#26: SLOWLY APPLYING CONTRAINTS

As most of my friends know, I really don't like the sun. I spent 20 years growing up in Arizona and I think that has resulted in my being able to rarely ever see the sun again. I suppose that's why I loved living in Seattle so much. 8 months of cloudy drizzle was right up my alley. When the sun is out, I feel guilty for not being out there soaking it all in the way I am "supposed" to, when actually I'd just prefer to be inside reading a book.

On the other hand there is a lighter sense of being that comes with the arrival of summer. The heat gives license to dress more casually and loosen up all the tension that builds over the winter. Even I enjoy a good day spent at an awesome beach.

So this mix attempts to capture both the unbridled "fun" of summer tempered with just the right mix of dread and anger that slowly grows stronger as the summer drags on, steamy day after steamy midwest day. There are three major movements in this mix. The first third is probably the best first third of a mix I have ever constructed. I danced my ass off to it the other night. It's that good. The middle comes down a little bit to showcase some really earnest and melodically beautiful songs. The last part ramps the intensity up again, only this time the angst is more palpable. The whole thing ends with four fucking great songs. Make that five. No six. Seriously this mix is gold! Enjoy.

Download the Mix as a 99 MB Zip File
Now using sendspace to deliver these massive files. Email me if the file expires.

The tracklist is as follows:
(The links below will lead you to ways of supporting these artists)
01 New Wave, Against Me!
02 Living Well is the Best Revenge, REM
03 Constructive Summer, The Hold Steady
04 The Wagon, Dinosaur Jr.
05 Katrina, The Black Lips
06 Sound of Summer, Art Brut
07 The Sons of Cain, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
08 J,aime vous voire quitter, The Islands
09 Relative Surplus Value, The Weakerthans
10 Used Guitars, Red Collar
11 This is no fun, School of Language
12 In a Cave, Tokyo Police Club
13 Breaks, American Princes
14 Pillowhead, Failure
15 Lost in Amber, Steel Tigers of Death
16 Gift, Sugar
17 Lovenest, The Wedding Present
18 Don't Think Lover, A Place to Bury Strangers
19 No Lucifer, British Sea Power
20 Well Thought Out Twinkles, Silversun Pickups

#25: LOVELY THINGS WE BURIED, PART 2

This is the second installment of the late 70s and early 80s pop, punk, post punk and new wave compilation. Lots of angular guitars by artists both new and old. Some probably familiar tracks woven amongst some more obscure stuff. Enjoy!

Download the Mix as a 100 MB Zip File
Now using sendspace to deliver these massive files. Email me if the file expires.

The tracklist is as follows:
(The links below will lead you to ways of supporting these artists)

01 All in the mind, Mother and the Addicts
02 Outlaw, Mission of Burma
03 See no evil, Television
04 Araby, The Reivers
05 The City is Here for You to Use, The Futureheads
06 A Question of Degree, Wire
07 Instant Hit, The Slits
08 Anticipation, Delta 5
09 Who Shot the Baby?, Dogs Die in Hot Cars
10 This City Holds Us All, The Situationists
11 Off Duty Trip, The Raincoats
12 Sgt. Rock (is going to help me), XTC
13 You Can't Fool Me Dennis, Mystery Jets
14 Re-Make/Re-Model, Roxy Music
15 Krimi, Kleenex/Liliput
16 Armageddon, The Au Pairs
17 Return the Gift, Gang of Four
18 Cool, Pylon
19 Eyes Wide Open, Radio 4
20 Victoria, Fall

#24: LOVELY THINGS WE BURIED, PART 1

This mix is part of a massive beast that I have been working on perfecting for a long time now. Mostly inspired by my new obsession with Jay Reatard. All the feelings I feel when I bug out in the car to his songs like "Greed, Money, and Useless Children" are deeply rooted in the longtime fascination I've had with late 70s and early 80s pop, punk, post punk and new wave. Those genres, like all genres, are a muddy mess to classify, but in the end that sound in unmistakeable and infectious. Kinda like how Indie rock is a genre that has no aesthetic value but you know it when you hear it. But I digress.

Putting this together was just too hard to narrow down to a measly 20 songs. So it's coming in two parts. This first part focusing on more pop oriented new wave tracks as well as the more bar rock meets art rock detritus that sit in between the post punk and new wave isms. Like I said it's a muddy mess. You'll hear very familiar tracks mixed in with some that are more obscure, both new and old. The second installment is just as good as this, if even better. So stay tuned.

2 download links now available (but you only need one):
Link 1: Download the Mix as a 66 MB Zip File
Link 2: Download the Mix as a 66 MB Zip File

Now using sendspace to deliver these massive files. Email me if the file expires.

