Mixtape Remix | Butterscotch Sundae

One of the most difficult things to deal with when pondering mix tapes is the transient nature of the medium. Tapes get old. They run down and get warbly from repeated (and frequent) use. They get stuck in that nether region between the bottom of the seat and the car door and get smashed into bits. They get stressed and pulled by constant rewinding or an over-zealous fast-forwarding mechanism. They get warped by the heat of the sun and the plastic dash board.

And sometimes, they just die.

I was at my parents house when I went searching for a tape to write about this week. The place of my upbringing, the place I went from records to tapes to CDs to digital media. This is where I perfected my craft, spending hours every week listening to music in my room and making tapes. If any place was going to have a real treasure, it would be here.

And what a treasure I found!

In the previous post, I mentioned that many times I made tapes to mark a vacation — a new compilation to start a journey. What I found was an old friend amongst the stacks of Eagles greatest hits and Paul Simon cassettes yellowed by age and almost illegible from the years of fingers that smudged the ink, sliding them into or removing them from the car stereo. What I found was the mix I prepared in 1996 before leaving for our yearly fishing migration to Minnesota.
Continue reading The perilous nature of cassettes →

Like many other people in my generation, I express myself through musical compilations. You know: Playlists and such. Ten years ago, it was making a CD mix. Before that, it was making a mix tape.

I was a prolific mix-tape maker. They weren’t all good. In fact it wasn’t uncommon for me to record the tape and five minutes later completely discard it. There were some tapes that hit the bottom of the pile before they were even finished being made. But some were good. Really good, in fact. So good, I can still remember the song line up or the tape it was recorded on.

Making mix tapes was a passion of mine, just like making playlists is today. I still find a special kind of enjoyment in the making of a good mix. But making a mix tape was different, because there was no changing the mix on the fly. Once a tape was recorded, it was no longer a blank slate. It was a thought already shared.
Continue reading The ever-evolving soundtrack of my youth →