Mismatched, mishmash mix

While I've got plenty of sweetness and light, there are still dark streets and rainy nights inside my head. Walks down these ill lit paths have me contemplating melancholy, desperation, and loneliness; not so much indulging in them, more examining them, prodding around their edges. Taking their temperature, as it were. Music is often the quickest route to these gray spaces.

Case in point, "Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis". Besides having one of the best titles ever, the song itself embodies that ragged, rough and tumble downheartedness that I’m talking about. A listen to this got the music bug cranking away. Visions of Billie Holiday and stripped down, sad torch songs came flooding in and it was off to the races.

This mix ended up in a lot of places that I didn’t expect. I’d originally envisioned a tapestry of acoustic, tears-inspired pieces, but Portishead came creeping in and everything went all to hell. Suddenly I’m cramming doo wop together with trip hop and dusty Texas blues. Pain Teens raised their ugly head and bared their claws in response to Shirley Horn and Etta fell to her knees in misery.

Stumbling and tripping, I finally made it out the other side.

This thing ain’t perfect by any means. Even I have some issues with the sequence, but that’s how it all poured out of me. Then again, what we’re talking about here isn’t perfect to begin with. We all have times where we’re broken and empty, disjointed and out of whack. And the road map back from that soft and bitter place never has a straight line on it.

Games, Blame, and Hard Luck Dames

01 Tom Waits - Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis
02 Billie Holiday - Fine And Mellow
03 Peggy Lee - Johnny Guitar
04 Portishead - Over
05 Rasputina - Rusty The Skatemaker
06 Sneaker Pimps - How Do
07 Etta James - I'd Rather Go Blind
08 Lightnin' Hopkins - Drinkin' Woman
09 The Chantels - Maybe
10 Shirley Horn - You Won't Forget Me
11 Pain Teens - Moonray
12 Joseph Arthur - Invisible Hands
13 Lamb - Feela
14 Alberta Adams - Remember
15 Deanna Durbin - Always



Let you ears wander through the above by clicking here and check out other musical fallout I've thrown together at the DJ Abstract website.

Continuing to wax poetic with:

Various - Games, Blame, and Hard Luck Dames
('cause everybody hurts)

2nd Gen - Irony Is
(and they like hurting you)

Abacinate - Ruination
(faster and louder)

Billy Eckstein - Billy's Best
(so cheesy it hurts)

Radiohead - Kid A
(hoping that you choke)

One from the vaults

I have always been obsessed with music. This has resulted in a sizeable library of titles in various formats (vinyl, cassette, CD, reel to reel, etc). However, upon moving in with Susan, it was discovered that some of said library took up entirely too much space. Since I’d replaced a good number of my cassettes with CDs, I plowed through the tapes, chucking stuff out merrily. During this process I did come across several cassettes that warranted saving, if only to move them on to CD (there is a certain joy in having ProTools set up in one’s home).

One of the tapes to survive the onslaught was a mix I had done some 10 years earlier. Hopes and Failures is a ghostly affair, floating from track to track, sometimes melancholy, sometimes spooky, sometimes arty. It’s the kind of eclectic (loathe that word, but here it is apropos) compilation of all the various weird stuff that my ears love to devour. It may cause you to dose in parts, but I can’t be held responsible for the kind of dreams it might bestow upon you...

01 Daniel Ash - The Void
02 M-1 Alternative - Diatom
03 Moodswings - Thailand/Hairy Piano
04 Delerium - Sorrow
05 Area - Dead Feather Years
06 Dead Can Dance - Windfall
07 Cocteau Twins - Dials
08 Happy Rhodes - Ode
09 Skinny Puppy - The Centre Bullet
10 Chet Baker - Moon And Sand



If you'd like to take a listen, you can check it out here. You can also head on over to the DJ Abstract website to check out other mixes. Hell, maybe you can hire me to come spook out your next party?

Bumpin' in ya back trunk:

Various - Hopes And Failures
(moodswinger)

Godflesh - 1990.03.31 Schorndorf, German
(alive and crushing)

Ebola - Mutant Dubstep Vol 1
(bass powered piledriver)

AFX - AFX Compilation
(Richard D James does his thing)

Various - Saint-Germain Cafe
(jazz funk house)