miXtape

A few weekends ago, TORC and I went out to see a play that we'd been wanting to see forever, "miXtape"...

We were curious to hear and see how the 80's would be interpreted.

Little did we know that we would run into another type of "retro" that evening...

In fact, this was the last few minutes of the Fall Back Festival, which served two purposes. The "Fall Back" referred to the Daylight Savings Time Change, while it also referred to San Diego's olden days, hence the many folks in period costume. The food and game booths were being taken down as we walked towards the Horton Grand Theater. It was kind of neat to see guys dressed up like cowboys, complete with Wild Bill Hickock style moustaches.

Happy Birthday Mixtape from the vaults...

While looking for my "Stand by Me" dvd in our media cabinet (I ended up not finding it), I came across a mixtape that N made for my birthday. Well now...would you take a look at that relic!

This tape was made...

...in 1988!

Before we see the playlist, let's cut first to a rollicking number from the animated version of the Ramones (via a 'Simpsons' episode)! Just substitute the name "Mr. Burns" with "Canine Cologne"!

"Have the Rolling Stones killed!"

Groovy Sounds

Sorry Thane for snooping, but I found this old tape that N and I made for you back in October 1991. It was in your tape case behind where my suitcase was. Wow, you actually kept this tape after all these years. There were more compilations that N made you plus a more 'recent' one I made (circa 1999) that had a whole bunch of Carl Stalling (old Warner Bros. cartoon orchestral music) and the Raymond Young Orchestra (known for 'Powerhouse Boogie' and other cartoon background scores).

The inner notes on the tape cover even indicated that it took two hours to make this cassette mix! With the exception of the Prince song at the end of side B, pretty much everthing is old school. I must have been the one who wanted Prince since it was my record. Every song was taped from either an actual record (LP or 45) or a cassette.

Groovy Sounds
by N & Canine
Denon S-Port
High Position, Type II 100 minutes

Side A
Boogie Nights Heatwave
That's The Way (I Like It) KC & the Sunshine Band
Get Off Foxxy
Brick House The Commodores
If I Can't Have You Yvonne Elliman
Hot Stuff/Bad Girls Donna Summer
Macho Man Village People
Rock the Boat Hues Corporation
Emotion Samantha Sang
Le Freak Chic
Baby Come Back Player
I Will Survive Gloria Gaynor
Shadow Dancing Andy Gibb

Side B
Ring My Bell Anita Ward
Second Time Around Shalamar
Fantasy Earth, Wind & Fire
Sir Duke Stevie Wonder
I Want Your Love Chic
Funky Town Lipps, Inc.
Fire Pointer Sisters
Ladies Night Kool & the Gang
Rock With You Michael Jackson
I Would Die 4 U Prince (okay, this song isn't from the disco era)
We Are Family Sister Sledge
Staying Alive Bee Gees

Another tape I found

Here's a blast from the not so distant past.

I found an old tape cover of a cassette my very good friend and I made of our favorite songs in mid 1989. This is my same friend who made Depression Vols 1-3 (as seen on my February 5 entry).

We labored intensively over our song choices. I had one side, she the other. Our theme was our favorite songs as kids up to the present day. We recorded the songs in chronological order and vowed to have no song repeats.We shared some of our favorite songs such as Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" but since she claimed it first, I had to let that one go. We also had to compromise as we were both huge (Roth-era of course) VH fans. She also liked "Dance the Night Away" but I got to pick that so she ended up choosing "You Really Got Me" . We also compromised on Def Leppard's "Photograph" so I chose an earlier Lep song for my entry. Towards the later years, you could see the differences in our musical tastes.

Note: Most of the songs/artists are linked. You can click on them to know more our choices.

