Mix Tape Memories: Volume 2

[Mix Tape Memories is a series of posts focusing on and examining music that is so important to me that it seems to have affected my life or outlook on it. Follow the link to read the first part of the series: Volume I.]

“The worst thing you can do is to try to cling to something that's gone, or to recreate it.”

- Johnette Napolitano
Lead Singer, Bass Player, and Co-Founder of Concrete Blonde

1.

“Dominion/ Mother Russia”              The Sisters of Mercy                             Floodland

I bought my first music when I was eight years old. I saw an ad for BMG Music Club in the TV Guide. I chose six albums (Albums mind you. Not tapes. Not CDs), taped a penny to the form, found an envelope and stamp, and mailed it off. I wasn’t quite aware of the concept of “club membership payments.” Or maybe I was. I just wanted those albums. I didn’t even own a record player. Some things haven’t changed since I was eight…I still don’t think things all the way through. I think there were three different clubs I joined before the wrath of my mother finally convinced me that I’d lose a hand if I tried taping another penny to any page out of any magazine in the house.

I was 15 when I bought the first music with money I had earned myself, so it felt like it was “my” first music. I bought it at a music store in Wooster, OH where my older brother was going to school. There was a lot of music I was finding I liked and wanted to explore, so I don't really know why early 80’s Goth, Industrial became that first choice, but it turned out to be a good if not important choice. Floodland. The Sisters of Mercy. I remember going back to the car, leaving my family still shopping inside the mall. I wanted to sit in the car and listen to what I’d bought right then. I remember…a vague sense of something being not what I had expected. It hadn't really happened like this before. This was something I would have to listen to more than once. There wasn’t an instant like/dislike. There was a sense of needing to actually study the music, to explore it. Dominion/Mother Russia was what jumped out at me on that first listen in the hot August sun, baking me in my mother’s mini-van. I was drenched in sweat and probably nearing heat stroke when my family finally opened the doors to the mini-van , but I had never been happier.

LYRICS           

[POP-UP MIX TAPE]

According to songwriter, Andrew Eldritch, the song disguises an anti-American diatribe flavored by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The second part of the song "Mother Russia" was a call for the West to give up Berlin to the Soviets, "because in reality they already control the city. It's only stupid to pretend otherwise".

2.

“Song for a Future Generation”                  The B-52’s                Whammy!           

  

In first grade, I narrowed down to three the things I wanted to be when I grew up. One, a surgeon. Two, an appliance salesperson at K-Mart (even I don't know where this one came from). Three, an acrobat in the circus. If I had given it a little more thought, I probably would’ve added a fourth. Four, a B-52.

The B-52’s were perfect role-models for the outcast, the weirdo, the misfit. They didn’t just embrace being odd and different, they had a fucking blast doing it, all while decked out in platform shoes and 3-foot tall bouffants.

“Song for a Future Generation” wasn’t the first B-52s song that grabbed hold and made me want to dance in the hot Athens, Georgia sun, but it was the first one that I felt was for me: a song of outsider-ness, empowerment, and lyrics that combine Frankenstein, George Takei, and a united England and France.

                                       LYRICS                                            

[POP-UP MIX TAPE]

“Song for a Future Generation” is the first of two songs by the B-52's to feature all five band members singing lead vocals, the second being "Theme for a Nude Beach" from the album Bouncing off the Satellites. A ridiculous yet wonderful cover of the song is done by Chicks on Speed. If you haven’t heard it before, check it out: 

LISTEN

3.

“Sympathy for the Devil”               The Rolling Stones                Beggars Banquet

I realized that I was a music geek and had dedicated way too much time obsessing over it when I had a late night conversation with my friend Stephen Moc. Stephen was in a band called Ma Rainey, a blues and rock band he founded with his brother. I first saw Ma Rainey in college and really liked them. I was seeing a lot of live music during that time, and if Ma Rainey was playing, I’d try to catch them. I got to know Stephen, and we became friends over the years, the ubiquitous Short North Tavern being a home away from home for both of us. He did a killer cover of “Sympathy for the Devil.”

Now this was a guy that was a good enough musician to have the balls to name his blues band Ma Rainey…I looked up to him. One night, a bit inebriated, I laid out my “Tapestry of Music” theory. I babbled on about the links from Mozart to Billy Holiday to Modest Mouse. Afterward, he just nodded and either very convincingly humored me (most likely) or was impressed (less likely).

“Sympathy for the Devil” was my Rolling Stones song before I really knew the Rolling Stones. Later I would realize that the band is an amazing and integral part of many decades of pop culture, art, and my “Tapestry of Music.”

LYRICS

[POP-UP MIX TAPE]

In the 2012 BBC documentary, Crossfire Hurricane, Mick Jagger stated that his influence for the song came from Baudelaire and from the Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita (which had just appeared in English translation in 1967). The book was given to him by Marianne Faithfull.

4.

 “Faded Flowers”                                Shriekback                               Oil & Gold

“Nemesis” was the song that lassoed me, but it was “Faded Flowers” that made me want to put on eyeliner, don varying shades of black, and generally look moody and feel misunderstood. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I played this song over and over in high school while sitting in my dark bedroom and thinking of all the ways it was “speaking to me.” I even used it as the coup de grace while playing Cupid. I hooked up one of my best friends with the guy I had a crush on. Obviously, I just wanted to play the martyr so I could listen to the song more.

I hadn’t listened to the song in many years until it popped into my head a few months back. I was instantly transported back to those days, and the song was just as sad and inscrutable as ever, just like that 15-year old boy.

LYRICS

Don your leather and lace, pour a glass of red wine and listen here:

LISTEN

[POP-UP MIX TAPE]

The song was featured in the 1980s movie Band of the Hand. I’d like to say I knew this and have seen the movie. I have not. However, upon reading the comments on YouTube, raving about the flick, I feel I need to fill in a gap I never knew existed.

Additionally, the song plays a role in the "If Travel Is Searching." Stay tuned.

5.

“Creep”                                            Radiohead                                 Pablo Honey

It’s not easy to describe what Radiohead means to me. Beyond the fact that it’s a great band with two genius musicians (Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood), it’s woven into the memories of different stages of my life tightly.

My first apartment was a shitty little second floor box in a building that looked like a 1960’s cheap motel. It was close to campus though and cheap. One night after moving in, the neighbors had a party. Upon hearing this song blaring in my apartment, a few party go-ers knocked on my door and invited me over. That was a change from most instances of my playing of this song. Most of the time it just involves me sitting in my apartment alone, chain smoking and drinking.

LYRICS

             

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It is known that this song, while not being the best from Thom, Johnny, and crew is forbidden by me to be covered. I've been know to rage, curse, and spill beer when the unfortunate sould attempts to sing it at Karaoke. I once went into a lengthy tirade that had actually little to do with the song when I once heard another band cover it (read: butcher it). It seems like a simple song, but the subtle, vulnerable, almost cracking voice of Thom Yorke is impossible to match. One exception: Damien Rice.

One other exception: an epic, legendary night of Rock Band that last 8 hours and involved a bottle of Jack Daniels. Alas, no recording survived the historic night. It will live in the minds of the four of us that experieced it. Rock on my friends. Rock on.

Listen to Damien Rice's cover here:

LISTEN