The tracklist is as follows:
(The links below will lead you to ways of supporting these artists)

01 Away from the numbers, The Jam
02 Los Angeles,X
03 Mystery, The Wipers
04 My Family Jay Reatard
05 Astral Glamour, The Homosexuals
06 My Perfect Cousin, The Undertones
07 (Making) Teenage Faces, The Exploding Hearts
08 Roadrunner, The Modern Lovers
09 Teenage Nights, Nice Boys
10 Jet Boy, Johnny Thunders
11 Hibernate, High Tension Wires
12 Sitting Around At Home, The Buzzcocks
13 My Shadow, Jay Reatard
14 Janie Jones, The Clash
15 Monk Time, The Monks
16 Hanging on the Telephone, The Nerves
17 Rip Her to Shreds, Blondie
18 Cool For Cats, Squeeze
19 Message of Love, The Pretenders
20 Lip Service, The one and only Elvis Costello

#23: SPACE… YES. BUT NOT TIME. NO.

So this mix started completely different. Full of neo-folk and textured singer songwriter stuff. It was really good too. Then the new Portishead & Gnarls Barkley albums leaked and they were so good, that I was instantly compelled to make a mix surrounding them. So here you get two of the best new Portishead songs and a Gnarls Barkley supa-jam surrounded by a plethora of electro inspired tunes that undulate between moody neo-noir set pieces and get the funk out grooviness. So the other mix will have to wait for another day. This was just too good an opportunity to pass up. Enjoy.

Download the Mix as a 133 MB Zip File
Now using sendspace to deliver these massive files. Email me if the file expires.

The tracklist is as follows:
(The links below will lead you to ways of supporting these artists)

01 Ready for the Floor, Hot Chip
02 Would Be Killer,Gnarls Barkley
03 Royal Gregory, Holy Fuck
04 Casting Agents and Cowgirls Busdriver
05 Asbestos Lead Asbestos Meat Beat Manifesto
06 Christiansands, Tricky
07 We Carry On, Portishead
08 Retina, Ellen Allien and Apparat
09 Dead Fingers Talking, Working for a Nuclear Free City
10 You've Got To… (Norman Cook Mix), The Young Punx!
11 Luxury Pool Neon Neon
12 Phantom, pt. 1, Justice
13 Solid Gold International Pony
14 Cancelled Pieces, Steve Jansen
15 Holdon, Apparat
16 Drivin' Me Wild, Common & Lily Allen
17 The Sex Has Made Me Stupid Robots in Disguise
18 Ramalama (Bang Bang), Roisin Murphy
19 Machine Gun, Portishead
20 Hey Muscles I Love You, Muscles
21 Thou Shalt Always Kill, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

#22: I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE

Let me start off by saying that I generally dislike marginalizing musicians & artists by categorizing them as female. I mean it should be largely irrelevant when it comes assessing the quality and meaning of art. It's as insane as having a best actress category in the Academy Awards. How is what they are doing different from the male actors? Why are we unable to compare & evaluate them to each other?

So why the hell am I creating an all female mix, on f'ing valentines day of all things? Well the exception I take to the previously mentioned rule is with a certain grouping of female artists that blew my furtive little mind when I was just a youngin'. They made their femininity the subject of their aesthetic and message to a point that it would be missing the point to ignore. I believe we must consider their femininity when considering and enjoying the music in order to fully appreciate their intent. So there.

For a long time, I considered the fact that I was a full-on flannel-wearing Seattle grunge evangelist a key component of my self-perceived outsider status. What can I say? I was a suburban kid and my idea of a real counter-culture hadn't really developed yet. But my tastes and politics really began to change when I discovered, mostly via the soundbytes from Kurt Cobain, the pure ecstasy of a group called Bikini Kill. I bought the first 7" I could find and I was never really the same since.

Loving Bikini Kill led me down a long road of consuming any and every female punk or rock artist I could. For a while I thought myself as "feminist-minded", as much as a suburban white male could anyway. Meaning I was more likely to come to the defense of womans' issues or on the offense against patriarchal hypocrisy than I would the opposite. I played Rock for Choice benefit shows as well as read and even wrote the occasional leftist 'zine with passionate yet embarrassingly not-though-through tirades against the establishment. I tried my best to identify with feminist issues but mostly I strove to separate myself from the uber-aggressive dude culture that saturated my world in high school and college. I simply didn't enjoy bitch and dick jokes either. Go figure.

As I said earlier, the fact that I feel so compelled to post this mix dedicated to my most adored female musicians is fairly contradictory. I did it last year, I am doing it again and I'll probably do it again next year. Be that as it may, the result is still a pretty kick-ass mix of all the stuff that got me excited so many years ago. What you get here, my dear reader, is a best of the best of the best. Like Rocktober's mix, it's comprised mostly of songs from the mid nineties and it's not for everyone. It's loud, abrasive and oh so awesome.

