Ethno-autobio-historico-social-music: the last mixtape, Jason Kohn's Brazil

Well, again, this mixtape is unnamed, so I could give it a name based on the cover that Jason made:

Or maybe I could name it after the music in it. After all "Chimp sex" doesn't really let you know what you're in for, but "Brazil" does capture some of this mixtape's strong Brazilian tilt.

Side A:

1. Gal Costa e Caetano Veloso - Baby
2. Flaming Lips - The Spark That Bled
3. Gilberto Gil - Aquele Abraco
4. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Raining in Darling
5. Jim O'Rourke - Women of the World
6. Jorge Ben Jor - Por Causa de Voce
7. Jorge Ben Jor - Choue Chuva 
8. Jorge Ben Jor - Mas Que Nada
9. Outkast - Rosa Parks
10. Palace Music - New Partner
11. Os Mutantes - Adeus Maria Fulo
12. Arto Lindsay - Simply Are
13. Otto - Bob
14. Archers of Loaf - Assassination on X-Mas Eve

Side B:

1. Commercial - Untitled
2. hollAnd - Turpentine
3. Tom Ze - Gene (UI remix)
4. Dirty Three - I Remember a Time When Once You Used to Love Me
5. Brian Eno - Golden House
6. Kraftwerk - Pocket Calculator
7. Sam Prekop - So Shy
8. Jorge Ben Jor - Take It Easy My Brother Charles
9. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I See a Darkness
10. Modest Mouse - Sleepwalking
11. The Roots - You Got Me
12. Brokeback - The Great Banks

Oh man, I just remembered that I went to the Pitchfork Music Festival in 2006 and saw Os Mutantes live. Or at least, I think I did. I'm reading the 2006 lineup and there are so many good bands on the list--Futureheads, Aesop Rock, Ted Leo, Art Brut, The National, Jens Lekman, Spoon, etc. I can't possibly have seen them all. Can I?

(I could just enjoy the mystery and unknowability, but who do you think I am, the Serial podcast? If you want to know all about my Pitchfork experience in 2006, I wrote up a report on my old blog.)

This is the last mixtape from my car; and, just like the first mixtape, there are some songs here that are carved into my skin, Kafka's "Penal Colony"-style, and some that never got in me, Kafka's "Before the Law"-style. Enough with the Kafka, already, let's talk about Modest Mouse and Kraftwerk and Archers of Loaf and Os Mutantes and the Flaming Lips and Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil and Jorge Ben Jor...

Maybe we should talk about Jorge Ben Jor since he's most represented on this tape and I don't really remember his stuff. Though now, thanks to the magic of the internet, you can find songs like "Take It Easy My Brother Charles."

And it's still good. I haven't listened to these tapes in a long time; even before I sold my car, its tape deck wasn't consistently working. (And when was the last time you heard someone say "tape deck"?) And somewhere along the way, I guess I started listening to more books on tape and podcasts. But, guys, music can be really good. That's a dumb conclusion--vague and impersonal--to a very long, specific, and quasi-personal trip through my mixtapes, but that's what I got.

That and: I miss mixtapes.

Or how about this as a thought: Before the internet made us all curators--and apologies to my friends who are actually curators!--the mixtape was the primary form of curation. Before the internet made it easy to reach out your hand (or your, ahem, Napster) and for all the music you wanted to come to you, getting music like this was a more personal or at least more physical act. Sure, it was harder back then, but there's still something very ineternety about the mixtape.

Ethno... are we still doing this?: Christine McKeever's "le mix francais summer 99"

I'm not making up the title for this mix. Really, I should probably write it like "lemixfrancais," because:

Christine, you may need to correct me on this, but I seem to remember that this picture--

--was something I took in France and used on your mix. Is that correct?

(For those keeping track of how old I was when I got these mixes: while most of them are high school-era, this would've been after sophomore year of college, I guess--which, hey, was the summer I went to France to study French!)

(One minor note about that: when I got my French report card from the Institut de Touraine, my teacher noted that I hesitated and ummed and repeated myself; to which my college friend responded that he didn't think it fair for her to mark me down for that, since I did the same thing in English.)

