I found an 14-year-old mix tape

[the carlos]

That site that Analogman posted is good stuff - you check it out?

I'm on there right now.

[Analogman]

My 1982 VW Rabbit was totaled in a crash in the mid-nineties, and the tape I was listening to at the time was by Galloping Dead Fish - my friend and me, 14 years old, singing original Christmas songs about characters we made up (titles included "Rubber Boots' Christmas" & "Harvey's Tree"). I like to think it's "out there" somewhere. Maybe those dudes have it.

 

When I find places like the above, I am reminded that I want to destroy certain things before I go. When I look/listen to that sort of thing, I feel like I am looking/listening to someone's private stuff. That said, I know of many old found/bought family photo places on the web - which is probably how I found the link above.

 

On the positive side - I have tapes of a friend of mine playing music who is dead now. I was able to digitize those a while back - amazing really. I was sure they would break or turn to dust - but they actually played. As I said elsewhere in this thread - I have tapes going back to 1977 - that I use to make by taping songs off the radio and/or doing some of what you mentioned. I was still into that up until the early 90s I think.

[quarter23cd]

After they started making the cassette players that could detect the end of a song when on fast forward and then stop, it was all downhill from there.

Even after I made the switch to CDs, my car only had a tape player and so I had to record everything onto tapes to make it portable. When I finally went all-digital it seemed like such a cool thing at first because of the ability to jump around at will, but I don't think its a coincidence that my attention span has gone to hell. Something about tapes made it easy to just sit back a listen without getting the itchy next-button finger or think about what else I'd rather be listening to. Sometimes limitations have their perks.

[Sir Stewart]

I have tapes going back to 1977 - that I use to make by taping songs off the radio and/or doing some of what you mentioned.

You mean you pretended the artist was you?

[Analogman]

You mean you pretended the artist was you?

 

 

I think we did that - or made up radio stations and comedy skits - trying to be like SCTV. Jeff Tweedy also did that sort of thing.

[Mrs. Peel]

I would love to get my hands on some of those tapes.

 

Yours, not Jeff's.

[ction]

I made a pretty awesome mix for my pal Jeff when we were in college. In addition to some of the new fangled punk rock of the day, it also had great tracks by Neil Diamond, ELO, and recordings of me when I was 5 and 6 hosting my talk show (guests included Spiderman and Arnold Horshack). He played sections of it a couple times on his radio show at Frostburg State, and at least 2 people listening claimed to like it.

 

I've since lost all the tapes of me as a kid, and the mix I made Jeff was stolen from his VW bus in Durango CO circa 1996. Bummer.

[Mrs. Peel]

I have a tape of my grandparents singing Happy Birthday to me. They bought me a cassette recorder and recorded themselves before they gave it to me.

 

I also have a whole tape of me with one of my cousins acting out skits when we were probably 7 or 8.

[lizish]

that's a great mix. i'm going try and re-construct one we used to play at parties we had at our apartment my sophomore year of college (1990/1991):

 

Side A:

Frank Zappa - Catholic Girls

Too Much Joy - That's A Lie

Pursuit of Happiness - Hard to Laugh

Guns & Roses - Rocket Queen

Soul Asylum - Sometime to Return

Figures on a Beach - Accidentally 4th Street (Gloria) [Remix]

P.I.L. - Seattle

Little America - Mary Jane

Love/Hate - Blackout in the Red Room

Ministry - Land of Rape and Honey

Replacements - Red Red Wine

Public Enemy - Bring the Noise

 

Side B:

Shadrach - Beastie Boys

La La Love You - Pixies

Never Enough - L.A. Guns

Fire Woman - The Cult

Good Time Boys - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Good Times Bad Times - Led Zeppelin

Steppin' to the A.M. - 3rd Bass

I'm the Man - Anthrax

Mountain Song - Jane's Addiction

Last Train to Transcentral - KLF

Flashlight - Parliament

 

At least that's how I remember it.

 

 

Thanks El. Geez i have not heard any PIL in 20 years. 'I may be right.... I may be wrong'

 

Good idea about trying to reconstruct all these as a playlist. Some of the stuff I wouldn't include on mine anymore (Cult, Cure) because those songs have been played to death. But, fuck, I need to get back into the cramps, gun club, Husker du, OMD.

 

 

Peel - I love putting those little 2 sec blips of stuff into old tapes and current mixes. It was always so tough to do. I remember putting the wierd between song noises of Dazzle Ships on a mix tape and it took like a day.

[dmait]

>I have tapes going back to 1977 - that I use to make by taping songs off the radio

 

I made a few of those, and to this day, all these years later, I can still hear the dj introducing some of the songs. "The Who. . . You Better . . . You Better . . . You . . . Bet."

