In celebration of the upcoming 200th Sunday Mix Tape, I’ve decided to spend a few days this week taking a leisurely stroll down memory lane. My memory’s lane. I’ve compiled 199 official Sunday Mix Tapes as well as a few compilations that arrived on a Monday or other random day. It’s time to take a look back and examine why this feature has become such a huge success.
Since I can’t post 200 MP3s this week, I’m going to list what is — in my opinion — the standout track from each installment of the series. About half the tracks I’ve chosen will be represented in MP3 form, and I’ll highlight what cool themes I thought of when I first started doing this. I guess, really, this will only be new and exciting for you if you’re a reader who started visiting this website at any point after January 29th, 2006. That’s most of you. Actually, it’s probably all of you. Except MikeM, Sam, and maybe Z. I don’t even think Z reads this page anymore.
Baby Boomers are often chided for being self-aggrandizing, so I don’t know if lauding myself and my musical tastes for the past five years is in any way ironic. At least I recognize that by talking about myself and how fantastic taste in music and my witty theme ideas I am no better than the very people I chide for patting themselves on the back. So what, I don’t do that often (maybe five times a week). Let me have my moment in the sun. Let me have my Sunday Mix Tapes. The Internet’s original blog mix tape. Hey, I’m trademarking that!
The Best Of Sunday Mix Tapes Volumes 1 – 50
01 – Secret Machines – Astral Weeks [Van Morrison] – It began with a mix tape called “Covers! Covers! Covers!” after the Pete Seger tune (covered on that mix tape by Dave Pajo). It seemed like a good idea at the time. It was the middle of winter, it was a new year, and as I stated on that fateful night, “Hi. I need a hobby!” A simple statement, a simple premise, and nearly five years later it’s been one of the most popular features of this website. Good job, me!
02 – Pinebender – There’s A Bag Of Weights…
03 – Library Tapes – Cold Leaves For The Violent Ground
04 – Mono – Moonlight
05 – 90 Day Men – Too Late Or Too Dead
07 – Whitehouse – Why You Never Became A Dancer
08 – Gun Club – She’s Like Heroin To Me – Eight weeks into this new venture, here’s the first time I really had to stretch my imgination to think of a theme. My measly little brain came up with “bands whose names begin with the letter ‘G'”.
09 – Neutral Milk Hotel – Engine
10 – This Heat – A New Kind Of Water
11 – Contortions – Bedroom Athlete
12 – The For Carnation – Moonbeams – The first mix tape that elicited a reader comment…because I didn’t know the Frogs were actually from Wisconsin. This was just before I left for a trip to Chicago where I interviewed Steve Albini and Jason Molina for part of my book. It was also the trip where I stopped at a random Shell gas station somewhere outside of Louisville and read the most amazing piece of bathroom graffiti ever. Thankfully I was there 90 minutes before the exchange was scheduled to occur.
13 – Vetiver – Idle Tides
14 – Will Oldham – Stable Will
15 – Talk Talk – Ascension Day
16 – Amon Duul II – Kanaan
17 – Landing – Blue Sky Away – A great summer mix tape. “Summertime Blues,” “Feel Good Hit Of The Summer,” “Hey Saturday Sun” and “Swimsuit Issue” were highlights. Of course, this was a few weeks after I stayed at the house of a girl who was a huge Bright Eyes fan, so the requisite “I have a crush on you, I’m going to put a Bright Eyes song on this mix tape” Bright Eyes MP3 is there. Total embarrassments.
18 – Yume Bitsu – Sharp, Twisted
19 – Slowdive – Miranda
20 – The Godz – Ruby Red – I loved this mix because it was one of the first times I had to struggle to find artists that I hadn’t featured before. This is the first instance of The Cows, Lee Hazlewood and (I think) Scout Niblett. It might also be the first time I shared a song by Oxes. “Ricky Creem Calls This One ‘Chivas Regal'”. Oh you crazy Oxes!