I think this is my photo, which is why I want to make sure that no one judges Christine for the cover. There's nothing really choco or crack related to the mix; but it is very French. Or at the very least--

--it starts French--

Side A:

1. Air, "La femme d'argent"
2. Bjork, "Human Behavior"
3. Soul Coughing, "Blue-Eyed Devil"
4. Leftfield, "Release the Dubs"
5. The Pixies, "Wave of Mutilation (surfer mix)"
6. Violent Femmes, "Color Me Once"
7. Franklin, "Major Taylor"
8. Radiohead, "Meeting in the Aisle"
9. Josh Wink, "Autumn Dayz"
10. Cornelius, "Windy Hill"

Side B

1. Grieg, "Aases's Death"
2. Morphine, "I'm Free Now"
3. Moby, "So"
4. REM, "Lotus"
5. Squarepusher, "Iambic 5 Poetry"
6. My Bloody Valentine, "Joan"
7. Massive Attack, "Daydreaming (blacksmith remix)"
8. They Might Be Giants, "In the Flowers"
9. Yves Montand, "Rue St. Vincent"

--and it ends French.

And the stuff in the middle is its own thing. There are some undeniable great songs / bands on here, like Bjork, whom I love almost enough to put the energy into putting the umlaut over the "o." (I'm a type nerd, but I'm typing lazy, go figure.) And also, while I own all the Pixies discography, whenever I think of "Wave of Mutilation," I think of this particular remix.

Even though there's not a huge overlap between this mix and the soundtrack to The Crow--just Violent Femmes, really--I feel like this is a good time to mention how much I liked that soundtrack, which I might have bought or might have taped off of Christine's copy.

I'm now realizing that this all probably does not fall under fair use. What's the legality of mixtapes?

Ethno-memorial-musico...: Mike Pace's "Ben... The Last Mix"

Mike Pace's first mixtape was "Ben Blattburg Looks Just Like Jesus Christ." So it's only fitting that the last has some reference:

If you can't read that, it says "Ben = Jesus." The other side is blank, but we don't come to the mixtapes for the packaging. (Packaging just makes it all better.) We come for the music.

Side A:

1. Avail, "Tuesday"
2. Lifetime, "Rodeo Clown"
3. J. Church, "No Surprise"
4. Blink, "Apple Shampoo"
5. Clockwise, "She Was"
6. Rocket from the Crypt, "Ball Lightning"
7. Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Rascal King:
8. The Suicide Machines, "So Long"
9. Less Than Jake, "How's My Driving?"
10. Plow United, "Plow II"
11. Jawbreaker, "Bad Scene"
12. Archers of Loaf, "Greatest of All Time"
13. Frank Black, "Headache"
14. Man or Astroman?, "Transmissions from Venus"
15. NWA, "Automobile"
16. Fall Victim, "3rd Movement"
17. Willis, "Harvey Keitel"

Side B:

1. Snapcase, "Caboose"
2. By the Grace of God, "Fissures"
3. Bad Brains, "Rock for Light"
4. Snuff, "Martin"
5. NOFX, "Last Caress"
6. Ten Foot Pole, "My Wall"
7. Downset, "Empower"
8. 108, "Solitary"
9. Silent Majority, "Polar Bear Club"
10. Texas is the Reason, "Back and to the Left"
11. Face to Face, "You Lied"
12. Mephiskapheles, "Bad John"
13. Public Enemy, "911 is a Joke"
14. Orange 9mm, "Glistening"
15. Christie Front Drive, "Field"
16. Gorilla Biscuits, "Time Flies"
17. Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Toxic Toast"

So there's a lot here that might sound familiar from other mixtapes, like Texas is the Reason's "Back and to the Left"; others that might sound familiar just because you're culturally aware, like Public Enemy and NWA; and at least one that you probably never heard of, unless you went to my high school--and even then, you might not remember Willis. Willis was a friend's band and whenever I want to hear Jay Travis growl "Harvey Keitel," I know where to find it.

(I can't remember exactly, but Willis was either the later name of, the later form of, or the replacement for their earlier band, Ketchup Enema.)

Ethno-auto-comedy...: Comedy: Abbott and Costello, "Who's On First"; George Carlin, The George Carlin Collection; Woody Allen, Standup Comic

Today's entry--and I'm coming down to the last few tapes here--is probably not as interesting to historians of the mixtape, since they aren't at all mixtapes. Historians of me, however, will probably cite this blog post to explain my sense of humor. This...

...is not my sense of humor, though I do kind of love it. If you've never heard "Who's on First?", the famous sketch itself involves Abbott identifying baseball players by their ridiculous names; and Costello thinking that Abbott is refusing to answer. And it's only about 8 minutes long, so you might as well go listen to it.

