Tom Waits Mixtape (Mellow)

Here's one I've been meaning to do for a while, but as you'll know if you're even partially familiar with Tom Waits, he's not the easiest of characters to define.

And as with anyone of that ilk, I find myself going through phases related to individual clusters of his previous albums. Sometimes I'll like his early, croonish, folkier output with just him and a piano, and other times I'll be more drawn towards the insane stuff where it sounds instead like he's shouting into a megaphone while banging on a nearby pipe with a wrench. Of course, those are just the two most notable extremes of his remarkably unique body of work.

Judging from the shortlist of songs I made for this mix, it looks like I'm currently in the former of the two aforementioned phases. So this mix has a comparatively gentle feel to it, with the earlier blues-styles from Closing Time, The Heart Of Saturday Night, and Blue Valentine, and even the eerie, dour fairytales of Alice, pulling focus. Maybe when I'm feeling so-inclined, I'll come up with a less reserved selection of alternate Tom Waits songs from the raucous megaphone/wrench camp.

Without further stalling, here's the mellow Tom Waits tracklist:

1. New Coat Of Paint (The Heart Of Saturday Night)
2. Please Call Me, Baby (The Early Years Vol. 2)
3. Alice (Alice)
4. Time (Rain Dogs)
5. All The World Is Green (Blood Money)
6. I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You (Closing Time)
7. Gun Street Girl (Rain Dogs)
8. Blue Valentines (Blue Valentine)
9. The Part You Throw Away (Blood Money)
10. No One Knows I'm Gone (Alice)
11. I Want You (The Early Years Vol. 2)
12. Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis (Blue Valentine)

XTC Mixtape

To be honest, the reason it's taken me so long to get around to uploading the tracklisting for this mixtape, for Swindon New Wavers XTC, is that I haven't been able to find a decent profile photo of the band to go along with it, who seem instead to have all but disappeared from the face of the internet (or, more likely, been drowned under a sea of other sites trying to sell me party pills).

That aside, they cracked out some of the best pop records of the 70s and 80s, combining impressive musical subtlety with comforting pop sensibilities. Needless to say, I immediately regretted not taking their career-retrospective singles collection, Fossil Fuel, away to New Zealand with me, and listening to it again was among my top priorities on my return.

All of the following songs are singles, and so can be found on the aforementioned compilation CD set, and so I haven't listed the original releases after each song like I usually do.

1. This Is Pop
2. The Mayor Of Simpleton
3. Senses Working Overtime
4. Statue Of Liberty
5. Wake Up
6. Are You Receiving Me?
7. The Meeting Place
8. Life Begins At The Hop
9. Grass
10. Science Friction
11. Making Plans For Nigel
12. Dear God
13. The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead

The Smiths Mixtape

As promised a little earlier, it's a Smiths playlist! Perfect for spending those warm, summer days indoors, and sinking into a solemn teenage slump with your jangle-pop loving Irish-Mancunian mates.

Being a child of the 90s rather than of the 80s, I was a little late in getting my hands on my first Smiths records; and when they did finally begin to find their way into my possession, they didn't arrive with the sensible, chronological order you'd tend to want when newly discovering a band's back-catalogue, but dropped in according to whatever my older sister casually remarked I might like next.

The one advantage to hearing The Queen is Dead first, however, particularly having had no previous exposure to the band that carves such a work of genius, is that it completely revolutionises your ideas about music almost immediately. I vividly remember thinking to myself that this 'Smiths' thing is a big deal, and that I wanted to attack it correctly from the outset. So I transferred the CD from the HMV bag to my CD player, put my big headphones over my head, and laid down on my bed staring at the ceiling (and occasionally flicking through the accompanying booklet for lyrical clarification), giving every song my total attention. As it turns out, that was a pretty significant moment of my adolescence.

As most Smiths fans would tell you, it simply doesn't get any better than The Queen is Dead (although since hearing Strangeways, Here We Come, it's very much been a two-horse race for me), and so listening to the masterwork first may have had a downside to it. Still, alongside Meat is Murder, the truly excellent compilation Louder Than Bombs, and the aforementioned Strangeways, only the rarest Smiths track lacks potency and credibility from an otherwise spotless repertoire (looking at you, 'Golden Lights'). As such, forgive the absence of representation of the band's eponymous debut (or their 'unofficial debut', Hatful of Hollow), but 45-minutes is simply not enough time for the brilliance of The Smiths.

1. I Want the One I Can't Have (Meat is Murder)
2. Still Ill [Live] (Rank)
3. I Started Something I Couldn't Finish (Strangeways, Here We Come)
4. You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby (Louder Than Bombs)
5. Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others (The Queen is Dead)
6. Oscillate Wildly (Louder Than Bombs)
7. A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours (Strangeways, Here We Come)
8. I Know It's Over (The Queen is Dead)
9. Nowhere Fast (Meat is Murder)
10. Is It Really So Strange? (Louder Than Bombs)
11. Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before (Strangeways, Here We Come)
12. Ask (Louder Than Bombs)
13. Asleep (Louder Than Bombs)

Incidentally, following my memorable first exposure to The Queen is Dead, I later did the very same thing with all of my Smiths albums in order, listening silently on my bed for over six hours. I recommend it.

