mixtape warning

The Meters - Look-a-Py-Py (listen)
Lee Dorsey - Ride Your Pony (listen)
Joe Turner, Pee Wee Crayton & Sonny Stitt - Every Day I have the Blues (listen)

I have been rolling the idea of mixtapes over in my head lately, after seeing the ones Calvin Johnson had for sale a month ago, and the mysterious Mississippi Records compilations up at ROOT BLOG, as well as various hip-hop and indie rock informal releases that have been coming my way. It makes me want to make them, and that immediately makes me want to not make them. Mixtapes call for the inspired segueway as well as unearthing the specious, commingling the familiar and the foreign in a compelling stream. I think in some regard that is what I'm doing with this blog, except that I am more documenting the flow of icebergs across my sonic arctic sea as opposed to telling a story.

My self-sabotaging first impulse is that they must be done on cassette, and I do have the technology to pull this off, but I am pretty confident in saying the finished product will never appear. I like the idea of a side a/side b solid stream of music grouped around a theme ala the Mississippi Records things, zipped up and available for download. It seems more purposeful an endeavor than simply putting together a playlist of gathered MP3's. It fits the idiom.

And then there is, what to put on a mixtape? I can come up with things to listen to all day because it is what I am listening to; a mixtape is to be listened to by someone else, and with that responsibility lies the trepidation. But that is as good a reason as any to plow forth. Be on the half-hearted lookout for mixtapes to appear on here.