So I rarely listened to this tape and don't think I ever tried to force it on anyone.

And this is probably my dad's, so I'm not sure why I have it.

George Carlin is closer to my sense of humor. This collection from 1984 includes stuff from Carlin's 1970s bits: "Occupation Foole" and "Class Clown" and "Goofy Shit." Which is to say, this is not his later, more political, more satiric stuff. (I once saw him perform live; and though I can't remember any of his jokes that made me laugh, he carved into my memory the arch-political line, "Republicans want live babies so they can make dead soldiers.")

Though even here Carlin is super sharp in his observations and gets a lot of mileage out of dialogue, inhabiting the characters quickly and fully. Most of the stuff I remember is related to his childhood--playing the dozens, trying to stump the priest with arcane theological questions. Though, again, whenever I am invited to board a plane, I remember his line:

Get on the plane? Fuck you, I'm getting in the plane.

Now this is my sense of humor; and this is a collection of stand-up bits that I am sure I have subjected other people to. (Honestly: probably I played this for girlfriends. Heck, this should've been first date stuff. "If you don't like this, we're probably not going to work out.")

I grew up on Woody Allen movies and discovered his writing later and his stand-up even later. It's common wisdom that his movies have shown a lot of variation, from the madcap antics of Bananas and (oh god, how I love) Love and Death* to the character-heavy work of Annie Hall (which still has some madcap to it) and Blue Jasmine (sans antics); but his writing and his stand-up seemed pretty consistent to me, and pretty consistently absurd.

For instance, "The Moose" is a long story about how Allen goes hunting, shoots a moose, but fails to kill it; so he takes it to a costume party, where it loses best costume to a Jewish couple in a moose costume, and so on.

A lot of this stand-up is like that and utterly unlike the observational and personal stand-up that I like now. But I will say that I tried to read one of Allen's stories to my girlfriend a while ago, and I laughed so hard that I couldn't get through it. I'm not sure that I'd find it so funny if I were first exposed to it now; but I think this work formed part of my sense of humor.

*If only for one line: when Woody Allen comes in with an enormously long box for Diane Keaton and says, "You know those earrings you always wanted? The long ones?"

Ethno-birthday-music...: Mike Pace's 18 Songs for Ben's 18th Birthday

Mixtapes are cheap but personal, since all you have to do is buy the tape--and not always even that. It's the perfect birthday present for teenagers. What do teens give each other now?

Probably not mixtapes with Less Than Joke and Lagwagon. Maybe Zoinks! and Dick Dale, if those teens are awesome.

1. Less Than Jake, "Automatic"
2. Sleepasaurus, "Uncool"
3. Lifetime, "The Gym is Neutral Territory"
4. Not Available, "Little Green Car"
5. Slapstick, "74 Fullerton"
6. Blink, "Ben Wah Balls"
7. Heft, "Rap Sucks"
8. Diesel Boy, "Titty Twister"
9. The Queers, "No Tit"
10. Lagwagon, "Brown-Eyed Girl"
11. Zoinks!, "Dirty Underwear"
12. Against All Authority, "Centerfold"
13. Dick Dale, "Hava Nagila"
14. Wax, "California"
15. Shift, "Dress Up"
16. Strung Out, "Firecracker"
17. Millencolin, "Bullion"
18. Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Wallet"

I don't know what else to say about this. Sure, by this time, when I've already gotten three-to-four years' worth of mixtapes, there's some overlap and repeats in songs; and there's some bands that I always enjoyed seeing more songs from.

For instance, you've probably noticed Lagwagon come up a lot; and I might have gone to see Lagwagon play a show largely because of these tapes. I'm not sure, though.

My clearest show-going memory is actually my first punk show at the sadly defunct Wetlands, where we saw the Swingin' Udders in 1995. Oh man, here's a picture from that show from Getty; though, if you think that picture is good, you should see the photos I took from that show. Next time I talk about going home, remind me to pull out my photos and go through them. Heck, I only got rid of my Swingin' Udders t-shirt a few years ago.

As if I knew I would do this blog post series--or just can't ever throw anything away--I saved the stickers that fell off the tape's sides. And what is this?

Mike, did you steal this from the high school radio station and tape over a PSA for SUNY?

