it's always fuzzy in genredelphia

last valentimes, i innaugurated [careful, noisylink] "genrephilia," a series of posts on genre based around a genrelovey podmix, in an interesting but not entirely successful (maybe?) bit of blog format experimentation. i only got partway through, stopping after ten posts with installment #3, about disco (working backwards from 12 out of a total of 14, including 0 and -1.) part of the idea was to establish a sort of point of reference for each genre, a pronouncement on the state of my relationship with that given musical arena, although i used it for various other purposes as well.

just for kicks, lets see if i can mount an actually brief, 1-2 sentence summary of the current states of those affairs, in the order of the original posts (and with links as appropriate):

12. valentine's - (oh, i forgot about that part. not actually a genre, is it - well anyway i just talked about that in my last post about my new mix; moving on then.)

11. country - unfortunately, haven't found anything to be nearly as excited about since that one keith urban album, though taylor swift may come close whenever i actually get her album; ditto miranda lambert (no, miley doesn't count.) i have become pleasingly, increasingly comfortable with the concept of country as a genre, though, listening to country radio on occasion and taking occasional steps to further my historical perspective. also very curious about this new dolly parton album (dolly's weird - an artist it has become hip for non-country-listeners to think is hip, but who doesn't seem to have much to do with contemporary country anymore, unless i'm wrong.)

10. dancepop - this post was kind of positing justin timberlake, or at least parts of futuresex/lovesounds, as formally innovative in terms of pop song and album structure...i can't say i've heard anything since to really take that and run with it; the timbaland album i was so amped about turned out to be pretty disappointing. on the other hand, blackout and its unlikely compeers (including x and jordin sparks) are at least investigating some other formal possibilities, on the more micro level.

9. electronica - proceeds apace... last year i said i gave up on it, and i can't say i've heard anything really earthshaking to bring me back around - gui and axel and pantha et al. were nice enough but nothing too new... the return of big beat is possibly still progressing, but i can't quite tell where it's at now (justice are, apparently, Popular - as i learned last weekend, even people who can't identify "d.a.n.c.e." offhand know that it's from 'the cross album' - though it hasn't gotten them into the kimmel center yet.) if i ever hear back from the folks at klang/playhouse or ~scape, maybe i'll have something to tell you. [eta: oh, yo. yo.]

8. local/diy - staying out of it. i have officially not been to any of yr standard west philly basement shows - i haven't actually heard of many happening anyway - save for the recently begun, consistently brilliant weekly revues at 4814 hazel, which have little in common with anything else of the sort, seem to belong to no scene other than their own, and are rarely all that focused on containing 'actually good' music - it's all about the show. so i can't really comment, but maybe just perhaps there's been a lull in w-phi diy-land? dunno.

7. reggae - nothing new to report. oh wait i got that mighty diamonds LP - that's pretty sweet. really really sweet actually. (someday, when he's old enough to understand, i will make a mixtape for my nephew that will feature "dem never love poor marcus.") also, if it counts, the soul-jazz rumble in the jungle cd compilation of mid-90s british ragga/jungle is one of the best things i heard in 2007, maybe the most vital music ever. (oh yeah, that's a new project: to realize/decide that dancehall/ragga/whathaveyou are actually subgenres of reggae, and maybe to get comfy with that historical progression)

6. contemporary art music - aka avant-jazz, post-classical, new music, world-fusion, interdisciplinary hoo-hah, non-profit org steez. or anything that gets programmed at the painted bride. not unrelated to some things i've been writing recently for amg - triosk, whom i pegged i think pretty aptly as "post-jazz" and adrian klumpes, their keyboardist, who's so far post that it's nothing to jazz, just straight-up avant. interesting too if that's functioning in an indie music context, not so much non-profit driven. actually, let me combine this with

5. jazz, about which i continue to wage internal struggles... still getting the hookup from matt - he took me to see the mingus big band at the kimmel center the other week, which was a blast - though, helpfully, i'm not getting the stream of new releases and info from him i was at one point; just an occasional something to sink my teeth in and get more out of - lately, genre transgressors adam rudolph and nels cline - but i'm not that much closer to feeling at home with contempo jazz, to really owning it.

[i was looking forward to writing something about the trio of concerts i was to have seen this weekend - the multi-ethnic jazz/world fusion of adam rudolph's moving pictures at the bride, the ball-busting gypsy/punk fusion of gogol bordello at the electric factory, and the cambodian pop/indie fusion of dengue fever (in arden, delaware) - but i only actually ended up seeing the first two, in the same evening, both of which were great and powerful in very different ways; it's hard to imagine two more disparate versions of globalized musical cross-pollination, though i'm betting dengue would have offered a third, if not something of a middle ground.]

