April 16, 2001

53: Three Doors

This mix is heavily influenced by my then-recent stint at AAA radio station WCLZ in Portland. In fact, you could argue that this entire playlist would easily fit on that station in 2001- perhaps not Alan Parsons Project, but the rest for sure. The cover art is from the CD insert for whitechocolatespaceegg, from Liz Phair, plus some Photoshop effects.
  1. Alan Parsons Project: Don't Answer Me (due to a faulty MP3, this song is cut off halfway through.)
  2. 'til tuesday: Coming Up Close
  3. John Hiatt: Drive South
  4. Bruce Springsteen: Where The Bands Are
  5. Lucinda Williams: Passionate Kisses
  6. Billy Bragg: Sexuality
  7. Richard Thompson: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
  8. Liz Phair: Uncle Alvarez
  9. Ben Folds Five: Steven's Last Night In Town
  10. The Old '97s: Nineteen
  11. Buffalo Tom: Kitchen Door
  12. R.E.M.: The Great Beyond
  13. Moby: Porcelain
  14. The Eels: Novocaine for the Soul
  15. Sinead Lohan: Diving To Be Deeper
  16. Patty Larkin: Wolf At The Door
  17. Pete Townsend: Let My Love Open The Door [E.Cola Mix] (as heard in the film Grosse Pointe Blank)
  18. Nick Drake: Pink Moon

January 01, 2001

60: Your Sweet Voice

The story of Track 13, the Beatles' Abbey Road Medley is complicated, and fascinating to me. The medley appears on side 2 of the LP Abbey Road.

I am going to quote Wikipedia's entry on "Her Majesty" to tell the rest of the story:

"Her Majesty", tacked on the end, was originally part of the side two medley, appearing between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam", like this:
  • "You Never Give Me Your Money"
  • "Sun King"
  • "Mean Mr. Mustard"
  • "Her Majesty"
  • "Polythene Pam"
  • "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window"
  • "Golden Slumbers"
  • "Carry That Weight"
  • "The End"
McCartney requested "Her Majesty" be removed from the medley. However, second engineer John Kurlander had been instructed never to throw out anything, so Kurlander spliced 14 seconds of red leader tape onto the end of the reel, and spliced "Her Majesty" immediately after the leader tape. When Malcolm Davies at Apple received the tape, he (also trained not to throw anything away) cut a playback lacquer which included the 14-second gap and "Her Majesty". The Beatles liked this effect and this sequence was retained for the album:
  • "You Never Give Me Your Money"
  • "Sun King"
  • "Mean Mr. Mustard"
  • "Polythene Pam"
  • "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window"
  • "Golden Slumbers"
  • "Carry That Weight"
  • "The End"
  • (14 seconds of silence)
  • "Her Majesty"
The reason the all-acoustic "Her Majesty" opens with a loud, crashing chord? That's the last note of "Mean Mr. Mustard", which was not needed when "Mustard" is spliced directly into the first note of "Polythene Pam". Meanwhile, the final note of "Her Majesty" is missing on the LP because it was left behind in the medley, as part of the first note of "Polythene Pam".
Track 13 on this mix is a bootleg copy of the original rough mix of the medley. Thank you Napster!
  1. Walls (No. 3): Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
  2. Some Guys Have All The Luck: Rod Stewart
  3. When Heroes Go Down: Suzanne Vega
  4. Hero Takes a Fall: The Bangles
  5. I'm Going Down: Bruce Springsteen
  6. The Real Life: John Cougar Mellencamp
  7. "Peace Tonight" I really like this Indigo Girls song, not only for its melody and lyrics, but I love the horn section. Every song is better with a horn section!
  8. Dirty Boulevard: I am not a Lou Reed fan. At all. However, I liked this song when it came out when I was in high school, and the advent of Napster allowed me to acquire the song (on MP3) without paying anything. Score!
  9. Footprints: Squeeze
  10. You Get What You Give: New Radicals
  11. Next Year: Foo Fighters
  12. Your Sweet Voice: Matthew Sweet
  13. "Abbey Road Medley" [rough mix] The Beatles
  14. Fifty Years After The Fair: Aimee Mann
  15. What Makes You Happy: Liz Phair

January 01, 1999

49: Tripping, Running, Escape!