Ethno-religious-musical...: Jason Kohn's Untitled 1 (The Saint)

You may have noticed that these mixtapes are not being presented in chronological order. What order are they being presented in? The order in which I thought they would be most interesting and/or the order in which I grab them off the shelf. So far we've seen my love of 50s classics; my high school friends' taste in late punk; and some widely disparate mixes from some girlfriends. Today, we see the evolution of one high school friend's tastes in college.

Though "evolution" sounds wrong to me, since it implies some sort of progress, as if Lagwagon was something to be outgrown. And, in fact, though there's some serious change from Jason's high school to college mixes, we can even see some continuity, at least in the packaging.

That is, Jason kept up the strong theme-work that went into choosing a title--or in this case, a cover image--and the names of the sides. This mix is untitled, but for the purpose of this exercise, I'm calling it The Saint because this was the cover:

...and these are the tape's sides' names: A:

B:

Honestly, "saint" might be underplaying the religiosity of this theme. Where is this picture from? Brazil, possibly? Anyway, as noticeable as this statue is, the theme doesn't go into the song choice, anymore than Rabbi Shubert Sings was full of Jewish songs. In fact, the songs are less religious than they are... meditative.

Side A:

1. Al Green, "Take Me to the River"
2. My Drug Hell, "Girl at the Bus Stop"
3. Fantastic Plastic Machine, "L'aventure Francaise"
4. Air, "Kelly Watch the Stars"
5. Massive Attack, "Teardrop"
6. Sean Lennon, "Into the Sun"
7. Cornelius, "Starfruit Surfrider"
8. Neutral Milk Hotel, "Song Against Sex"
9. Brian Jonestown Massacre, "Wasting Away"
10. Dimitri from Paris, "Sacre Francais"
11. Sea and Cake, "Nature Boy"

Side B:

1. Uilab, "St. Elmo's Fire (Red Corona)"
2. Esquivel, "Sentimental Journey"
3. Cornershop, "Sleep on the Left Side"
4. Spiritualized, "I Want You"
5. Air, "Ce Matin La"
6. Momus, "Space Jews"
7. Patric Samson, "Basta"
8. Sweet Robots Against the Machine, "Hello Baby"
9. Halo Benders, "Love Travels Faster"
10. Dutronc au Casino, "Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi"
11. Johnny Dorelli, "Arriva la bomba"
12. Cornelius, "2010"
13. Fantastic Plastic Machine, "Steppin' Out"

Honestly, Neutral Milk Hotel might've been a religious moment for me; but a lot of this music tends towards the electronic side. (Spiritualized is actually classified as "space rock" by Wikipedia.) Air, Massive Attack, Cornelius, Dimitri from Paris, Fantastic Plastic Machine--that's all on the electronic side of things.

(To talk about with a therapist or neurologist: why do I keep trying to spatialize these genres? Notice, I keep talking about "sides", as if I could push some songs to one genre side or another.)

This tape also shows a turn towards Euro-pop, like Johnny Dorelli (Italy), Jacques Dutronc (France), Esquivel! (Mexico, which for the purposes of genre is considered a part of Euro-pop), etc. 

Or maybe we could put it this way: this mix tape shows a definite turn towards European pop, both mid-century/1960s space-age classics and modern electronica.

Still, as much as I listened to this tape frequently, the only bands I ever spent money on are Neutral Milk Hotel and... No, I guess that's it, since all the Air and Massive Attack I ever listened to was borrowed from friends. For a while Neutral Milk Hotel was a band that I played a lot; and it still is to today my favorite example of a band whose name you have to repeat several times before anyone will believe what you're saying.

Ethno-historico-music...: Mixes from Girlfriends: Jess's A Very Random Medley and Hannah's One Side of the Story*

I feel no compunction about naming my high school friends who gave me mixes, largely because our tastes did then coincide (and possibly do now?). Sure, some of this stuff might be embarrassing, but it's like old high school photo embarrassment: deep down, under the embarrassment, you know it's all in good fun. Or you could just be a narcissist like me and revel in the attention, whether good or bad.

But I don't feel so cavalier about mixes from girlfriends. Let's be clear: there's some good music here, which is why I kept them in my car. But there's also a lot of feeling here, which is perhaps best captured by the footnote appended to the title of Hannah's mix, which is all about how there's no meaning here and any attempt to find meaning will be punished with laughter. Which is to say, these mixes drip with feeling.

Which seems like a good time to talk about how I asked Jess out, which was (oh god) in a mix tape, where I recorded myself asking her out. Mind, this asking out took place after weeks if not months of holding hands at drama club. (The unofficial motto of our drama club oughta been "Drama club: where kids go to touch other kids.") So no matter how much feeling there is in these mixes, know that my mixes to them were probably even more sentimental.