Our Fave Songs
compiled June 16 -20, 1989
recorded on a Maxell MX 100 cassette (IEC Type IV Metal)

Side A (my side)

1975 You're My Best Friend Queen
My favorite Queen song of all time from one of their best albums, A Night at the Opera. I still love this song to death!
1976 Silly Love Songs Paul McCartney and Wings
One of the few songs I remember really liking as a young child. One of our good friends used this song for their wedding video montage.
The Things We Do for Love 10CC
We actually had this .45! I think it was my brother's. Looking back, I wish I had "Hotline" by the Sylvers to replace this instead!
1977 Cold as Ice Foreigner
And then I discovered FM radio and my musical tastes were never the same again! Lou Gramm's voice was so cool and powerful. From their debut album Foreigner.
1979 Dance the Night AwayVan Halen
My #1 favorite VH song. Eddie Van Halen rules all! EVH wrote this song because he was inspired by Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way".
BabeStyx
As sappy as this song was, I really dug Tommy Shaw's voice and that soft electric piano! Well, it was this, or "Too Hot" & "Ladies Night" by Kool & the Gang which came out the same year!
1980 Let it Go Def Leppard
Oh man, this song fkn' shreds! This was early and raw Def Leppard before they turned into the pitiful soft rock pussies they later became. I remember taping this song off the radio! "High 'n Dry" is one on my top 10 albums list. Come to think of it, why don't I have more 1980 entries here? I should have had AC/DC's "Back in Black", Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" & "Living After Midnight" ! Dammit!
1981 Crazy Train/Dee Ozzy Osbourne
From Ozzy's landmark "Blizzard of Ozz" album. I was in 6th grade and Randy Rhoads was about to replace EVH as my favorite guitarist. Sadly, he was to live another year before the deadly plane crash which ended his life.
Our Lips are Sealed The Go Go's
From the album, "Beauty and The Beat", which was one of the first albums I ever bought. Plus I liked the fact that they were an all-girl band.
Petite Etude Triumph
Although I liked Rush a little better (another Canadian power trio for you all), this little guitar solo from the album Allied Forces was quite pretty and I felt I had to include at least another instrumental to accompany "Dee".
Last Chance on the Stairway Duran Duran
One of their 'non-hits' from the album, 'Rio'. A gorgeous ballad with a cool vibraphone solo.
1983 Gloria (live version in 'Under a Blood Red Sky') U2
Although this song was featured on classic 2nd album, October, I liked this version (which was the opening song from their 4th album, Under a Blood Red Sky) much better . I miss early U2.
1985 Prelude Mortale Vandenberg
From 1985's "Alibi"; the group was led by Dutch guitar wiz Adrian Vandenberg . This band was not well known and I knew of them because of a neighborhood guy friend I hung out with (he's now in jail!). Vandenberg later joined Whitesnake and is now an artist. This song was another instrumental. So there are three so far.
1987 Welcome to the Jungle Guns 'n Roses
This was the year we both graduated and started college. My friend veered more towards the post punk groups and was leaning towards her goth phase. I, on the other hand, was still into hard rock and entranced by these young upstarts. Where are they now? Their debut album blew all others out of the water.

Side B (her side)

1973 Live and Let DiePaul McCartney & Wings
From the James Bond movie of the same name. I believe it's set in the Caribbean or some other place where they practice voodoo . Stars a young Jane Seymour, who was my friend's favorite actress. This movie had a bit of blaxploitation in it as well (afros, references to pimps, drugs, etc). This song was later covered by Guns 'n Roses on their "Use Your Illusion I" album.
1978 I Want You to Want Me (live at Budokan) Cheap Trick
The song I totally wanted. Robin Zander in that white suit!!! Hey, I should have had "Dream Police"(which came out in '79)!
You Really Got Me Van Halen
A kick ass version of the Kinks' song and a waaaay better version than the one butchered by Sangina on American Idol a few weeks back.
1979 Message in a Bottle The Police
From the album, Reggatta de Blanc. Oooh, looking back, I wished I had the Police on my list. They are actually back together again and will tour this summer.
We Live for Love Pat Benatar
From her debut album, In the Heat of the Night which showcased her operatic vocals. The album also spawned the hit "Heartbreaker" and "No You Don't".
1980 Stories for Boys U2
From u2's debut album, Boy, one of her favorite albums.
1981 This Town The Go Go's
Another song from "Beauty and the Beat" that we labored over choosing.
1982 Inoculated City The Clash
From the album, "Combat Rock"; it's cool that she picked this instead of the more well known "Should I Stay or Should I Go" .
1983 Photograph Def Leppard
We loved this song! I loved the video. Last Halloween, I was dressed (almost) exactly as Joe Elliott in this video. I had my vintage Union Jack shirt bought for $15 that year!
(I'm in Love with a) Working Girl The Members
I think this was their only hit...We actually searched a lot of record places to find this record. We eventually found it at Off the Record (a now defunct used record store) on El Cajon Blvd.
1986 Here is the House Depeche Mode
From the album, Black Celebration which actually had a lot of good songs on it like "It Doesn't Matter", "A Question of Lust"and "Fly on the Windscreen".
Love is the Slug Fuzzbox
The group's reall name was We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It but was shortened to Fuzzbox. An all girl group from England and a one hit wonder as well.
1987 Dear God XTC
A controversial song from their great album, Skylarking which also featured really cool songs in various genres (my favorite was the ultra cool spy-like "The Man Who Sailed Around his Soul") . The video for this song was also cool and if you stayed up late enough, you could catch it on MTV's "120 Minutes".
1989 Loveless New Order
From the album, Technique . She didn't choose the obvious favorites (of others) like "TrueFaith", "Blue Monday", "Bizarre Love Triangle".
Lovesong The Cure
One of their more "recent" songs at the time and a romantic one at that.

