted to be certain to include or if I did it out of some vague sense of symbolic significance to track number four instilled by satch_paige or slomack or maybe the back cover to R.E.M.'s Green. The derivation is unclear. There were three tapes total made with this methodology. This, as the title implies, is the third.

SIDE ONE
BOB DYLAN, "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)"
MASSIVE ATTACK, "Be Thankful For What You've Got"
One of the goals behind this tape was getting myself to listen a little more closely to some of the albums (if only one humble track) that had been making their respective ways into the household CD player. Blue Lines was one of those albums I snapped up used as soon as I saw it, listened to fairly often after I had gotten and then eventually started to let my finger drift right on by on the way to a Material Issue CD while perusing the collection for something to listen to. I like the music and always admire it's craft when I hear it, but I'll admit that it doesn't really stick with me.
RILO KILEY, "So Long"
LIZ PHAIR, "Dancer of the Seven Veils"
ROLLING STONES, "Casino Boogie"
The ever-do-clever moment on this mix tape was segueing from an Exile in Guyville track to an Exile on Main Street slab of aural toughness. There are probably thousands upon thousands of other mix tapes that use this same trick.
LOVE, "The Daily Planet"
MY MORNING JACKET, "Master Plan"
THE WEEDS, "Better Now"
A garage-y band out of Madison, Wisconsin that played one of the last 90FM Trivia Kickoff Concerts. We bullied them into playing a cover of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" with The Replacements' "Skyway" interjected into the middle of it that we remembered from a show they had played at the university a few years earlier. We also did the "Simple Men dance" when they played their song "Nancy Sinatra," which was a minor hit at the radio station at the time. That was a good night. This song comes from the album King Crow, which doesn't generate a ripple on the ol' Interweb. A Google search of "The Weeds" and "King Crow" yields a grand total of 16 results, none of them related to the band or album in question.

SIDE TWO
R.E.M., "Cuyahoga"
I was going to Athens after all.
WIRE, "Ex Lion Tamer"
TORI AMOS, "Strange"
STARS, "Reunion"
I was a touch obsessed with this song at the time. I recall pulling it up repeatedly on my iTunes in the hotel room. There are many lines in this song that still inspire an immediate, involuntary smile. "In the year of my decline/Sucking freezies in the rain" will do it right off the top.
SONIC YOUTH, "Mariah Carey and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream"
By the time the album was released, "Mariah Carey" had been changed to "Kim Gordon." The WPRK copy had the original title. It was probably stolen.
PATTI SMITH, "Cartwheels"
PJ HARVEY, "Pocket Knife"
CLINIC, "Walking With Thee"

Compliments of WMAD 92.1
Circa 1996

I've disparaged my time working in commercial radio with great gusto and I'm not likely to recede from that viewpoint. The field of broadcasting was already well into the rotting process that has led to current state of corporate-driven, nationalized radio as the overwhelming norm. When I worked for WMAD ("Madison's New Rock Alternative") in the mid-90's, the place was this burgeoning media monopoly. I think seven of the city's radio stations were owned by the same company and the clear goal was to keep flipping this group to bigger and bigger companies. A few years after I quit, this block of stations was under the Clear Channel umbrella, all life thoroughly drained.

That noted animosity aside, there was actually quite a few aspects of working there that I liked. For one thing, I was primarily working weekend overnights which meant I was alone in the station most of the time, allowing for random hijinks. Me being me, this usually meant nothing much more serious than neglecting my DJ responsibilities to make mix tapes in the production studio.

SIDE ONE
RAMONES, "Do You Remember Rock'n'Roll Radio?"
How better to kick off a tape assembled in the belly of the beast than with a classic putdown of the state of radio?
CAKE, "Rock'n'Roll Lifestyle"
JEWEL, "God's Gift To Women"
The poet, future actress and eventual "Star" hunter became insufferable so quickly. But when she was first breaking in, some simple sleuthing could yield the occasional winner, such as this b-side that's brisk, pointed and genuinely funny.
GARBAGE, "Kick My Ass"
TRANSVISION VAMP, "Tell That Girl To Shut up"
CHRIS MARS, "Popular Creeps"
I'm not even sure what this was doing in the station. We certainly never played it (same with the fantastic song listed directly above). Maybe the best single to come from a Mats solo album.
BECK, "Beercan"
SINEAD O'CONNOR, "Fire On Babylon"
HUNTERS & COLLECTORS, "Back on the Breadline"
I remember a road trip to Chicago that, of course, included tuning into WXRT as soon as we were in range. They played this song from the sadly obscure Australian band and it sounded so good as we were cruising along those packed city highways. Any time I hear this song (which isn't as often as I'd like) it takes me right back there.
THE CLASH, "Lost in the Supermarket"
SEBADOH, "Ocean"
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS, "Youth Culture Killed My Dog"
LIVING COLOUR, "Solace of You"

