Against prognostication

June mixtape

Wednesday, June 19, 2024

Here’s another monthly mixtape I made from a sealed, pre-recorded cassette I got for 99 cents. (Loudon Wainwright III’s Grown Man.) I tape over the cassette’s protection tabs and then I tape over the music and then I tape over the artwork.

For this one, I was going for summer pool vibes. I started with the Junior Murvin track that I think I’ve played every day of this month.

All these songs are streaming online, so you can listen on Spotify or Youtube:

SIDE A

– junior murvin, “roots train”
– the marvelettes, “the hunter gets captured by the game”
– james brown, “super bad”
– donovan, “epistle to dippy”
– the everly brothers, “gone, gone, gone”
– junior murvin, “give me your love”
– prince, “the ballad of dorothy parker”
– deerhoof, “running thoughts”

SIDE B

– the knife, “heartbeats”
– wailers, “duppy conqueror”
– new order, “thieves like us”
– bacao rhythm & steel band, “PIMP”
– lefty frizzell, “always late”
– mulatu astatke, “tezetaye antchi lidj”

Listen to more monthly mixes.

He’s the gardener (a May mixtape)

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

I was running out of month so I made another monthly mixtape from a sealed, pre-recorded cassette I got for 99 cents. I tape over the cassette’s protection tabs and then I tape over the music and then I tape over the artwork.

This one turned out weirder and sadder than I thought it would? The title wasn’t planned — I just saw the headline in a magazine and switched around a few words to suit the vibe.

I used a bunch of snippets of songs from Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee faded in and out to bookend it, so it can’t really be replicated on a streaming service, but you can listen to an approximation on YouTube.

SIDE A
– cindy lee, “dracula” (snippet)
– grandaddy, “hewlitt’s daughter”
– cate le bon, “sad nudes”
– james brown, “i don’t mind”
– king geedorah, “fazers”
– lee moses, “hey Joe”
– cindy lee, “dracula” (snippet)

SIDE B
– cindy lee, “always dreaming”
– yukihiro takahashi, “flashback”
– stevie nicks, “bella donna” (demo)
– yeahyeahyeahs, “y control’
– judy mowatt, “the gardener”
– the zombies, “tell her no”
– ketty lester, “love letters”
– cindy lee, “stone faces”

I’ve made these mixes five months in a row now, so I guess I’m going to keep going for the rest of the year…