What follows is a post I typed up a few months ago, during a long flight from California to Rhode Island. Typed on an iPhone. I’ve really wanted to post it, but I’ve been looking for the right music-hosting software ever since. It’s a long one, but you’ll see why.
When I graduated high school, my friend Elaine introduced me to her circle of friends, all of whom turned out to be the best friends I’ve ever had. At the heart of our friendship, each of us had our musical tastes which sort of defined us, or at least put a certain flavor on what we brought to the group. Eli (my nickname for Elaine) was a big fan of The Cure, while Bill was really into Robyn Hitchcock. Peter was into Depeche Mode, and he turned me on to Moxy Früvous (although that didn’t really fit the alternative theme of the group). I was kinda the oddball, being a bigger fan of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin…my horizons were definitely broadened, and I’m indebted to each of them for that. In knowing these people, I was also introduced to a variety of people who didn’t really strike a chord with me, so I didn’t really get close. But one such person is having an impact on my life now, fourteen years later, and I wish to hell I’d been mature enough to be a better friend to her back then. I haven’t seen nor heard from her in at least ten years.
I’ve written about Maria, albeit briefly, before. She’s the one who had a nose-ring — a tortoise — named Mortimer. He clicked on her round-framed glasses when she scratched her nose.
Maria is the daughter of two college professors, and she was pretty straightforward about her own rebellious nature. She smoked hand-rolled cigarettes (like a chimney), didn’t shave her legs or underarms, was a voracious reader (her apartment was littered with stacks and stacks of obscure novels or classic literature…there may have been a smattering of graphic novels in there too, but it’s been a long time). She and Bill usually amused themselves talking about obscure independent or international films like Strictly Ballroom or Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (long before either of those films were widely-known, and long before “independent film” became the buzzword non-struggle that it is now).
She was perhaps two years older than I, and was not enrolled in school. She was the only person I knew who was independent enough to have an apartment. During that summer after high school, I often saw her at Bill’s house (the de facto hangout spot, followed closely by Taco Bell at midnight). She was the brooding type, but not overly so; she would often pipe up with some bit of wry wit, and sometimes she’d get downright animated…but in a way that convinced you she was always in control. She’d generally be at the fringes of the conversation, and it was quite often asked “where’s Maria?” To which, of course, the answer was “She’s on fire.”
On one or two occasions, I gave her a ride to work or across town to her place. I ended up hanging out alone with her once or twice, and it was a bit weird without having the rest of the group there as the “glue.” Her tastes were indescribably different from mine, but nonetheless I found her fascinating. She was attractive, but I was so young and closed-minded that the slightly hairy legs turned the attraction into simple friendliness.
During one of our solo hang-outs, she tried to explain to me just how awesome Camper Van Beethoven was, but I just wasn’t getting it without hearing it. The next time I saw her, she had three mix tapes for me (one, a collection of CVB, and two tapes of a series she called Alternative Giants of the Previous Decade), and the gesture blew my freakin’ mind. Getting one mix tape from someone was a sure sign that that person kinda liked you. Getting three was kind of intimidating. I listened to them each in turn, but A) the music was a complete departure from the stuff I liked, and B) the dub quality was so poor, it was really hard to appreciate the music/artistry at all. We compared notes on a bunch of the music, and I told her which songs I liked best (a few songs by The Pogues, The B-52’s, Depeche Mode, etc.), but I never addressed the question of whether or not she liked me. Again, somehow, at that point in my life, hairy legs trumped a pretty face, nice body and fascinating personality…what can I say, I wasn’t raised by professors, and I had a lot to learn.
Two weeks ago, I heard an episode of WNYC’s Soundcheck, on which they interviewed the creator of the blog at www.cassettefrommyex.com. A lot was said about the lost art of creating mix tapes on actual audio cassettes…which I kind of agree with. There’s something very deliberate in the act of making something like that with those tools, which is kinda lost when you’ve got tools like iTunes at your disposal. Anyway, the discussion got me thinking about those tapes Maria made for me (even though she isn’t actually “an ex”). Funny, I’ve actually got a few mix CDs from my current girlfriend (which, of course, I still listen to), and a very nicely-illustrated mix cassette from an actual ex. But the three from Maria immediately came to mind, perhaps because I never gave them a proper shot.
So, the other night, I busted out the tapes (oh hell yeah, of course I still had them, are you nuts?) and transcribed the artist/song names so I could maybe re-build the mix with some higher-fidelity recordings.
Step one was to decipher her handwriting, which was, thankfully, very neat but also very dense. If she was a journal-keeper — which, I can almost guarantee she was — I’d imagine the pages would be almost black with the density of her script.
Step two was to make sure the artist or song names were accurate. Again, she was damn good at this. Most song names were either accurate or at least derivatives of the correct title. There were only two songs (out of 53) with missing or incorrect titles, and she had even put them in parentheses to denote that fact. She was well-versed in the art.
