Mixtape Mondays

Mixtape Mondays: Hot Chicken Cold Stares

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Good Morning Friends! It is Monday morning and once again I am bringing you all a hand-crafted mixtape. For those uninitiated to this series, I greatly enjoy crafting Mixtapes and have since I was a youngster. Given that we no longer use tapes or burn CDs, the next best thing is to create carefully curated playlists on Spotify or YouTube. Along with this process, I also create custom album artwork since so much of the mixtape process was adorning the physical media with sharpies and other colorful markers. Instead of sending a tape to a specific person, I broadcast these out to all of my friends and readers on the internet. It makes me exceptionally happy when I hear back feedback from one of my friends as they enjoyed a specific musical blend.

Hot Chicken Cold Stares

There is a specific flavor of rock that I associate with bands like The White Stripes or The Kings of Leon. It is heavily distorted, jangly, and fuzzy around the edges and I am uncertain what you can actually call it. However given that both Jack White of the White Stripes and The Kings of Leon now record out of Nashville Tennessee, I mentally associate the particular sound with that scene. What else do I associate with Nashville… well hot chicken of course because I love it so. So this morning I bring you a Mixtape dedicated to that style of music and quite honestly… this is one of my favorites so far. I am certain it will be an acquired taste much like the capsaicin laced hot chicken that gives this blend its name. I also feel like it is important to pay homage to where I think the sound came from… with The Rolling Stones and The Animals.

  • Ruby – Kaiser Chiefs
  • Fell In Love With a Girl – The White Stripes
  • King of the Rodeo – Kings of Leon
  • Melatonin – Silversun Pickups
  • Come a Little Closer – Cage The Elephant
  • Hate To Say I Told You So – The Hives
  • Get Free – The Vines
  • Steady, As She Goes – The Raconteurs
  • Hang Me Up To Dry – Cold War Kids
  • Here It Goes Again – OK Go
  • Hash Pipe – Weezer
  • Paint It, Black – The Rolling Stones
  • Lonely Boy – The Black Keys
  • Reptilia – The Strokes
  • E-Pro – Beck
  • Flathead – The Fratellis
  • House Of The Rising Sun – The Animals.

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There is my latest Mixtape and with it, I hope signals the beginning of a wonderful week. This week I am transitioning back to remote work, and hopefully, that goes smoothly. Like I said above this is probably one of my favorite Mixtapes that I have created, and while it has been waiting on release I’ve listened to it for hours at a time. If you are tuning into this series late, you can find the entire archive of Mixtapes released to this point here:

MixTape Mondays: Tapedeck Held Aloft

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Good Morning Friends! Today would normally be considered “holiday mode” given that in the United States many of us are off today in celebration of the Independence Day weekend. However given that I do a thing on Mondays and only on Mondays… and have a nice backlog of mixtapes to go through I thought I would put forth the effort to keep things rolling. For those who might be new to this blog, each Monday I post a new custom curated mixtape of music, often times with a theme of some sort. As a kid I was a mixtape creator and crafted them for friends and recently I have fallen back into that tradition utilizing things like Spotify and YouTube to craft as close as you can get to the feeling of a digital mixtape.

Tapedeck Held Aloft

Being born in 1976, my “childhood” pretty neatly straddled the line between the 80s and the 90s and as such I largely consider myself a child of both decades. I am a sucker for a good John Hughes film and spent more than more than my share of time watching romcoms and teen movies from that era. This MixTape today is essentially my love letter to the soundtracks of those movies. If you are of a certain age, you can close your eyes and imagine the movies that went along with these songs or instead let it all sort of blend together into one sappy slurry.

  • Hungry Like the Wolf – Duran Duran
  • Take on Me – A-Ha
  • The Promise – When in Rome
  • Doctor! Doctor! – Thompson Twins
  • Things Can Only Get Better – Howard Jones
  • If You Leave – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
  • I Melt with You – Modern English
  • Head Over Heels – Tears for Fears
  • It’s My Life – Talk Talk
  • The Goonies R’ Good Enough – Cyndi Lauper
  • The Ghost in You – The Psychedelic Furs
  • Voices Carry – Til Tuesday
  • In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel
  • Don’t You Forget About Me – Simple Minds

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There you have it, my tenth MixTape served on a Monday for you all to enjoy. I hope folks are partaking of this nonsense, but even if they are not it is at the very least causing me to listen to a lot more music which is increasing my overall joy in the world. If you are tuning in late to this series you can check out the entire archive of past weeks collected in a single page:

