April 2011 - Brand New Mixtape

Here's a new mix-tape for all my friends.

1. The Upsetters: Cloak and Dagger

2. Marlena Shaw: California Soul

3. Jane Birkin & Brian Ferry: In Every Dream Home a Heartache

4. Velvet Underground: Who Loves the Sun

5. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band: The Hammer Song

6. Elvis Costello: I don't Want to go to Chelsea

 

7. The Chameleons: Up the Down Escalator

 

8. Adele: Rolling in the Deep (Jamie XX Remix)

 

 

9. MJ Cole: Sincere (Nero Remix)

 

10. La Roux: I'm Not Your Toy (Nero Remix)

 

 

11.  LB: Ashes to Ashes

 

 

12. Simple Minds: Theme for Great Cities

 

 

13. White Lies: Bigger Than Us

 

 

14.  The Bodines: Therese

 

 

15.  Bettie Serveert: Palomine

 

16. Chemical Brothers: Where Do I Begin

17. Black Sabbath: Planet Caravan

 

18. Hanz Zimmer: You're So Cool

Clash Covers

 

1. Vince Clark: Brand New Cadillac

 

2. The Equals: Police On My Back

3. Junior Murvin: Police and Thieves

 

|4. Bobby Fuller:  I fought the law 

5. Toots: Pressure Drop

6. Willie Williams: Armageddon Time

7. Danny Ray: Revolution Rock

8. The Rulers: Wrong Em Boyo

Mixtape 1: February 2011

        Tracklisting

Scroll down a little bit to listen/watch the playlist


1. Lloyd Cole and the Commotions: Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?
2. Au Revoir Simone: Oh! You Pretty Things
3. Irma Thomas: Ruler of My Heart
4. The White Stripes: We're Going To Be Friends
5. The Zombies: I Want You Back Again
6. Sniff 'N' The Tears: Driver's Seat
7. The Jam: English Rose
8. Love: A House Is Not A Hotel
9. Cat Power: Metal Heart
10. Sia: Breathe Me
11. River Ocean: Love & Happiness (Dream Mix)
12. The Korgis: Everybody Got To Learn Sometimes
13. Beach House: Zebra
14. Freur: Doot Doot
15. Emeralds: Candy Shoppe
16. Doves: The Storm
17. The Chills: Pink Frost
18. Jonsi and Alex: Happiness
19. Songs: Ohia: Soul

Mike K's Mixtape: welcome

Hi,

This is my first blog, one dedicated to sharing my mix tapes, albeit, via cyber space for my friends, old and new. I have loads of archives spanning 3 decades, and will create new ones too.

I was born in 1969... so yes, I am a classic generation x'er, and yes, I like Generation X, Billy Idol solo, not so much...

I am married to a former pop music journalist. On our first date, we saw french group Air, and I told her they borrowed much from Pink Floyd. She rolled her eyes. Thus began the battle for musical taste supremacy.

I have always made mixed tapes. The early years were primitive... holding up a portable tape deck next to a plastic record player and holding my breath while the built-in microphone recorded the vinyl to tape. Later on in my teens, my friend Sean sold me his TEAK double tape deck, and I was in business. Mixes for everyone.

I had a DJ business in high school - called the Edge - though there was no relation to U2. I got on air during my university days, playing reggae at Vanier College and then on McGill's CKUT, hosting a news program called Off The Hour. I've played in nightclubs, but never thought myself a DJ... just taking my mix tape public. Entertaining myself, imposing on others. Requests? Fuck off!

Today, I still get the same thrill when I figure out a new playlist, and hand it out to friends. While digital files really mucked up how I appreciate listening to music, I am grateful we still (for now) can use CDs, which hold the perfect amount of space for a nice set. 15-20 tracks - that's just about right, right?

And so yes, mixtapes for everyone... once a month.Hope you enjoy.

Mike K, Montreal

Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?

Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken was one of my favorite songs by the Scottish band Lloyd Cole and The Commotions. Was what I consider a perfect mid 80's British Band - never as popular as Aztec Camera, but I liked them more. This song opened many of my mix tapes back then, and still does to this day. The studio production sounds great in a car with the volume jacked up. I can't remember seeing this band play live but in the late 90's I caught Lloyd Cole playing a solo gig in NYC at a small pub (Joe's?), doing a acoustic set. Inaugural Eurovision winning pop singer Sandie Shaw did a cover of the song, also in the 80's, but the original is truly a heart breaker.

Au Revoir Simone do  a lovely cover of Oh! You Pretty Things. I was watching a documentary about British Fashion and Mod Culture and this track was part of its soundtrack. As a kid, I bought a copy of Bowie's Changes Part II, listened to his (less popular than Changes I) songs and tried to figure out the biology of his having two different coloured eyes. I'm guessing Au Revoir Simone are a couple of hipster chicks from Brooklyn, but that's cool, I love the song.

 

Irma Thomas, the soul queen of New Orleans, has one of the more powerful voices in pop music. She's had a number of big hits but is there any better that Ruler Of My Heart (1963). I don't have any specifc memory of when I first heard this song. I definitely never owned a copy. It's as if I always knew it.  And like me, I bet everyone knows this song.

 

The White Stripes... everyone knows and love the White Stripes. Along with the Arcade Fire, they are one of the important bands for the new millennium right? They seem to be able to write and produce record after record that you will never delete from your IPOD. I kinda lost interest in this band and didn't pay much attention to this song, beyond knowing it was in the movie Napoleon Dynamite. It wasn't until winter 2011, in a bar in Banff, that I listened to We're Gonna Be Friends carefully. It's a lullaby - and how often do you get those anymore?