[PopTodd]

This is a fun thread. I gotta try to find more old mixes to post, of meown.

Oh, and Liz:

Summer mix 84 or 85 (I don't Remember)

 

Cramps - Surfin Dead

Gun Club - Jack on Fire

Cult - She Sells Sanctuary

REM - Life and How to Live it

David Byrne - Big Blue Plymouth

Kate Bush - Running up the hill

Cure - Love Cats

Toots and the Maytals - Pomp and Pride

Tones on Tail - Go!

Shriekback - My Spin is The Base line

Magazine - Permafrost

AUASA - Sun City

This Mortal Coil - Drugs

OMD - 88 seconds in Greensboro

 

 

Side B

 

13 Engines - Come Back to Me Lover

Mats - Waitress in the Sky

Husker Du - Songs about UFOs

Bob Dylan - Rainy Day Woman #12 and #35

Fairport Convention - Si Tu Dois Partir

 

(can't read the rest. Hash Oil resin damage)

 

That Toots song is one of my favorite tunes EVER.

Nice one.

[Analogman]

>I have tapes going back to 1977 - that I use to make by taping songs off the radio

 

I made a few of those, and to this day, all these years later, I can still hear the dj introducing some of the songs. "The Who. . . You Better . . . You Better . . . You . . . Bet."

 

That makes me think of all the stuff I taped when John Lennon was killed - and the Lost Lennon Tapes series - which I think is out there to be had these days.

 

Related to this, I use to be a big VHS taper - I think of this when I see clips of some band on Youtube playing on Letterman in 1992 or whatever. I have a lot of

stuff like that - I think I actually posted the list on here once in some thread a few years ago.

[quarter23cd]

That Toots song is one of my favorite tunes EVER.

Nice one.

Indeed.

[lizish]

This is a fun thread. I gotta try to find more old mixes to post, of meown.

Oh, and Liz:

 

 

That Toots song is one of my favorite tunes EVER.

Nice one.

 

Ohh Same! I love that song.

 

i gave my Lps of Funky Kingston and Marcus Garvey to a Rastafarian neighbour a couple years ago. He painstackingly washed and cleaned up the damaged vinyl and gave me back a CDR of each.

 

'Do you remember the days of slavery?

A woot toot'

 

I'm now sure that i must have had some Burning Spear on the obscured Side B of my mix. I musta!

[Mr. Heartbreak]

From 1990:

 

Side A:

Everything Merges With The Night - Brian Eno

Mother of Pearl - Roxy Music

Nicaragua - Bruce Cockburn

Subterranean Homesick Blues - Bob Dylan

I Got A Rich Man's Woman - Muddy Waters

The Unknown Soldier - The Doors

The Acid Queen - The Who

Lather - Jefferson Airplane

Candy Says - Velvet Underground

I Don't Like Mondays - The Boomtown Rats

Paint It Black - The Rolling Stones

I Ain't Marchin' Anymore - Phil Ochs

 

Side B:

Precious - The Pretenders

Little Wing - Jimi Hendrix

Hungry Freaks, Daddy - The Mothers of Invention

Happiness Is A Warm Gun - The Beatles

Biko - Peter Gabriel

Midnight Cruiser - Steely Dan

Get Together - Youngbloods

Jack Straw - Grateful Dead

Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads

Bike - Pink Floyd

[stooka]

Not only did I mix a lot of radio hits in the 70s, a friend and I tried some comedy tapes. The detective was called KROCHEKBO. Equal portions of Kojak, Banacek and Columbo rolled into one. He fought crime with a sidekick whose name I can't remember. (And that was my part!! ).

We played sound effects records for background. Traffic sounds, sirens, sporting events, etc. I remember them being pretty funny and we sure had a great time recording them. I probably threw them away after a move in '81 because I thought they were childish. I really regret that now.

 

Thanks Analogman for the link!

[shoesgetcold3]

I remember my first mix tape ever, mainly taped off of B-96, containing such gems as Super Bowl Shuffle, My Girl Likes to Party all the time, Rock me Amadeus, and Grandma got run over by a reindeer.

 

When I graduated HS in '93 I made mix tapes for both my girlfriends (the real one and the summer one) which contained Hey Jealousy. I also remember buying a Mr. Big CD off a friend for $1 so I could use More than Words. And I definitely had Run to You on the summer gf's mix, but definitely not on the gf's mix, although that was the only difference.

[afterthefact]

One of the best mix tapes I ever had was one that I found for a buck at some flea market. It wasn't even much of a mix tape either really, cause it mostly consisted of Bunny Wailer and Toots & The Maytals. Still, I can't describe the effect that mix tape had on me, and I think I'm still benefitting from it today.