Sorry no cassette cover art. The writing is all faded and I threw the tape away awhile back since I could burn this same compilation easily. Still trying to dig up more compilations we did back then.

Fast & Furious

Here's a mix tape I made for Bert between March and May 1991 during my last year of college. It was a UDXII C-90 Capsule cassette. I loved these because the cassette case was slim and rounded (I also liked Denon's because they were ultra thin and sleek); no hard ugly corners! No cover art, just my horrid handwriting.

You could tell I was a Steve Vai and Joe Satriani fan. By the way, David Lee Roth (solo) is only in there because he had a fkn' rad bassist, Billy Sheehan (who was later in Mr. Big). This tape was made for the blazing guitarwork.

Fast & Furious

Side A (recorded 3/4/91)

Shy Boy David Lee Roth
The Audience is Listening Steve Vai
One Big Rush Joe Satriani (saw him 3 times in concert from in 88-89)
Addicted to that Rush Mr. Big
No No No Def Leppard (loved Joe Elliott's shredding vocals here)
Spill My Guts 24/7 Spyz (this was an awesome band!)
Get Up Van Halen (Van Hagar!)
Crazy Train Ozzy Osbourne
Whiplash Metallica
Unchained Van Halen (classic DLR)
The Headless Horseman Joe Satriani

Side B (recorded 5/28/91)

Satch Boogie Joe Satriani
Knucklebones David Lee Roth
Take a Walk Mr. Big
The Attitude Song Steve Vai
Elephant Gun David Lee Roth
Back to Shalla-Bal Joe Satriani
I Would Love To Steve Vai
Driving at Night Joe Satriani
Beating Around the Bush AC/DC
Source of Infection Van Halen
Hot Dog and a Shake David Lee Roth
Answers Steve Vai
Greasy Kid's Stuff Steve Vai

Old Mix Tapes

In my quest to clean my side of of our computer room/office, I came across a bunch of old mix tape covers that a friend and I collaborated during fits of boredom during our college years. She went to USC on scholarship as a Fine Arts major, while I went to the #2 Party School (as ranked by Playboy in 1987/ edit - #1 was CSU Chico - figures), SDSU (aka SUDS)! She was more into the moody, gothic 80's stuff than I was, but we had fun nonetheless making up all kinds of wierd theme tapes. I swear, my dream job in my next life is working at an old record store, just like Jack Black's character Barry in 'Hi-Fidelity' - just so I can insult other people's crappy musical taste! Actually, I would love to work for Rhino Records in Santa Monica and dream up convoluted theme albums and boxed CD sets as well as research and write the liner notes. The fun and challenge in making a lot of our mix tapes was trying not to repeat the same band more than once (see tape 1)

Scene from aforementioned movie:

Barry's Customer: Hi, do you have the song "I Just Called To Say I Love You?" It's for my daughter's birthday.
Barry: Yea we have it.
Barry's Customer: Great, Great, can I have it?
Barry: No, no, you can't.
Barry's Customer: Why not?
Barry: Well, it's sentimental tacky crap. Do we look like the kind of store that sells I Just Called to Say I Love You? Go to the mall.