Pixies Mixtape

I'm back from Melbourne (which was amazing!), and so I'm revved up and eager to start contributing some more playlists. First up, something appropriately raucous and energetic: Pixies.

I was leafing through a copy of '1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die' in Wellington Library this afternoon, and as far as I could tell, every Pixies album was featured (except for possibly Trompe Le Monde, which I feel has always been unduly overshadowed by its older brothers). In a similar vein, I made a Pixies mixtape some weeks back, for which I tried to borrow a little from each one of their albums in succession - even grabbing the great version of 'Hey' featured on the Live at the BBC compilation - so as to illustrate the consistently impressive genius of the alternative Boston four-piece.

Sticking to this site's standard 45-minute 'mixtape' motif, the Pixies nonetheless have ample time to knock out as many as 20 songs, such is the lightning-fast delivery and frenetic fury with which they pound the listeners' ears. Incidentally, this is one of my favourite traits of Black Francis' songwriting; his insistence that a 2-minute track has no less force than a song twice that length (a philosophy about composition he drew, I gather, from Buddy Holly). As you'd expect, the songs featured here also showcase his music's other instantly notable characteristic: visceral and often graphic lyrics portraying sex, violence, abduction, rape, incest, and the supernatural, among other bedtime-reading topics.

A few notes about the selected songs: firstly, I kicked off the mix with 'I'm Amazed', which, aside from being one of my favourites from the back-catalogue of Pixies' disjointed songbook, is also recognisable for its eccentric opening skit ("All I know is that there were rumours..."), something which seems to work equally well as an introduction as it does a mid-album intermission. Following that, the playlist visits several of the band's heaviest numbers ('Rock Music', 'Planet of Sound', 'Tame', 'Something Against You'), interspersed with some cooler breathers (the introductory and final verses to 'Mr. Grieves' and 'Havalina' being the notable rest-periods); my attempt at doing Francis' loud-quiet-louder dynamic some justice.

Finally, I noticed that the songs on this mixtape seemed to come together much more naturally than the tracks on some of my other playlists do. Maybe it's a testament to the unique style of Pixies that means that their songs just sound right at home alongside one another, regardless of whatever album they originally called home, but whatever the reason, it's definitely a lot of fun to listen to.

1. I'm Amazed (Surfer Rosa)
2. Cecilia Ann (Bossanova)
3. Dead (Doolittle)
4. The Holiday Song (Come On Pilgrim EP)
5. Isla de Encanta (Come On Pilgrim EP)
6. Rock Music (Bossanova)
7. Mr. Grieves (Doolittle)
8. Allison (Bossanova)
9. Planet of Sound (Trompe Le Monde)
10. Tame (Doolittle)
11. Wave of Mutilation (Doolittle)
12. River Euphrates (Surfer Rosa)
13. I Bleed (Doolittle)
14. Where is My Mind? (Surfer Rosa)
15. Havalina (Bossanova)
16. Debaser (Doolittle)
17. I've Been Tired (Come On Pilgrim EP)
18. Hey [live] (Pixies at the BBC)
19. Something Against You (Surfer Rosa)
20. Nimrod's Son (Come On Pilgrim EP)

Eels Mixtape

Not too much to say about this one. I've always held Daisies of the Galaxy and Beautiful Freak in high regard (as you can probably tell by the track selection), while Souljacker and Shootenanny! have taken a little longer for me to grasp. Nonetheless, there are plenty of amazing Eels songs to choose from for a playlist, and I like the contrast between E's very delicate utterances and his flat-out rockers, both of which are fully represented here.

1. I Write the B-Sides (Rotten World Blues EP)
2. That's Not Really Funny (Souljacker)
3. Tiger In My Tank (Daisies of the Galaxy)
4. I Like Birds (Daisies of the Galaxy)
5. My Beloved Monster (Beautiful Freak)
6. Your Lucky Day In Hell (Beautiful Freak)
7. It's a Motherfucker (Daisies of the Galaxy)
8. Souljacker, Part II (Souljacker)
9. Hey Man (Now You're Really Living) (Blinking Lights and Other Revelations)
10. The Sound of Fear (Daisies of the Galaxy)
11. Guest List (Beautiful Freak)
12. Jeannie's Diary (Daisies of the Galaxy)
13. Friendly Ghost (Souljacker)
14. Novocaine For the Soul (Beautiful Freak)
15. A Daisy Through Concrete (Daisies of the Galaxy)

Incidentally, the new Eels record, End Times, comes out today.