SIDE TWO
CRACKER, "Eurotrash Girl"
I recently read an article that called this the greatest hidden track ever. That's quite an assertion considering "Train in Vain" is technically a hidden track (I remember the battered vinyl copy at 90FM had the title written in in deeply pressed ballpoint ink under the official track listing on the back). If you confine the argument to the CD era, then they might have a good point. All us dopey boys, always looking for that "angel in black."
NECTARINE, "Even the Losers"
Off of a long-forgotten Tom Petty tribute album. I liked this version because I could sing the opening lyrics to Springsteen's "Growin' Up" convincingly over the intro. It was like an early home-brew mash-up.
IGGY POP, "Livin' On The Edge of the Night"
I'm not sure how resident Iggy expert ("Igspert"?) caker_66 feels about this song (taken from, of all places, the Black Rain sound track) but something about the earnest drama of the lyrics and Iggy's delivery ("So I take a little bad with the good/It ain't just black and white") that I find really appealing.
X, "4th of July"
PIXIES, "Head On"
THE GO-GOS, "Head Over Heels"
Look! Back to back "Head" songs. Oh, I was a clever monkey.
TRACEY ULLMAN, "They Don't Know"
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, "Show Me You Soul"
Another unlikely soundtrack contribution, this time to Pretty Woman. What little patience I had for the Peppers was decisively eradicated by working at a station that forced me to play their least interesting songs over and over again. This relative obscurity evades my scorn.
SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES, "O Baby"
The lead single off of their last album, which briefly generated some added excitement because it was produced by John Cale. It's a nice little song, but it, and the album, went nowhere. Not long after the Sex Pistols reunited and Siouxsie announced the dissolution of her band in response. Something about not wanting to keep at it in a music world where the sad cash-grab reunion of aging punk icons was happening. Bless her.
MADONNA, "I'll Remember"
BILLY BRAGG, "Little Time Bomb"
MORPHINE, "Gone For Good"
As I recall, casino_queen introduced me to this song. And then, weirdly enough, the mediocre film 2 Days in the Valley utilized it, locking it into my head for good (I think I was grateful to get the momentary distraction of a song that was more interesting than the movie's contrived plot).

"I Will Not Yell "She's Dead" During Roll Call
Circa 1994

I'm fairly confident about the date on this one. It was definitely made in the 90FM production studio since it contains music that I only could have obtained there, and the Tori song (as people on my friends list will tell you) couldn't have reasonably been included before January of '94. As mentioned in the previous related post, this tape contains material that is not easily replaceable, largely because I raided my beloved "C Stacks" with impunity.

The title of the mix is lifted from "The Simpsons," specifically it's the sentence Bart writes repeatedly on the blackboard at the beginning of the episode "Selma's Choice," which is notable for a memorable trip to Duff Gardens ("Oh, I'm not a doctor") and ending with an allusion to "Murphy Brown" that probably leaves current viewers perplexed.

SIDE ONE
GUADALCANAL DIARY, "Litany (Life Goes On)"
THE CONNELLS, "Slackjawed"
THE WOODIES, "Pretty Brown Eyes"
This would be one of those bands totally lost to time. I think they were from Florida. The station had one record from them, an ep I think. I recall it being review in CMJ at the time, but their Website betrays no knowledge of such a band. This is an incredibly jubilant blast of pop song goodness, swooning at the ocular treasures of the title. The record may not even be in the station any longer. That may be a true of a few of the things on this tracklist.
FURY IN THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE, "Every Generation Got Its Own Disease."
With a band name that bleak, they've got to be from Germany, right? They're apparently a pretty big deal in their home country, so it's easier to track them down on that big wide 'net.
SATELLITE BOYFRIEND, "Bam Bam Bah"
"I'm gonna feel good today!" I seem to remember this hitting the station at about the same time as a Dillon Fence record in a short-lived insurgency that had no chance against the nova-flash of grunge from a certain northwestern metropolis. Again, there's little trace of this band on the Interweb. This is actually a tape where I mixed the songs together and this flows seamlessly into the following track.
POSSUM DIXON, "I Watch That Girl Destroy Me"
TREAT HER RIGHT, "I Think She Likes Me"
E-I-E-I-O, "Hey Cecilia"
Dairy rock!

