7.23.2005

most perfect mixtape, ever.

Every time I pick up this mixtape it gets better. Actually I can't find the tape itself right now, but I picked up the packaging and it got better anyway. It deserves a tribute of some sort. I hope this will get you thinking about the best mixtape anyone has ever given you, or the best mixtape you've given someone else, or the gaping chasm in your psyche created by the fact that you never trade mixtapes with your friends. Write about it in your blog, or make a thread about it on your message board, or write to someone (ME) about it. And email me if you wanna trade with me. I don't guarantee I'll be timely, but I'll get to it, I swear.

This mixtape was given me by my awesome amazing friend Emily in early 2002. Shortly after we met, we traded mixtapes in a punkrock version of that thing dogs do where they sniff each other to figure out who's cool and who's not. At the time, I had some punk cred, but didn't know all that much about kind of indie rock she was much more familiar with. Plus she's five-or-so years older than me, and in music years, that's like EONS, so there was stuff included that she took for granted that I had heard OF but never HEARD. Yknow. Regardless, it turned me on to a lot of stuff that makes up the basic meat of what I listen to anymore.

The tape, for whatever reason, is titled "MTV Presents Jock Rock Vol. 1" and features as art clipped pictures of some sprinters and a toddler running with a football. The track listing is as follows.

Side A
The Clash: Guns of Brixton
Althea and Donna: Uptown Top Ranking
X-ray Spex: I Live Off You
Iggy & the Stooges: Gimme Danger
Julie Ruin: Stay Monkey
Tom Tom Club: Genius of Love
The Ramones: Havana Affair
Stereolab: K-stars
The Velvet Underground: I Can't Stand It
The Sea & Cake: The World is Against You
The Jesus and Mary Chain: Some Candy Talking
The Gossip: Lily White Hands
The Buzzcocks: Noise Annoys
Galaxie 500: Tugboat Captain

Side B
The Fugs: I Saw the Best Minds of My Generation Rock
Mekons: Chivalry
Beat Happening: Teenage Caveman
Le Tigre: My My Metrocard
The Vaselines: Son of a Gun
Richard Hell & The Voidoids: Who Says? (It's Good to be Alive)
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Miles Away
T-Rex: Planet Queen
Joy Division: Transmission
13th Floor Elevators: Levitation
John Cale: Hanky Panky No How
Lou Reed: Satellite of Love
Guided by Voices: Blimps Go 90
Jad Fair & Daniel Johnston: What the World Needs Now


(I'll admit that the placement of the Ramones song on Side A is a bit questionable, and also that I'm not that into the 13th Floor Elevators in general, but these things matter little in the greater context of this master work. Soon I must undertake to make this young lady the most perfect tape I can muster in mid-2005 before she leaves for grad school . . .)

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