Step three was to track down the songs. Some of them I had already bought or downloaded over the years, but that was a very small minority. For the rest, I actually had to employ a few specialized tools to get my hands on most of the songs. For starters, I generally turn to SeeqPod, but that service is only meant for finding/listening. I’ve found some specialized tools that allow me to download the mp3s that SeeqPod finds to my computer. Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m the devil…whatever. Anyway, for the songs that can’t be found with SeeqPod (or aren’t very good quality, or are only available as live versions) I turned to iTunes and bought the track.
For the only track that had no title listed — “Cocteau Twins – (?)” — I listened to the track on the cassette a few times, and had to listen to dozens of preview tracks on iTunes (and run back to the tape to compare, for the close ones) before I finally found the damn thing. Who knew the Cocteau Twins were so damned prolific?
For the really obscure songs, I couldn’t even find the damn things on iTunes or Amazon MP3. For those instances, I actually had to turn to YouTube. Oddly enough, that ended up being the perfect treasure trove for the most obscure shit. Apparently, people loves them some YouTube for catalogging their old alternative loves. Got some great stuff from Robyn Hitchcock and Nitzer Ebb, among others. But, of course, YouTube kinda only has videos, not mp3s. Thankfully, I have a javascript bookmarklet that lets me download the h.264 QuickTime videos that YouTube provides for iPhone users. And, with GarageBand, I was able to import those video files and extract the audio track, which I then exported to iTunes. Made me feel really devious and tricky. I think I had to do that for at least ten tracks. The audio quality sucks ass on those ones, but it’s far, far better than the tapes’ quality.
And now, I’m totally in love with this compilation. I’m finally able to hear the nuances and appreciate all this music I totally couldn’t get into back in the day. Granted, I’ve been turned on to a lot of this stuff in the intervening years, but most of it is still new to me in that “nostalgic although I wasn’t there” kind of way. Not only that, but after all the effort Maria put into these mix tapes, for a guy she hardly knew, I feel pretty happy to try and match her efforts. I hope maybe I can find her and share it with her.
Anyway, check it out on my opentape, or you can listen to it here (like Pandora, it’ll pause between tracks if you minimize it):
Alternative giants of the previous decade
Part 1, side A
1. B52’s – Dance This Mess Around
2. Bad Brains- Sacred Love
3. Bauhaus – Silent Hedges
4. Butthole Surfers – Sweat Loaf
5. The Church – Under the Milky Way
6. The Clash – Clampdown
7. Cocteau Twins – How to Bring a Blush to the Snow
8. The Cure – Caterpillar
9. Dead Milkmen – Smokin’ Banana Peels
10. The Dead Kennedys – I Fought the Law
11. Depeche Mode – Never Let Me Down
12. Dinosaur Jr. – In a Jar
Part 1, side B
13. Fishbone – Those Days are Gone
14. Robyn Hitchcock – Vibrating
15. Hüsker Dü – The Real World (need an album-version)
16. Jane’s Addiction – The Mountain Song
17. Jesus & Mary Chain – Just Like Honey
18. Joy Division – Leaders of Men
19. King Missile – Jesus Was Way Cool
20. KMFDM – Money (deutchmark mix)
21. Lemonheads – Belt
22. Lemonheads – Sad Girl
23. Meat Beat Manifesto – All the Things You Are
24. Minute Men – Paranoid Chant
25. Mudhoney – By Her Own Hand
26. Nitzer Ebb – Lightning Man (need an album version, complete)
Part 2, side A
1. Nine Inch Nails – Down In It
2. Sinéad O’Connor – Never Get Old
3. Pixies – Something Against You
4. Pixies – Debaser
5. Pixies – Mr. Grieves (need a copy w/o blips and pops)
6. Pixies – Brick Is Red
7. The Pogues – Bottle of Smoke
8. Public Image Ltd. – Seattle
9. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Brother’s Cup
10. REM – We Walk
11. REM – Superman
12. The Replacements – Unsatisfied
13. Siouxsie & the Banshees – Metal Postcard
14. Skinny Puppy – Worlock
Part 2, side B
15. The Smiths – That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore
16. Sonic Youth – Eric’s Trip
17. Sugarcubes – Deus
18. Talking Heads – Born Under Punches
19. 10,000 Maniacs – City of Angels
20. They Might be Giants – Santa’s Beard
21. Ultra Vivid Scene – Three Stars
22. U2 – Seconds
23. Suzanne Vega – Tom’s Diner
24. Violent Femmes – To the Kill
25. Was (Not Was) – Hello Dad (I’m in Jail)
26. Was (Not Was) – Earth to Doris
27. XTC – Runaways (need album version)
Yesterday morning, I saw a wondrous thing.