How cute is that moment where Jess (high school girlfriend) started to write some songs and then remembered that I already have them. (Thanks, Reservoir Dogs soundtrack. Probably I put those songs on some mix I gave her.) And the apology about putting the Eagles: "You may hate Eagles--and everything else!--sorry!"

And the note (blurry here) attached to "All Out of Love" -- "is this on other tape?" Which raises the question: where is my other mix tape?

Can you believe, this was probably the first time I heard John Lennon's "Imagine"? Though Harry Chapin I heard a lot, since he was one of my parents' favorites. It's a pretty different mix from what I got from my high school friends.

And on its own side of the spectrum--so, not really a spectrum, then--is college girlfriend Hannah's mix, which is its own thing. (I can also say, Hannah was the first person in real life who I heard say "shits and giggles," which never made sense to me as a phrase.)

So there's a lot here that's only in my library because of this mix, like Korn and Smashing Pumpkins, neither of which I usually listen to. And then there are the other songs that are only in my library because of this mix, but which I would listen to all day if I could, like Eartha Kitt singing "C'est si bon."

Also, I think this copy of No Doubt's "Ex-Girlfriend" was coped from the radio, so it's intro and outro are covered up by some DJ, which is maybe not the way Gwen Stefani wanted the song to be heard, but is an interesting historical document. Can you copy things from the radio to mix CD these days? If not, kids, you're missing a great resource for weirdness.

Ethno-music-historical...: Nick Steffen's Birthday Mix

I want to start with this picture of the tape itself since I wrote that line on the side. (The tip-off here: the mix is "to me." Thanks, close-reading skills!) I want to start with that because after Mike's and Jason's mixes, you might be under the mis-apprehension that all my friends had nice hand-writing. Well, I didn't.

Also, I never thought I'd be blogging obsessively about these mixes, so I never wrote down things like dates or thoughts at the time. If only I kept up my diary! But no, my inconsistent diaries from high school were mostly focused on girls. Hey, maybe I'll run a series of autobiographical pieces on my diaries in the future!

(Ugh, that sounds terrible.)

Side A:

1. Screeching Weasel - Get Off My Back 
2. - / First Day of Summer 
3. - / You'll Be in my Dreams
4. Clockwise - Keep it Together
5. Texas is the Reason - Back and to the Left
6. Lifetime - Irony is for Suckers 
7. - / Boy's No Good
8. Sleepasaurus - Beautiful Girl 
9. - / Ten Again
10. J. Church - Simple Gesture 
11. - / Parts Unknown
12. Propagandhi - Apparently I'm a PC Fascist
13. - / (Liquid) Meat is Still Murder
14. Less Than Jake - Happy Man
15. - / 9th @ Pine
16. Warzone - The Sound of Revolution
17. Clockwise - She was
18. No Redeeming Social Value - Old E
19. - / Your Boyfriend

Side B:

1. Chisel - It's Alright...
2. Irony of Lightfoot - Sounds Like a Plan
3. Ignite - Embrace
4. - / Holding On
5. By the Grace of God - November's Lie
6. - / Fissures
7. Sick of it All - Good Looking Out
8. - / Us vs. Them
9. Warzone - Free at Last
10. Lickety Split - Purge
11. New Bomb Turks - Professional Againster
12. Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Uptown Girl
13. Serpico - Bullet Theory
14. Promise Ring - Picture Postcard
15. Sleepasaurus - April Showers
16. Guilt - Untitled
17. Lifetime - The Gym Is...
18. Chain of Strength - True Til Death

Amazing how many songs you can fit on one cassette. Again, Mike, Jason, and Nick show some overlap in bands; and also some diversity in music genres. Well, I mean, if Lifetime and New Bomb Turks can be considered to be pretty far apart. 

Also, let's take a moment to bask in the warm glowing warming glow of Propagandhi's song titles. We've seen "Ska Sucks" and "The Only Good Fascist is a Very Dead Fascist"; and here we've got "Apparently I'm a PC Fascist" and '"(Liquid) Meat is Still Murder," which, what does that even mean? I'm also a big fan of their other song (titles), like "Resisting Tyrannical Government" and "And We Thought Nation States Were a Bad Idea." I don't even know those songs, but geez, what titles those Canadian punks thought of.

