Tuesday, March 07, 2006
This is a mix CD I made for J.G. a few weeks ago:

1. Apollo Sunshine - "Today Is The Day"
2. Simon & Garfunkel - "Cecilia"
3. Brendan Benson - "The Alternative To Love" (Metarie EP version)
4. The Posies - "21"
5. Spymob - "National Holidays"
6. Superchunk - "Detroit Has A Skyline"
7. The B-52's - "Private Idaho"
8. Chisel - "River High"
9. Soul Coughing - "So Far I Have Not Found The Science"
10. Medications - "This Is The Part We Laugh About"
11. Alicia Keys featuring Adam Levine - "Wild Horses"
12. The Rolling Stones - "Can't You Hear Me Knocking"
13. John Mellencamp - "Cherry Bomb"
14. Travis Morrison - "Any Open Door"
15. Ken Stringfellow - "Any Love (Cassandra Et Lune)"
16. Jeff Buckley - "What Will You Say" (live Mystery White Boy version)
17. Ted Leo - "Bleeding Powers" (solo Tell Balgeary EP version)
18. Randy Newman - "Baltimore"

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7:42 PM

Monday, October 10, 2005
Over the weekend, my friends Mat and Emily hyphenated their last names, and J.G. and I went down to the Eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay to witness the event. Aside from the days of constant rain (I read in the paper this morning that it set a new 2-day record for rainfall in the region), and getting a little lost on the way, it was a great weekend. They've both got extensive graphic design experience and different creative outlets, so everything from the invites to the programs looked great and original. Whenever I get married, I'm definitely going to take some cues from them.

Mat put a lot of thought into the music too, from a great reception playlist to hiring his friend Mark de Gli Antoni as musical accompaniment for the ceremony. Mark is best known as a member of Soul Coughing, a 90's alt-rock band who history will, I suspect, not treat kindly, but he did some amazing work in that band playing a keyboard sampler in a live band environment back when that was still kind of a novel idea. And his 1999 solo album Horse Tricks is a really underrated piece of work. Mat's label has been sitting on the rights to release Mark's next album, most of which features 3/4ths of Soul Coughing doing more weird Horse Tricks-type stuff, for a while now, and it too is great and I hope someday soon it sees the light of day. I also hope that when Mat gets back from his honeymoon, he'll finish rebuilding his home studio so we can finish recording my solo album that we started recording at his old house 2 years ago, and that at some point I'll have the honor of officially being labelmates with Mr. de Gli Antoni.

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11:24 PM

Mixtape Tuesday

Tuesday, February 01, 2005
This is the first mixtape I ever made for my girlfriend, J.G., when we first started dating in May of 2002:

side 1:
1. La Lengua Asesina - "Hotel Opera"
2. Ben Folds Five - "Philosophy"
3. The Dismemberment Plan - "The Ice Of Boston"
4. Saltine - "Reveal Love"
5. Soul Coughing - "I Miss The Girl"
6. J Mascis & The Fog - "Same Day"
7. They Might Be Giants - "First Kiss" (live)
8. Superchunk - "Hyper Enough"
9. Pavement - "Spit On A Stranger"
10. The Posies - "You're The Beautiful One"
11. The Dismemberment Plan - "Time Bomb"
12. Eels - "Ant Farm"
13. La Lengua Asesina - "Hotel Opera (reprise)"

side 2:
1. The Clash - "Train In Vain"
2. Elvis Costello & the Attractions - "High Fidelity"
3. Al Green - "Tired Of Being Alone"
4. They Might Be Giants - "Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas)"
5. Brendan Benson - "Emma J"
6. Lake Trout - "Sounds From Below"
7. Sonic Youth - "Shadow Of A Doubt"
8. The Dismemberment Plan - "Following Through"
9. Ben Folds Five - "Missing The War"
10. Sparklehorse - "Hundreds Of Sparrows"
11. Elliott Smith - "Say Yes"
12. Ted Leo / Pharmacists - "Biomusicology"
13.Jeff Buckley - "Hallelujah"

I've made her a half dozen other mixtapes since this one, but she says this one is still her favorite, and when she lost it, she requested that I make it for her again, which I did a few months ago. The only difference on the new version was the omission of "Train In Vain", which was due to the fact that I had accidently stepped on and broken the one Clash best-of CD-R I had, but it worked alright because on the original, "Hallelujah" got cut off at the end of the tape, but now there was enough room for all of it. My tastes are considerably broader (and more obscure) than J.G.'s, but I try not too pull the music snob "my girlfriend doesn't understand/needs to be educated about good music" attitude. There is a good amount of crossover between our tastes, though, so I enjoy bringing alt/indie stuff to her attention that she might enjoy. Since I made this for her, she's acquired (either bought or burnt from my copies of) albums by about a half dozen of the artists on this tape, and has accompanied me to many D Plan and Ted Leo shows.

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6:33 PM