This mix marks the first mix I made which was not recorded to cassette. This mix existed only as a Winamp playlist for a few years, between when I first installed Napster and Winamp on my PC circa 1998-1999, and when I finally upgraded to a new PC with a CD burner in 2001.
  1. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Lucinda Williams
  2. A Higher Place, Tom Petty - I will never forget a Liz Phair concert at Avalon: "A Higher Place" was the last song played on the PA system, after the lights were dimmed, but before Liz emerged onstage.
  3. Fastball's hit single was "Out of My Head", but I always liked "Fire Escape" better.
  4. "Tripping Billies" may be my favorite Dave Matthews song.
  5. "Eileen's Song" Burlap to Cashmere was a total one-hit wonder. I have the album "Eileen's Song" is on. I listened to it once all the way through, and I remember thinking that none of the other songs sounded like this.
  6. "Holding Back the Years" I always liked this Simply Red song, but I never managed to get it onto a mix until now. It feels very dated now.
  7. "Stolen Car" Beth Orton
  8. "Ray of Light" Madonna
  9. "Alcohol" Barenaked Ladies
  10. I recently scored 100% on ROCK BAND 2 while singing "My Own Worst Enemy" by Lit.
  11. "I'm Not Running Anymore" John Mellencamp
  12. "Sunflower" Paul Weller
  13. "Circus" Eric Clapton
  14. "Sally Ann" I found this song on 10,000 Maniacs' CD single for "Candy Everybody Wants".
  15. "Last Night of the World" Bruce Cockburn

February 01, 1998

48: I Don't Care Anymore

An appropriate title for this collection, as this would be the last numbered cassette music mix I would record. I could check my records, but I must have changed jobs around this time and I no longer had hours to kill on the overnight shift.
SIDE A
  1. If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free, Sting
  2. Sanctify Yourself, Simple Minds. This album Once Upon A Time, was the moment where they had the most potential to be the Next U2. The production quality is the cleanest and rockingest, and the songs were the strongest.
  3. Blame it on Cain, On his debut My Aim Is True, Elvis Costello was backed by most of Huey Lewis' band Clover (someday to become The News.) Listen for Elvis's vocal to distort during the loud parts.
  4. What I Am, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians
  5. 32 Flavors, Alana Davis was a one-hit wonder around the turn of the century. She charted with this Ani DiFranco cover.
  6. Song For The Dumped, This Ben Folds Five album, Whatever and Ever Amen, was the one playing on the stereo at Newbiy Comics in South Portland. It was the cliche'd moment where I asked the clerk "who is this awesome artist?" That never happens to me!
  7. Get Out of This House, Shawn Colvin's most rocking song!
  8. Darkness on the Edge Of Town, Bruce Springsteen
  9. Time Of Your Life (Good Riddance), This Green Day song has become their crossover hit. In 2011 it still gets played on every type of radio station!
  10. Girl, The Beatles
  11. Happy, The Rolling Stones
  12. Hooked on a Feeling, Blue Swede
SIDE B
  1. Rain King, Counting Crows
  2. Without Expression, John Mellencamp
  3. Surrounded, Chantal Kreviazuk
  4. Three Marlenas, The Wallflowers
  5. Positively Fourth Street, Bob Dylan
  6. Somewhere Down The Crazy River, Robbie Robertson
  7. Adios Hermanos, Paul Simon
  8. No Cheap Thrill, Suzanne Vega
  9. (Everybody's Else's) Girl, Tori Amos
  10. I Don't Care Anymore, Phil Collins
Between 1999 and 2001, I collected MP3s from Napster onto my home PC and assembled music mix playlists with Winamp. My PC did not allow me to rip or burn CDs, so I downloaded all the tracks from Napster, including songs which I owned on CD but I could not rip them to my hard drive. In the spring of 2001 I bought a new PC with a CD-R drive, and the new era began.

November 01, 1997