I also want to point out Lifetime's song "The Gym is Neutral Territory," which is a clear reference to West Side Story, not my favorite musical at the time. (I fell in love with West Side Story later, when I was in college and in France.) But when I was a senior and the literary editor of the literary magazine (under the managing editorship of... Jason Kohn), Mike Pace wrote a story (or was it an auto-biographical piece for our non-fiction magazine?) with that as the title. I balked at the obvious reference to Lifetime's song, but since the story was related to the gym, I came around.

So now the question is, do I still have copies of those magazines?

Ethno-music-auto-bio...: Two non-mixes (that are kind of mixes): Goodfellas soundtrack and Best of Louisiana Music Sampler

I'm guessing that I stole the Goodfellas soundtrack from my brother, which seems fitting, since he's also the one who probably showed me the movie at first. It's a great soundtrack, with its own Wikipedia page; and it leans heavily on historical classics. Or do these songs seem classic me just because of how often I listened to them?

1. "Rags to Riches" - Tony Bennett 
2. "Sincerely" - The Moonglows 
3. "Speedoo" - The Cadillacs 
4. "Stardust" - Billy Ward and His Dominoes 
5. "Look in My Eyes" - The Chantels 
6. "Life Is but a Dream" - The Harptones 
7. "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" - The Shangri-Las 
8. "Baby, I Love You" - Aretha Franklin 
9. "Beyond the Sea" - Bobby Darin 
10. "Sunshine of Your Love" - Cream 
11. "Mannish Boy" - Muddy Waters 
12. "Layla (Piano Exit)" - Derek and the Dominos

All I know is The Shangri-las's "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" and Bobby Darin's "Beyond the Sea" are songs I can't even remember not knowing. Considering that the movie came out in 1990, there clearly must've been a time before I knew these songs, but it feels like an impossibility or a Zen koan, along the lines of "What was your face before you were born?":

"How did you love Bobby Darin's 'Beyond the Sea' before you heard it?"

(Note: Though it's true some of my feelings for "Beyond the Sea" trace back to The X-Files episode "Beyond the Sea," which is really an exceptional bit of TV. If you want to hear more on that, Kumail Nanjiani speaks of it here.)

There was a time when I could count on one hand the CDs and tapes that I actually bought. Which back then meant that I just listened to other people's copies, not that I was downloading them illegally. Reality check for my friends in their 20s: I bought this tape before I had an email address.

Or at least, that's what I think; I bought this (bought it!) when my parents took me to New Orleans during... some later year in high school. Senior year, maybe? Maybe there was a photographic conference?

I don't know, I was really drunk on that trip.

No, I wasn't drunk. In fact, after hearing about the usual debauch of Mardi Gras, it was strange to go there with my parents the week after MG. There were beads, but they were mostly shattered bits plastic strewed from broken strings all over the street. And all the callers outside the topless and strip bars mostly didn't try to tempt us. 

I had beignets at Cafe du Monde, though, and I saw some swamp life before it arrived on TLC and the History Channel. (Back then, the innocent History Channel was the Nazis Nazis Nazis! Channel.) I bought a book on voodoo, but that goes without saying.

And I also really enjoyed the music, so I bought this at some tchotchke shop.

1. Hey Pocky Away - The Meters 
2. Second Line Part 1 - Stop, Inc. 
3. Zydeco Hee Haw - Boozoo Chavis 
4. Hell Yes I Cheated - Johnny Adams
5. Ruler of My Heart - Irma Thomas 
6. Sure Enough It's You - Walter Wolfman Washington 
7. No It Ain't My Fault - Olympia Brass Band 
8. Sweet Lorraine - Alton Carson & Magnificent Seventh's 
9. Zydeco Gris Gris - Beausoleil 
10. Grand Mamou - Waylon Thibodeaux 
11. Jambalaya - Waylon Thibodeaux 
12. Have a Little Talk with Jesus - Zion Harmonizers 
13. Bourbon St. Parade - Magnificent Seventh's 
14. Revenge Lover - Jude Taylor 
15. Zydeco Boogaloo - Fernest Arceneaux 
16. Dance Cajun Dance - Cajun Playboys 
17. Brother Moses Smote the Water - Zion Harmonizers

It's still available for sale, apparently, but I'm not sure I can recommend it. But that's not because I don't like it, but because I'm a sucker for zydeco. It turns out that I love smart lyrics best, like Elvis Costello and Tom Waits songs; but slightly under that, I love songs whose words I can't possibly decipher. Zydeco gris gris, indeed.