Download the Mix as a 76 MB Zip File
Now using sendspace to deliver these massive files. Email me if the file expires.

The tracklist is as follows:
(The links below will lead you to ways of supporting these artists)

01 I Like Fucking, Bikini Kill
02 He's My Thing,Babes in Toyland
03 50ft Queenie, PJ Harvey
04 Whatever, Red Aunts
05 Laisse Tomber Les Filles, April March
06 Go Home (Seattle Version), Joan Jett and Kathleen Hanna
07 Guilt Within Your Head, The Gits
08 Babydoll, Slant 6
09 The History of My Future, 7 Year Bitch
10 Plump, Hole
11 Bata Motel, Crass
12 Pat's Trick, Helium
13 Decoder, Chinchilla
14 Obsessed With You, X-Ray Spex
15 Kids in America, The Muffs
16 Uncle Phranc, Team Dresch
17 Vxrx, Cold Cold Hearts
18 Clap and Cough, Discount
19 Anonymous, Sleater-Kinney
20 I Hate Danger, Bikini Kill

THE 2007 PAST AND FUTURE TENSE MIX (Part 2)

Part 2: The Future Arrives, Unannounced.

"You can't stop what's comin." So say's the amazing film No Country For Old Men. As awesome as that was, I find that all that dread about the future a bit fatalistic. It's important to revere the past but also to approach the future as a clean slate of endless possibilities. Otherwise what is the point.

Download the Mix as a 100 MB Zip File
Now using sendspace to deliver these massive files. Email me if the file expires.

The tracklist is as follows:
(The links below will lead you to ways of supporting these artists)

01 Yea Yeah, Matt & Kim
02 Away From Here, The Enemy
03 You! Me! Dancing!, Los Campesinos!
04 The Plot, White Rabbits
05 Like I Needed, Rogue Wave
06 Don't You Evah, Spoon
07 Jesus Saves, I Spend, St. Vincent
08 Everything's Just Wonderful, Lily Allen
09 Red Meat, Ball Of Flame Shoot Fire
10 Fireworks, Animal Collective
11 See A Penny (Pick It Up), YACHT
12 All My Friends, LCD Soundsystem
13 Collarbone, Fujiya & Miyagi
14 In The Club, White Williams
15 Ice Cream, Muscles
16 cape cod kwassa kwassa, Vampire Weekend
17 I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You, Black Kids
18 Grip Like A Vice, The Go! Team
19 Let's Dance To Joy Division, The Wombats
20 The Crystal Cat, Dan Deacon

THE 2007 PAST AND FUTURE TENSE MIX

So we are ending the year with the usual lists, lists, lists!. But not necessarily with a collection of the best of the year. Everybody else is already telling you what the best of the year is and was. I looked back at the previous years mixes and realized that I had already documented the songs and artists that would populate such a list. So what was I do to? Surely I could not be so lazy as to repeat songs. God no!

So I give you two mixes to wrap up the year. One focusing on the past (available below) and one on the future (coming in a few weeks). They contain some songs by the years best artists but more importantly they attempt to capture a perspective on how we may feel about the past and what we may hope for the future. Contemplation through music you say? Hell yes!

Also I present you with new cover art that will extend as a theme throughout 2008. And its bigger now too! I have to admit this years theme is influenced greatly by the brilliant work of Andrew Kuo and Jessica Hagy. I am obsessed with how charts and graphs can be appropriated to communicate specific things about our everyday lives in a way that words cannot. Plus they are just fun to make. Hopefully I will be able to build upon their brilliant work in the coming year.

Part 1: The Past Is Not Through With Us.

As someone once said, "you may be through with the past, but the past is not through with you." It's important to remember that our actions have resonance on our future selves. It complicates matters greatly I know, but we can ignore it only at our own peril.

Download the Mix as a 100 MB Zip File
Now using sendspace to deliver these massive files. Email me if the file expires.

The tracklist is as follows:
(The links below will lead you to ways of supporting these artists)

01 Fiery Crash, Andrew Bird
02 Devastation, The Besnard Lakes
03 Mapped By What Surrounded Them, Twilight Sad
04 Sailing To Byzantium, Liars
05 Bamboo Banger, M.I.A.
06 Leyendecker, Battles
07 Ed Is a Portal, Akron/Family
08 You're Alive At Your Funeral, Forest Leslie
09 Killing For Love, José González
10 When Under Ether, PJ Harvey
11 Breaker, Low
12 The Equalizer, Junior Boys
13 She's The One, Caribou
14 F-Word, Jens Lekman
15 Careful, Hot Chip
16 Trophy, Bat For Lashes
17 Dead fingers talking, Working For A Nuclear Free City
18 Will Gravity Win Tonight, Matthew Dear
19 Marble House, The Knife
20 Videotape, Radiohead

Part 2:
Coming after the new year. Stay tuned!