4. soul - continues to get hotter (legit recog for sharon et daps? another sfj new yorker thinkpiece on winehouse? several of these picks def feel like a stretch, but still. apparently finnish funk is a thing? better get on that) but i can't say i'm really feeling the heat... dunno, just not in that groove at the moment, and i think it may have to do with my current suboptimal musical living situation. still, i've got plenty of material to sift through, and new leads to pick up on when i get the hankering, as i'm sure i will - for just one, spanky wilson, who mysteriously appeared somewhere on my harddrive in time to make it onto love is the answer.

3. disco - similar, maybe. that was a good post, wasn't it. (somebody read it and say something!) i'm feeling pretty great about disco, actually/still, though i'm not necessarily doing much about it. oh wait, i did make that mixtape.

the remaining four were, i guess, twee/indie pop (acid house kings), um, classic indie pop (the go-betweens), hip-hop (outkast) and then whatever jan jelinek counts as (i recycled that introbit for loveistheanswer, as you may have figured.) i guess i don't have much to say about those right now, though i have been listening to quite a bit of indie pop, and learning myself some more hist'ry (just bought a felt record...may get some field mice soon), based on the fact that the swedes i'm covering lately (the honeydrips and others on sincerely yours; all the labrador artists; billie the vision too most likely) definitely see themselves as part of a lineage.

but anyway, i'm not actually here to talk about genre. that's not what this blog is all 'bout. i'm here to talk about a mixtape. an actual cassette, and awesomely idiosyncratically cassettic too. dug it out recently to play in nava's car.

Title: GeNReCALiA
Format: cassette (90 minutes)
Date: July 2005
Packaging: front of insert as seen at the top of the post (though notso fuzzy.) back of insert like so (with apologies to sol lewitt):

also enclosed, in lieu of a tracklist, a type-written syllabus: not only is this a mixtape about genre, its contents in fact comprise the course materials for a (proposed?) course about, well, what else is there to talk about...?

Made for Alyssa. i don't even think she asked for it. she hailed it as the Mixtape to End All Mixtapes [caps hers - ed]. perhaps i should have taken the hint.

///

GeNReCALiA
"explorations and provocations in the ontology of musicodiversity, 1960-2005"

visiting lecturer, bowtie askew

objective:

to countenance, underwhelm, exasperate, dismantle, recidivise, inactivate, and otherwise unanswer the question of musical (and/as) genre, in the context.

<-- syllabus -->

0. Intro and Praxis: . "genrefuck"
1. Keynote: "peaches en regalia" prof. zappa, frank (1969)

UNIT ONE: roots and counter-culture: cross-pollinations, 1960-1975
2. flirtations, the. "nothing but a heartache" (1969)
3. king, carole. "smackwater jack" (1971)
4. brown jr. oscar. "work song" (1960)
5. beefheart, captain. "frownland" (1969)
6. otis, shuffie. "happy house" (1974)
7. animals, the. "the story of bo diddley" (1964)
8. cline, patsy. "heartaches" (1962)
9. mamas, the, and the papas. "i call your name" (1966)

special topic: hey, Aretha Franklin drinks Coke !
10. kaada. "all wrong" (2003)

UNIT TWO: the Nonesuch School: pomo art music (for BoBos), '90s-'00s
11. Byron, don. "bounce of the sugar plum fairy" (1996)
12. cachao. "al fin te VI" (1994)
13. reich, steve (trans. evan ziporyn). "new york counterpoint"
movement III, 'fast' comp. 1985/perf. 1996)
14. cain, uri, and ensemble. "the goldberg variations" (excerpt)
variation 3-/quodlibet/drinking party/logic's organ prelude (2000)
15. trio, tin hat. "scarp" (2000)
16. frisell, bill. "the tractor" (2001)
17. bailey, derek. "please don't talk about me when i'm gone" (2002)

Midterm Exam
18. AmiYumi, puffy. "thats the way it is/Kore ga Watashi no Ikirumichi" 1998)
19. Haden, Petra. sings "Heinz Baked Beans/more music" (excerpt) (2005)