Elliott Smith Mixtape

Another Artist Mixtape; this time, Elliott Smith. The late, great, Portland-based songwriter has probably been my most consistently listened-to artist of the past two years (another artist I discovered, once again, thanks to the soundtrack of The Royal Tenenbaums), and it's not hard to see why. From the minute you first hear his "spiderweb thin" vocal delivery, intricate finger picking guitar style, and his Beatles-esque pop craftsmanship, the endearingly introverted yet uniquely captivating quality of his music hits you with full force.

But at the same time, his influential songwriting, along with that of a previously featured artist, Daniel Johnston, is just as hard to pin down as it would be to replicate. Each of his albums stands out as an entirely separate entity. Their respective sets of songs work together both musically and thematically, showcasing a specific area of Elliott's psyche appropriate to the present stage of his life; early solo recordings made while in Heatmiser, his shift upwards from indie- to major record label, his sudden reception into the mainstream with an Oscar nomination, his ongoing alcoholism, and finally his descent towards suicidal depression. To a fan, any particular song when listened to on its own would conjure up feelings similarly felt with the other songs on the same album, such is their flow and cohesion.

As such, it's hard to get the same flow to a compilation, which has to veer between the quiet, guitar-plucked / drum-brushed, whispery numbers of Roman Candle and Elliott Smith, and those fully-instrumented grandiose songs from Figure 8 and XO which fly with the full effect of Elliott's musicianship. So the songs in this mix are simply my favourites. The ones which, at some time or another in the last two years, I have been completely obsessed with, and which I could listen to forever. As for the arrangement, I tried to make each song lead into the next, but out of the context of their own albums all that usually happens is I'll want to go off and listen to each song again, surrounded by its original counterparts.

1. Between the Bars (Either/Or)
2. Everything Reminds Me of Her (Figure 8)
3. Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands (XO)
4. Memory Lane (From a Basement On the Hill)
5. Whatever (Folk Song in C) (New Moon) / Bottle Up and Explode! (XO)
6. Single File (Elliott Smith) / Wouldn't Mama Be Proud? (Figure 8)
7. Waltz #2 (XO)
8. No Name #2 (Roman Candle)
9. Alphabet Town (Elliott Smith)
10. Somebody That I Used To Know (Figure 8)
11. Angeles (Either/Or)
12. Kiwi Maddog 20/20 (Roman Candle)
13. King's Crossing (From a Basement On the Hill)
14. Son of Sam (Figure 8)
15. I Didn't Understand (XO)

Daniel Johnston Mixtape

Making a compilation which best surmises DJ's talents / insanity is difficult for several reasons. For one, he has a lot of albums with a LOT of songs, and there is often a distinct sound to each one, particularly those recorded in the 90s and onwards with real...better musicians. To put it another way, smudging together a song recorded as a demo on an old cassette recorder in a basement in Texas in 1985 and a song recorded in a studio on a budget of more than $0 often sounds bad, and accentuates neither songs' best features. Then there are the little 'skits' which occupy about half the total track time on each early album: recordings made of the young Johnston's interactions with family, friends, and his beloved Laurie, not to mention garbled sound effects and child's toys ("the coyote goes...hroooowwwwwww"). The lad was nothing if not a passionate archivist, but they hardly contribute to a cohesive mix.

Furthermore, since Danny's influential music reads almost in biographical harmony with his personal mental health, it's hard not to place his best works simply in chronological order, and let them tell that story on their own. Add to that the fact that even listening to these songs is an experience in itself; you get overwhelmed thinking they are among the most amazing and inspirational, happy, yet sad songs ever written, but not being able to pinpoint quite why. All in all, it's a challenging ordeal.

So this mix is about as exemplary as I could make it, even if it is a little Songs of Pain-heavy. And while it does draw mainly from those pivotal early scrappy recordings about love, loss, (premarital) sex and God, I've included a handful of those more recent tracks where Daniel's haunting voice is somehow sucked to the forefront of a full band ensemble, even though in my mind that is not what Daniel's music is supposed to be. But even without an organised tracklist, each song on its own successfully illustrates the inner workings of a tortured musical genius, someone who was on MTV at least four times.

1. Grievances (Songs of Pain)
2. Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Your Grievances (Yip/Jump Music)
3. I Had Lost My Mind (Don't Be Scared)
4. Like a Monkey in a Zoo (Songs of Pain)
5. Devil Town (1990)
6. Lousy Weekend (Fun)
7. Held the Hand (1990)
8. Wild West Virginia (Songs of Pain)
9. Running Water (Hi, How Are You: The Unfinished Album)
10. Casper the Friendly Ghost (Yip/Jump Music)
11. Premarital Sex (Songs of Pain)
12. Laurie (Artistic Vice)
13. Crazy Love (Fun)
14. Some Things Last a Long Time (1990)
15. Joy Without Pleasure (Songs of Pain)
16. Walking the Cow (Hi, How Are You: The Unfinished Album)
17. Go (Respect)
18. True Love Will Find You in the End (1990)

If you have an iPod touch or iPhone, make sure to check Hi, How Are You?, Daniel's own game application.