 

British invasion group The Zombies had a song from their mid 1960's album Odessey & Oracle called I Want You Back Again that I just find so cool. In the way that I thought Rod Serling, the Twilight Zone guy was cool. Way way way before my time, I was more or less introduced to the band via the Andrew "Loog" Oldham radio show, who's played this record a few times. The video on vimeo is way cooler.

 

Sniff 'N' The Tears - Ever heard of this band? I wouldn't have been able to tell you a single thing about them until about a month ago, when I was driving from Calgary to Banff in a Dodge Ram pick up truck listening to local radio play a one-hits wonder weekend countdown. Driver's Seat was the only interesting song from this British New Wave band. The song came out in 1978. Same year as Blondie. The back up vocals always reminds me of the Wailers' I Three's. Wonder if Sniff was a Bob fan? Oh, and Driver's Seat was featured on the Boogie Nights soundtrack.

The Jam were a massive band in England in the late 70s and early 80s but by the time I discovered them, I felt like I'd missed the whole thing. I lamented learning that they had performed in Montreal just a few months before, and I'm pretty sure they never came back.  I accepted a stolen copy of Setting Sons back when most of my money was spent on music with weekly trips downtown to Duchies, WOW, and Phantasmagaria. Love songs by punk rockers were confusing back. Paul Weller sang many, and English Rose is one of the best.

Love is a band I pretended to know when my wife brought home a re-issued CD of their classic Forever Changes. Truth is I didn't know anything about them, except that Arthur Lee was their lead singer and Lloyd Cole sang out him in "Heartbroken" (the first track on this mix.) So, y'all probably know this but Forever Changes is on every rock critics top 100 albums of all time and  House is Not A Motel is a great song from this record. Starts off super chill and then goes bonkers...

Cat Power has a gorgeous acoustic version of Metal Heart that appears on the Late Night Tales Compilation by Air. I burned this song onto a CD and listened to it over and over in my car. Apparently I was not the only one in love with Cat Power. Can't find a youtube version of the song, but this live clip is pretty good.

I first came to hear Breathe Me through a dance music remix by Mylo. I had it on a mix on a vacation and the all the girls danced to it for a week straight. It was our song of St Martin that holiday. Australian Sia (Furler) might sound familiar - she is a vocalist on some of Zero 7 sweetest songs like Destiny.  She is also, oddly, the niece of the lead singer of Men At Work.

Before youtube and wikipedia, and before I knew much about dance music, there was a song I was pretty sure was called Love & Happiness. My girlfriend, a dance music expert, said: Yeah, that's Masters at Work, big track, important track, everybody knows that track. So I went around looking for the song. Took a while to figure out that the recording artist was actually River Ocean featuring India. It was all the same guys - producers working under different names. Dance music had different rules. Love & Happiness sounds really great in a night club.

The Korgis were AM gold even if Everybody Got To Learn Sometime was released in an FM era. It would have been deadly to have admitted liking this song in high school, and certainly not possible to put it on a mix tape back then. Beck covered for the film Eternal Sunshine.

Beach House put out Zebra in 2010, so no one can accuse me of not trying. I think they are described as dream pop. The song has everything I love, its whooshy, swelling, and melodic, it builds and explodes. reminds me a lot of This Mortal Coil. Love hearing new music that makes me feel the way I did when I was a kid.

Freur - Another one-hit wonder from the 80s until you listen carefully to Doot Doot - then you realize that Freur became Underworld. I used to play Doot Doot at parties but I think I was the only one who liked it. Very well could be the case still today. Cameron Crowe used it in the final scene of Vanilla Sky (though for some reason it doesn't appear on the OST)

The Emeralds do this song called Candy Shoppe. I have no idea who they are except that they opened for Caribou this year and are from Cleveland. They sound like a grown up Chemical Brothers to me and I can't get enough of this song.

The Doves are one of those bands that should be bigger. I mean, if Coldplay are massive, why are the Doves indie? KCRW plays the hell out of them and The Storm is a really great song with amazing production.

My friend Sean and his older brother Phil introduced me to The Chills. Phil was a massive music collector and seemed to have a new crate of records every week. I pilfered them as quickly as possible. His tastes were eclectic, and almost every LP had that IMPORT label glued on to the front of the sleeve. The Chill were from New Zealand, pretty much a one hit wonder in my world. Pink Frost is a classic from those days.

Jonsi and Alex put out an album called Riceboy Sleeps just a year or so ago. I was really into ambient music in the late 90s but these days not so much. One night, I was listening to CBCs The Signal, which I never listen to, and this song came on. Lay in bed, captivated, speechless, not wanting to miss a single note. Later on  googled, yes, its the guy from Sigur Ros, found this video which is incredible.

I got into collecting the "Back to Mine" compilations. The get really great artists like New Order, The Orb, and Underworld to put together mixes that they would play back home, at the end of the night. I bought the Death in Vegas mix at an indie records store in Australia a decade ago. Possibly one of the last CDs I've every bought in a shop. In between tracks by Nina Simone and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was one by Songs: Ohia. The song - Soul - sounds live.  I (literally) dragged my wife to go see this guy in Toronto where he played under his other moniker: the Magnolia Electric Co. We left after 30 minutes.