SIDE BREAK

UNIT THREE: Intelligent? Dance? Music?: pomo beat excursions (for hipsters?), '04-'05
1. dj /rupture. "overture: watermelon city" (2004)
2. radioinactive and antimc. "movin' truck" (2004)
3. lidell, jamie. "you got me up" (2005)
4. busdriver (prod. dædelus) "yawning zeitgeist freestyle" (2005)
5. M.I.A. "one for the head - skit" (2005)
6. Optimo. "how to kill the dj, vol. 2" - excerpt: cissy strut/a minha menina; shack up; stand of the world (2005)
7. girls aloud. "love machine" (radio edit) (2004)

pop(?) quiz(!):
8. unicorns, the. "jellybones" (2003)

///

G UNIT (not on this tape)

Special Topic/Case Study: "folk" of the (naughty) aughties
9. akron/family. "suchness" (2005)
10. animal collective. "who could win a rabbit?" (2004)
11. frost, edith. "too happy" (1997)

Special Topic/Case Stubby: the tropicalian diaspora
12. gil, gilberto. "Só Quero Um Xodó"
13. veloso, moreno. +2. "das partes" (2001)
14. lindsay, arto. "prefeelings" (1998)

FINAL EXAM
15. the books - "an animated description of Mr. Maps" (2005)

BONUS ?
16. final fantasy. (?) (2005)

///

what is to be said? i don't think i ever intended to, like, explain what's going on here, any more than is already evident in the tape itself. or more likely i did, but it wasn't a very good idea. the tape is an intellectual endeavor, a multi-part hypothesis if you will, or maybe even a thesis (i typed multi-party by mistake), but it's also an art project; or, it's a conceptual/programmatic/didactic mixtape but it's also a dada/surrealist/situationist (ha!) one.

but perhaps... well, obviously, the tape is not very interested in existing conceptions of specific genres - i included a couple of "uncomplicatedly" "generic" selections - the flirtations' "nothing but a heartache" (an incredible, brilliant song, regardless of genre or lack thereof, which may be one of the few things it has in common with the rest of the tape), and, just maybe, edith frost's "too happy" (which i was too in love with at the time of mixmaking not to include, though it's also interestingly, though in no way unusually, utterly irrespective of genre. it got a wider airing later on october is eternal, but that kinda rulebreaking is the least of this tape's concerns) - to provide a starting point, or i guess to cover my bases. essentially, the kind of discussion of individual genres that i was perpetrating above has little if anything to do with this.

i was serious about "unanswering the question of [...] genre" - i was trying not to contemplate genre, but to actively destroy (or, i suppose subvert) it. if there's a systematic project here, it's to demonstrate that, even concurrently with the development of musical styles as we conceive of them, there has been plenty music being made that actively defied such categorization (even though the artists themselves may have succumbed to it.)

in other words, i strove to include music that doesn't neatly conform to (and hence actually undermines) any preconceived notions of genre, consciously limiting myself (for the most part) to particular historico-cultural domains (selected on the basis/bias of my own particular tastes and musical knowledge) which represent, perhaps, especial frontiers of genre experimentation and subversion - but with the working assumption that similar sets could be drawn from plenty of other such (vaguely defined) domains. key to all of this, of course, is that contemplation and understanding be based on the music itself, regardless of its contextual trappings and cultural associations.

lots of these songs have particular elements to add to that discussion, and it would be probably be fruitless to continue very much further without getting into specifics...

on another level though, i just wanted to make the most eclectic, omnivorous, kaleidoscopic, mix that i possibly could - while still having it make sense or at least work as an enjoyable listening experience, not just seeming completely random. that part of the project is just as significant as the headier 'conceptual' side, but, ideally at least, they shouldn't be so separate as to make the distinction relevant. which is probably why i should stop talking about it now.

valentine's passed

o valentine's. like any holiday, or i guess any annual occurence, it can end up as much about the past as the present, a familiar, evenly-spaced milemarker for easy reference. there was the valentine's that i saw beck at maxwell's (and lost some love for him), and the valentine's that hannah and i broke up, and the valentines i made for rabi. well, as it happens, those were all the same year (two-thousand-and-three, wouldn't you know, maybe a harbinger for that sea-change year of years.) i'll tell you more about that later. then there was the one when ester and i had watched american splendor and played poker, and then one when i was in sri lanka - i can't remember whether i had flowers sent or not. in high school i recall making blue-green chocolate chip cookies and passing them out with hugs, playing "my funny valentine" with brushes on the cookie tin.