SIDE TWO
TORI AMOS, "God"
SINEAD O'CONNOR, "You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart"
From the In the Name of the Father soundtrack. This is an especially good song when driving at night.
NEW ORDER, "Regret"
SEE DICK RUN, "Boy Meets Girl"
Holy crud! Not only is this song readily available (I just downloaded it), but these guys seem to still be around! I played this mixtape on a long ago overnight drive from St. Louis to Dallas. As I recall, this song roused satch_paige from his passenger seat slumber to pay his compliments.
MERYN CADELL, "Jonny and Betty"
THE HOOTERS, "Satellite"
THE POGUES, "Tuesday Morning"
This song is the exception proving the number two rule of Irish music: The Pogues without Shane MacGowan is a pallid imitation. (The number one rule of Irish music is that "Danny Boy" is a horrible song.)
MICHELLE SHOCKED, "Must Be Luff"
A HOUSE, "Call Me Blue"
A splendid mixtape standby, when an eyeball check of the remaining wound tape on the right reel looks like it just won't contain another three-minutes, there's always this astounding two minute blast of energy.

I've got a new "catch-up reviews" post to do, but even I'm a little worn out by all the movie stuff in recent days. So let's start up a new recurring feature instead. As I noted a couple of weeks ago, my humble vehicle has a new stereo in it. For the first time, I have a CD player. Also, I no longer have a cassette deck. This means I have a small brick foundation's worth of mix tapes that will now dusty and unheard in any number of Converse shoeboxes in our house. In tribute to the many, many hours I've devoted to listening to these 90-minute collections (as well as the extensive time spent sitting in front of a stereo surrounding by the CDs and albums that would serve as the raw material for putting various mixes together), I'm going to track the individual tapes as they meet their sadly inevitable retirement.


Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd Like to Introduce the High Hat
2001

That date indicates this is probably the last tape I made while residing in America's Dairyland, maybe to commemorate the new vehicle, which the students I would soon be working with referred to with barbed affection as my "Grandpa Car."

SIDE ONE
NAKED CITY, "A Shot in the Dark"
from the John Zorn album that gained as much notoriety for its frankly brutal cover art as for its crazily abrasive jazz music. I well remember this release being featured on the front cover of CMJ back when the weekly trade publication showcased the four best new releases with fearless accuracies. Since the album didn't duplicate the success then enjoyed by similarly sharp-edged Sonic Youth, it's fair to say this choice puzzled more impressionable music directors than it emboldened. Despite being in as safe of a college station as you could get (a minor claim to fame after I graduated was being ahead of the curve on Hootie and the Blowfish), my alma mater gave the release a place in heavy rotation. It didn't take off there either, but this cover of the Henry Mancini piece that often accompanies the exploits of a cartoon panther stuck with me.
JOHNNY CASH, "Cocaine Blues"
PJ HARVEY, "Big Exit"
NENEH CHERRY, "Buffalo Stance"
Where the title of the tape comes from. Now tambourine, right now!
TRAVIS, "Driftwood"
BIG DIPPER, "She's Fetching"
This came off of the surprisingly good compilation Gimme Indie Rock. Surprising not just because of its silly title and low-rent cover art, but because it was produced by K-Tel, the label famous for a series of hopelessly cheesy compilation LPs and accompanying commercials (that apparently couldn't be bothered to get the spelling of Diana Ross's name correct).
WILCO, "A Shot in the Arm"
YO LA TENGO, "You Can Have It All"
THE CURE, "Just Like Heaven"
I'm guessing its inclusion here means I had just gotten a used CD copy of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. My copy still has a sticker for $6.98 on it. I think from Frugal Muse. I spent a lot of lunch hours there around that time, distracting myself from the misery of my job through music and book purchases.
SELF, "Meg Ryan"
SARGE, "The First Morning"
R.E.M., "Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)"

SIDE TWO
ROLLING STONES, "Gimme Shelter"
NIRVANA, "Breed"
ANI DIFRANCO, "Cloud Blood"
It was the section on angels that really sold me: "Every other song, someone's trying to write angels into the world/every grace, every ace, every near miss/every decent kiss by a pretty girl."
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN, "Women's Realm"
SUGAR, "Needle Hits E"
WIRE, "Mannequin"
Off of Pink Flag, which I bought from an Austin, Texas CD emporium somewhere between Rangers Ballpark in Arlington and the Astrodome on a long-ago baseball roadtrip.
TOM WAITS, "Cold Cold Ground"
LIZ PHAIR WITH MATERIAL ISSUE, "The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana)"
I suspect it was the contrast between the Ton Waits song and the Banana Splits cover that I really liked here. Sometimes it's easy to amuse yourself while making these.
IMPERIAL TEEN, "Year of the Tan"
NED'S ATOMIC DUSTBIN, "Kill Your Television"
TOO MUCH JOY, "Hey Merlin"
THE KINKS, "I'm Not Like Everybody Else"
This is a live version off the two-disc set To The Bone, which I bought at Radio KAOS Records because I figured it ws about damn time I owned a Kinks album. The best part of this version Is Ray Davies' introduction where he characterizes The Kinks as a band destined from greatness that always seems to screw it up, at which point an audience member with a thick brogue loudly retorts "Oh no you don't!" I always "sing along" with that part.