Ethno-music...: Another punk-style mix: "How's the Water?"

"How's the Water?" is another Mike Pace mix; and I think "How's the Water?" must be a reference to a funny video we made for English class once. But that's just a guess. Mike, any help?

The music selection here is a lot of 90s punk-ish bands, with punk ska influences and some harder outliers. Hopefully you can make out the bands (and the little arrow that Mike had to draw to show that he mis-wrote songs 9 and 10 on side B).

Although I'm not writing out all these bands and songs, I do want to highlight some fun bands that I still listen to now, like Rocket from the Crypt and Bouncing Souls and Blink (which is Blink 182). Also, check out the John Spencer Blues Explosion and that hard opening to side B, with Snapcase, Earth Crisis, and Roarshach, which are not light fun bands. It takes some skill to go from Earth Crisis's "New Ethic" to The Queers's "Ursula Finally Has Tits."

Ethno-music...: Mixtapes: Jason Kohn's "Rabbi Shubert Sings"

Here's a lesson for mixtape makers: a title can go a long way toward capturing a theme. Or at the very least, helping you to remember where a mixtape is from and what it has on it. So when I look at this tape...

I instantly think of Midway Jewish Center, where I learned to fake prayers and got something of an ethical education through stories.

Example: The secretary at a dentist's office tells the two Jewish dentists that her husband is sick and they've run out of insurance money. One dentist cries and commiserates and gives her whatever small cash he has on hand. The other dentist looks at his watch, quickly dashes off a check for 10% of what he made that year, and heads for the door. 

Who acted more appropriately for the principles of tzedakah (which we loosely translate as "charity")? 

The guy with the check and no tears, because though we often talk tzedakah as charity, the real meaning is closer to "justice" or "fairness." In other words, helping other people isn't about feeling nice or having a big heart; it's doing the fair thing for our fellow humans. 

Though I still have no idea why they were dentists. 

"Rabbi Shubert Sings" was a mixtape gift from Jason Kohn, my fellow worker in the Hebrew mines at Midway; Rabbi Shubert was our teacher one year. I believe he might've been the one who made fun of my long hair? Can anyone corroborate that? I remember him saying, "Ben will celebrate getting 100 on this test by getting a haircut."

"Rabbi Shubert Sings" isn't just the name of the mixtape, but the theme for the sides:

Side A: Torah

1. Silent Majority, "Arthur Trevor"
2. Rocket from the Crypt, "Shucks"
3. 108, "Scandal (Live)"
4. Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Noise Brigade"
5. Downset, "Anger!"
6. Promise Ring, "A Picture Postcard"
7. Snuff, "Rivers of Babylon"
8. Propagandhi, "The Only Good Fascist is a Very Dead Fascist"
9. H2O, "5 Year Plan"
10. Against All Authority, "Centerfold"
11. Clockwise, "Keep it Together"
12. Lifetime, "The Boy's No Good"
13. Less Than Jake, "Dopeman (remix)"
14. Metroschifter, "$39.00"
15. Avail, "Bob's Crew"
16. Pietasters, "Girl Take it Easy"
17. Shift, "Picturesque

Side B: Haftorah

1. Snapcase, "Zombie Prescription"
2. Bouncing Souls, "Ballad of Johnny X"
3. HiFi and the Roadburners, "Get Outta My Way"
4. Chokehold, "Afraid of Life"
5. Inside, "Liquify"
6. Mr. T Experience, "Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend"
7. VOD, "Choke"
8. Sleepasaurus, "She Already Has a Boyfriend"
9. Lagwagon, "Sick"
10. Scofflaws, "Paul Getty" / "PWBA"
11. Indecision, "Reconsider"
12. Enkindle, "Petose"
13. J Church, "Ivy League College"
14. Downset, "Sangre de mis Manos"
15. Bonus Track!

I'm going to be honest: this mix has some amazing songs; and it probably was in the top 5 most played mixes in my car. And yet, I still don't remember what that "Bonus Track" is.

You'll notice also that Jason's sensibilities at this time, in high school, align pretty well with Mike Pace's: there's your hardcore, like Downset and Snapcase; your punk, like Less Than Jake; your ska and ska-inflected bands, like the Bosstones and Pietasters; and a bunch of more humorous bands, like the Mr. T Experience.