MixTape Mondays: Semi-Charmed Panic Attack

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Good Morning Friends! I hope you are all having an excellent Monday out there in internetland. For those of you who might be stumbling onto this as your first visit, I do this thing every Monday where I post a new MixTape pulled from some of my musical tastes. I was one of those kids that made MixTapes for my friends or as a poor substitute for flirtation. There is a certain artform to placing songs in a very specific sequence in order to create a whole that is greater than any of its parts. I’ve missed this process and decided to revitalize it for you my readers. Again like my blog posts in general, I am sorta sending this out into the void and hoping that someone out there might get some enjoyment from this particular brand of nonsense.

Semi-Charmed Panic Attack

There is this particular moment in music that feels like it gets overlooked. Between Grunge and the more punk inspired stylings of Blink-182 there was this music scene that I find it hard to really define. It makes me think of college and the early days of trying to figure out how to be something resembling an adult. I attempted to reach back into that era and pull out a cohesive soundtrack to represent it. There was this weird thing going on where the songs were still peppy sounding, but the lyrical journey that was happening behind them was pretty damned depressing. I’m also abusing my powers to expose you to two excellent Tulsa area bands: Caroline’s Spine and Mollys Yes.

  • The Way – Fastball
  • Everything You Want – Vertical Horizon
  • Attention Please – Caroline’s Spine
  • Promise – Eve 6
  • Sugar – Mollys Yes
  • Load Me Up – Matthew Good Band
  • Father of Mine – Everclear
  • Semi-Charmed Life – Third Eye Blind
  • One Man Army – Our Lady Peace
  • Rain King – Counting Crows
  • Good Intentions – Toad The Wet Sprocket
  • Til I Hear It From You – Gin Blossoms
  • Get Off This – Cracker
  • Closing Time – Semisonic

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And there we have it friends, another MixTape Monday in the bag. I had honestly been a bit concerned that I might be out of inspiration given that I had burned through all of my pre-made MixTapes last week. Then this weekend happened and I crafted no less than five brand new ones for the coming weeks as well as a handful of idea fragments kicking around in my head. Also of note if you are tuning in late you can view the entire archive of the past nine weeks at:

MixTape Mondays: Big Hair Tight Pants

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Good Morning Friends! It is that time again, time for another MixTape. For those who don’t know what is going on here, every Monday I release a new MixTape as I share some of my musical tastes with you my readers. I was one of those kids who made MixTapes for my friends and as a completely failed attempt at flirting. There is a certain artform to a good album and this is my attempt to revitalize that whole experience that I have found I deeply missed. An old friend of mine told me over the weekend, that it seemed like I was missing creativity and creative outlets… and I guess this is one way of flexing those muscles. I do enjoy creating my nonsense album art for each release. However lets get on into the music.

Big Hair Tight Pants

This time we are diving back into the era kept alive by mascara, tight pants and copious amounts of extra hold hairspray. That’s right I am talking about the era of Hair Metal and Glam Rock. I am of a specific age that has allowed me to weather many trends, not the least of which is when the baddest dudes on the planet wore women’s cut tops and spandex pants. I have a deep nostalgia for this era of rock and once again I attempted to pull together some very well worn staples and a few deep cuts as we go. Honestly once again this is a bit of a build around… Hysteria by Def Leppard is probably my single favorite track from that era so of course I had to feature it.

  • Panama – Van Halen
  • Hysteria – Def Leppard
  • Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Warrant
  • 18 and Life – Skid Row
  • Sweet Child O’ Mine – Gun N’ Roses
  • Livin’ On a Prayer – Bon Jovi
  • Poison – Alice Cooper
  • Dr. Feelgood – Motley Crue
  • Nothin’ But a Good Time – Poison
  • Thunderstruck – AC/DC
  • Cum on Feel the Noize – Quiet Riot
  • The Final Countdown – Europe
  • No More Tears – Ozzy Osbourne

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An there we go, another Monday and Mix down. This one is probably going to be fairly polarizing since the hair metal era is not exactly loved by everyone. The older I get the more nostalgic about it I am. For some reason this era always reminds me of State Fair concerts and the little “coke” mirrors that you used to be able to win on the midway with album art for all of these bands. If you are tuning in late to this project and want to catch up you can do so through my archive linked below.