#19: NOTHING BUT THE SANCTION YOU GIVE

Fall is full on now. The cold whisk of the air is no longer the refreshing tease of the summer's end but the creeping in of winter's blanket. In our new midwest surroundings, conversations often have a tinge of dread over the coming freeze. As if the time-honored ticking of the seasonal clock, continues only in spite of us.

It's no secret to those who know me that Fall is my favorite time of year. The coming of every October and November I feel my whole disposition start to change in the opposite of most of those around me. Having grown up in the brutal relentless sun of Arizona, I have come to relish and welcome the bleary winter months. That's not to say the change of the collective mood is a bad thing. To me it's actually part of the changing atmosphere. It makes everything just feel all the more frosty. And every hot cup of coffee all the more necessary. To each his own perspective I guess.

Hence the title of this months mix. That and I just happen to be immersed in Ayn Rand's romantic world of unapologetic personal empowerment. It is what you make of it. The songs included offer a range of perspectives. Optimistic, bundled up and bitter. Yet all are coated in the frosty atmosphere of late Fall. All of them strong and empowered.

You may notice that Akron/Family makes the rare double billing on this mix. That's because their new record "Love is Real" is so god damned good. Get it immediately. Enjoy.


Download the Mix as a 85 MB Zip File
Now using sendspace to deliver these massive files. Email me if the file expires.

The tracklist was as follows:
(The links below will lead you to ways of supporting these artists)

01 Is There a Ghost?, Band of Horses
02 Lake Michigan,Rogue Wave
03 Fri/End, Thurston Moore
04 Ignorant Piece of Shit, Carissa's Wierd
05 A Halo and Nosebleed, Smart Went Crazy
06 Distant + Wide, The WoWz
07 What'll We Do, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
08 Phenomena, Akron/Family
09 Odd Said the Doe, Nina Nastasia & Jim White
10 Way of the Ocean, Three Mile Pilot
11 Dogs Got a Bone, Beta Band
12 Making Plans for Nigel, Nouvelle Vague
13 I'll Kill Her, SoKo
14 Hurricane Jane, Black Kids
15 Our Life Is Not a Movie Or Maybe, Okkervil River
16 Don't Be Afraid, You're Already Dead, Akron/Family

#18 NEVERMIND WHAT'S BEEN SELLING

It's ROCKTOBER again! I am so excited about this new mixtape. It's like none other I have done before. Normally I tend to focus on new music and I take care to make sure there is something for everyone on each one. So everyone can find something they will like. Not this time.

This new mix is all music that was very influential on me at a very specific time in my life. A time when the sounds of Fugazi broke me out of my Seattle grunge fixation and opened my ears to a whole new world of rebellion and angst. The grand indie rock years, when indie at least appeared to mean something real. Before the terms Indie and Emo came to mean Mall Punk of the overly postured and oh-so photogenic variety. These were bands that for the most part toiled in obscurity, toured the country in stinky white vans and played to small crowds in the back of record stores and warehouses. I gotta admit I admired them greatly and their music changed my perspective permanently.

The mix is comprised of what I consider to be the quintessential indie rock and post hardcore tracks of the 90's, focusing on bands from DC, San Diego and the Midwest. Those places were just incubators for great music at that time.

Warning: this mix isn't nice. It's abrasive, angular and demanding. It won't appeal to everyone. But it definitely rocks. I feel terribly nostalgic just thinking about it.

Download the Mix as a 94 MB Zip File
Now using sendspace to deliver these massive files. Email me if the file expires.

The tracklist was as follows:
(The links below will lead you to ways of supporting these artists)

01 Do You Like Me?, Fugazi
02 Tucked In, Boys Life
03 Hill, Boilermaker
04 A Kid Who Tells on Another Kid is a Dead Kid, Nation of Ulysses
05 Burn Pigs Burn, Pitchfork
06 Hot Trunk, Tanner
07 Precious, Bluetip
08 What Was, Kerosene 454
09 We Ate Sand, Karp
10 Learned It, Girls Against Boys
11 Halogen Bomb, The Shortwave Channel
12 The Misaligned Men of Flomation, Frodus
13 Chinese Fork Tie, Jawbox
14 The Fourth Introduction, Faraquet
15 Pretender, Hoover
16 Spikes to Your, Drive Like Jehu
17 No Bonds, aMiniature
18 A Force, Quixote
19 Sharks & Sailors, June of 44