21 – Oxbow – Sorry
22 – Monkees – Porpoise Song
23 – Mindflayer – Spit Out By The Earth
24 – Shalabi Effect – Deep Throat
25 – Ben Reynolds – Subtlety Is The I Can’t Remember What – Look at all the ambient goodness I was digging in July of 2006! Ben Reynolds, Andrew Chalk, Library Takes, Fennesz! I was really starting to come into my own here. Like an adolescent boy first discovering the joys of masturbation, this was probably around the time I started subscribing to mail order lists and looking to weird record label websites for unique new releases.
26 – Reigns – Translating
27 – Beulah – Gene Autry
28 – Leannan Sith – Descent
29 – Jazzfinger – Icy Bloody Lies, We Hardly Knew You – August 20th, 2006 almost nine months after I began the Sunday Mix Tape feature, will go down as the first time I ever mentioned that I was “getting tired of doing this every week.” At some point I gave up on the mix tapes for a few months, but that date was still a bit in the future. This was actually a pretty good mix, featuring Ride, Castanets, Windy & Carl, Charles Manson, Os Mutantes, Adelaide and — gasp — a jazz tune! John Coltrane!
30. – Tarentel – Popol Vuh
31 – Laddio Bolocko – Goat Lips
32 – Ativin – When The Sky Turns Clear – One of my favorite mix tapes of all time. It opens with Bobby Beausoleil and features Reek and The Wrecks, AM/FM, Sheriff, Daughters, Roger Rodier, Austistic Daughters, Crawling Chaos, The Sadies, Larsen, White Rainbow and Cheer Accident. I’d like to say that this tape marks the moment I committed to posting cool shit that most of my audience didn’t know of, but you could probably make that point about dozens of my compilations. For me, this one is like the true volume one. “Indie” was so over by the second half of 2006, you know?
33 – Amber Asylum – Luxuria
34 – Rolf Harris – Sun Arise
35 – The Meads Of Asphodel – Psalm 364
36 – The American Analog Set – Aaron & Maria
37 – Angelic Process – My Blood Still Whispers – The theme for Volume 37 was songs that made me uncomfortable. The fact that the main force behind Angelic Process, K. Angylus, would eventually take his own life now brings new understanding to the unease I felt, and I am saddened that the darkness which consumed the late artist could not be fully comprehended until it was too late. Such sad music. Such beautiful music. I guess I have a hard time reconciling the two ideas.
38 – Guapo – The Heliotrope
39 – A Taste Of Ra – Lovearth Song…
40 – Hawkwind – Valium 10
41 – Xela – Linseed
42 – Nine Horses – Wonderful World – The theme this week was that I focused on “The Sounds Of American Doomsday Cults.” But in between those songs there was some pretty unique stuff! Sickoakes, Rocky Votolato, the second appearance of Zelienople, Thrones, Hood, Jeffrey Luck Lucas…those artists (other than Zelienople) haven’t been used for any subsequent mix tapes for four years! That’s pretty impressive, I think.
43 – Harvey Milk – Once In A While – The first mention of Harvey Milk on the website came on November 26th, 2006. Special Wishes was making a bunch of year-end lists and I decided to give it a listen. A historical moment. It’s been like a real love story ever since. If you’re a fan of this website, you know how much attention I pay to Harvey Milk. It all started right here, Mix tape number 43.
44 – Van Morrison – Beside You
45 – Rivulets – Can’t I Wonder
46 – Cast King – Saw Mill Man
47 – Tom Waits – What’s He Building?
48 – LSD March – Rittai Lamp Ashita No Godard
49 – Crescent – Abstract Forms
50 – Thai Elephant Orchestra – Rainforest – By the fiftieth incarnation of Sunday Mix Tape I was well on my way to being the arbiter of good taste and unique music. Konono No.1, Anthony Braxton, Steeleye Span, and Cheer-Accident are impressive. Psychic TV, Didjits, Mingus and Magma make it better. It’s pretty amazing, really. Look at how far I’ve come since January of 2007. There have been 149 mix tapes since that night. So much music. So many good times. So many new visitors. Stay tuned for The Best Of Sunday Mix Tapes – Numbers 51 through 100. Coming soon…