Also, Promise Ring's "A Picture Postcard" deserves to be remembered. At least, I remember walking down the hallway of my freshman dorm at Bard and hearing it come out of a room that I pretty quickly invited myself into. 

UPDATE: I have heard the Bonus Track--and transferred it to mp3 thanks to a USB-capable cassette player--and it is... 

LL Cool J with "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"

Ethno-music.. etc.: The punk mixtapes, 1: Mike Pace's "Ben Blattburg Looks Just Like Jesus Christ"

The title for this mixtape probably only makes sense if you remember that I had shoulder-length hair in high school; and also a penchant for knocking over the tables of money-changers. In my memory, this is probably the first mixtape given to me by one of my friends who listened to punk / ska.

Back then, I was a bit of "musical orphan," which is the phrase I used even then to describe how I didn't really have a musical thing--no one band or type of music that I always liked. Which somehow translated into me being a target for musical evangelists. So I'm sure Mike Pace was joking when he wrote this--

--but there's an element of truth to that. What he wrote on side B, however--

--was just a joke about the band my brother had in high school, and which my friends often liked to joke about back then.

This mix is from high school (and, if memory serves, includes a clip of Mike Pace as DJ at the high school radio station). So what music was I being evangelized about back then?

1. Minor Threat: I don't wanna hear it
2. Minor Threat: Small man, big mouth
3. Rocket from the Crypt: Sturdy wrists
4. Screeching Weasel: I was a high school psychopath
5. The Queers: Ben Weasel
6. The Vandals: Summer Lovin'
7. Rancid: Detroit
8. Down by Law: 500 Miles
9. Slayer: Dittohead
10. SOD: Ballad of Jimi Hendrix
11. Voodoo Glow Skulls: Insubordination
12. Man or Astroman?: Destination Venus
13. Bouncing Souls: Neurotic
14. Downset: Holding Hands
15. They Might Be Giants: Whirlpool
16. Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Someday I suppose
17. Ice-T: Ed
18. Beck: Fuckin' with my head
19. Sloppy Seconds: It finally happened
20. Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Dogs and Chaplains
21. Social Distortion: Makin' Believe
22. Cracker: Can I take my gun to heaven?
23. Rancid: Nihilism
24. Rev. Horton Heat: Bullet
25. Paul Simon: Crazy Love, Vol II
26. Rocket from the Crypt: Ditch Digger
27. Total Chaos: Babylon
28. Operation Ivy: Knowledge
29. MU330: Hoosier Love
30. Mule: Charger
31. Ween: Pumpin' 4 the man
32. Silent Majority: Knewsong
33. Propagandhi: Ska sucks
34. Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Where'd you go?
35. Down by Law: Sam
36. Government Issue: I'm James Dean
37. SOD: Diamonds & Rust
38. SOD: Hey Gordy!

I loved my mixtapes a lot, but this first one doesn't hold up as well. Or rather, there are some songs and bands here that I would listen to at the drop of a record needle. Who doesn't like Paul Simon and the Reverend Horton Heat? At the same time, I'm not sure SOD ("Stormtroopers of Death") have come up in my memory any time in the last decade.

Also, how much do I love that a good friend in high school misspelled my last name? A LOT.

Ethno-music...etc: They Might Be Giants (a 13th birthday present)

You can probably make out the title for this mix--"Happy 13th Birthday, Ben!" And you might be able to make out the little note at the bottom: "I love you! Sarah." Which tells you the context for this tape: my sister gave me a tape that she made from some albums she had. CDs, I'm guessing.

If you can't tell, what with the coloring and my quick snapshot of these liner notes, the original playlist was They Might Be Giants's album Flood on side A; and on side B, a collection of John Williams's soundtrack for Hook. (My mom loved Robin Williams, so I watched just about any movie with him.) Also, let's note those few tv themes at the end of side A, none of which were shows that really meant much to me. But thanks to the magic of the mix tape, I can't hear The Muppet Show theme without getting ready for Inspector Gadget.

This was a birthday present, but when I was young, tapes didn't grow on trees. And at some point, I realized that I kept listening to side A and fast-forwarding through side B; and somehow, I got access to They Might Be Giants's album Apollo 18. So, not being a sentimentalist (says the guy recording every tape he had kept with him for decades and decades), I taped over side B with They Might Be Giants.

Curiously, I don't listen to They Might Be Giants often these days, but I still get a little thrill in my heart when I think of them or see that they are playing a show nearby.