Back to my story...way back in the days of yore (the mid to late 80's), my friend and I actually used to scrounge up our records/cassettes, and/or borrow from friends, or sometimes buy whole albums at Off the Record or Blue Meanie to get certain songs. Her record collection is something else! Ihad more of the rock stuff. Keep in mind we couldn't download songs from the internet like nowadays. Making a mix tape was like a work of art. We thought of how many songs we could fit on a tape without wasting space at the end. We made the space between songs as short as possible, no long pauses. It was also a pain in the ass to tape these songs from records because sometimes the song would fade into the next song, so we had to fade it out ourselves on the equalizer . If we messed up, we had to retape it! Also, when you taped these songs, you had to have all the records in order so you could streamline the process instead of searching for it frantically. Plus the major difference is the amount of time spent making these tapes as compared to making mix cd's or iPod playlists (I don't own one of those and I don't plan to).

Taping these songs were a fkn' bitch because it was in REAL TIME, so if you had 90 minute cassette, it was 45 minutes for each side (plus extra time to put on and take off the vinyl discs, etcs). Ergo, it was probably a good 2 or more hours to do a 90 minute cassette! We put a lot of thought into our mix tapes. Occasionally, I still do the same thing, but with my cd compilations and it is definitely a lot faster!

The following three mix tape covers were made by my friend. I will post more in the future from my collection. I have one called 'Soothing Sounds' which was actually a collection of killer guitar riffs and ultra fast rock songs. There's a Sex Theme tape that we did and I know I saved the cover. It's around somewhere. These 3 actually had covers which she drew. I watercolored the first one. The second cover featured was Morrissey and the last one had Morrissey (again), Robert Smith and Pat DiNizio (lead singer of The Smithereens) in case you were wondering or lived in a cave or under a rock. The last cover had a water spill on it, hence the stained appearance. These are from the "Depression" Series.

Depression: Songs to Mope to...

Vol. I

(June 1988)

Side A
She's in Parties Bauhaus
Ain't It a Shame The B-52's
Yellow Sky Book of Love
Army Dreamers Kate Bush
Destination The Church
The Holy Hour The Cure
The Sun & The Rainfall Depeche Mode
Femme Fatale Dramarama
The Killing Moon Echo & the Bunnymen
Eyes Without a Face Billy Idol

Side B
Waiting for the Flood Love and Rockets
Warakurna Midnight Oil
As It Is When It Was New Order
Just Like You Said It Would B Sinead O'Connor
In a Lonely Place The Smithereens
Last Night I Dreamt that Somebody Loved Me The Smiths
Vienna Ultravox
Bad U2
See How We Are X
Dear God XTC
+ Bonus Track (I lost the tape so I don't remember what it was!)

Depression: Not Just Another

Morrissey Album Vol. II

(Christmas 1988)

Side A
Running Up That Hill Kate Bush
The Unforgettable Fire U2
It Doesn't Matter Depeche Mode
This Time of Night New Order
Drink Before the War Sinead O'Connor
Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven Love & Rockets
Meat is Murder The Smiths
Imagine John Lennon
Lament Ultravox

Side B
Hitherto Cocteau Twins
Everyday is Like Sunday Morrissey
Fall on Me R.E.M.
Love Will Tear Us Apart Joy Division
My Last Two Weeks Peter Murphy
Say Hello, Wave Goodbye Soft Cell
Spellbound The Smithereens
The Last Beat of My Heart Siouxsie & the Banshees
Faith The Cure
Happy Xmas (War is Over)/Give Peace a Chance (Reprise) John Lennon & Yoko Ono

Depression: The Battle of the Smiths

Vol. III
(January 2, 1989)

Billed as "An unforgettable tape for those unhappy nights - made exclusively for your listening pleasure and enjoyment! Only YOU can decide the winner!"

Side A
The Holy Hour The Cure
Drown In My Own Tears The Cure
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now The Smiths
Cold The Cure
Blood and Roses The Smithereens
Reel Around the Fountain The Smiths
Seventeen Seconds The Cure
Alone at Midnight The Smithereens
Death of a Disco Dancer The Smiths
Sinking The Cure
Especially for You The Smithereens

Side B
Unhappy Birthday The Smiths
A Forest (Extended) The Cure
Cigarette The Smithereens
That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore The Smiths
One Hundred Years The Cure
Spellbound The Smithereens
Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want The Smiths
A Night Like This The Cure
In a Lonely Place The Smithereens
Asleep The Smiths