in my senior year of college, i made little 3" cd-rs valentines for maybe eight or ten of my loves, each with customized artwork and a personally tailored (and non-overlapping!) little thematic mix. (i remember: movies for lillie, boys for ester, frenchyness for laura, tic-tac-toe for kat) they are destined to go undocumented, or at least not fully, but with hope they are still being enjoyed. (like some other things, those were inspired by rabi's 3" valcds from the previous year - i've still got mine somewhere.)

well, a year ago i quietly made this little mixtape for myself. it was the post-post after-the-fact realization of a concept i'd come up with maybe even a year earlier, when i still might have needed the catharsis; at this point i made it more from a sense of obligation to my past and to the idea. i guess it's a similar sense that inspires me to put it here now. anyway the titular "past" is that aforementioned '03 massacre, or more properly its aftermath, and i parlayed uncertainty about how/why to apostrophize the title into a not inappropriate ambiguity.

Title: a ghost of valentine's past
Format: 60-minute cassette
Date: 7 february 06
Packaging: labelled in lower case with a blue pen; short enough to fit on the front of the card.

side one
["she said always remember never to trust me..."]
your ex-lover is dead - stars
let it die - feist
pearl - new folk implosion
summer's gone - aberfeldy
a little bit more - jamie lidell
if not now, whenever - the books
the delicate place - spoon
modern girl - sleater-kinney
the suitcase song - nellie mckay

side two
a fond farewell - elliott smith
this time it will - jeff hanson
out of time - blur
when the angels play their drum machines - hefner
the only answer - m. doughty
dearly departed - daedelus
love love love - the mountain goats
if you ever need a stranger to sing at your wedding - jens lekman
there will always be - adem

so. it tells its own story well enough, which may or may not be mine. if nothing else, it presents a certain image of my listening habits at a certain point. (if i made it last february, i'd certainly been saving up many of the songs for close to a year; i know at one point "i summon you" was slated for this, but then it was deployed to october instead.) as you might expect: these songs are so sad and beautiful.

around the same time, but later, and delivered belatedly as i recall, i made this; not so much a valentine's mix as a valentine in mix form, for angela:

Title: The Vulpine Valentine
Format: 90-minute cassette, plus extra bonus 90-minute cassette ("Bonus Beats Me")
Date: February 2006
Packaging: construction-paper-covered slip-case (formerly a condom box) with a heart and banner on one side and a lovestruck fox on the other (see below), containing two cassette cases, with the tracklist of the primary mix in typewriter and colored-pencil rebus-style drawings on pink index card.

"a term - is't endearing?" (side one)
1. my angel rocks ))<>(( back and forth - four tet
2. angela - john vanderslice
3. she's an angela - they might be giants
4. thank you for sending me an angel - talking heads
5. good weekend - art brut
6. let me go home - camera obscura
7. heartbeat - annie
8. what i'm trying to say - stars
9. flowers - cibo matto
10. secret heart - feist
11. ways + means - m. doughty
12. love is an arrow - aberfeldy
13. l'amour et la morte - (the real) tuesday weld
14. if you find yourself caught in love - belle and sebastian
+ cheese grater - ed's redeeming qualities
"everytime i see you it's happy something" (side two)
1. every time she turns around it's her birthday - manitoba
2. digital love - daft punk
3. sleep like a dream - tears in x-ray eyes
4. good dreams - superchunk
5. she goes to bed - jason falkner
6. pillow - capitol k
7. here in the night - kelley polar
8. in a star orbit - rebecca gates
9. sleep late my ladyfriend - harry nilsson
10. sunday morning - margo guryan
11. sunday kind of love - etta james
12. in the lost and found - elliott smith
+ easy to love - edith frost

mmmm... a very nice mix, i think. it hits that balance of songs chosen for being appropriate to the mix but also for just being fantastic songs. which is to say that just about all of the songs are both. this tape also tells a little story, over its two sides - which is also our story ("good weekend," more or less) - about going out dancing, going to sleep, and waking up. there's also the part at the beginning about angels, and a group of songs about saying "i love you," which is a pretty good subject for a song.

here's the fox, by the way:

the second cassette ("Bonus Beats Me!") went a little something like this:

FRIENDS OF MINE - of montreal/FOLDING DIRTY LAUNDRY - radioinactive+antimc/ONE CEX - cex/YOU (BETTER LET ME LOVE YOU x4) TONIGHT - richard x f. tiga/JUST CAN'T GET YOU OFF MY MIND - spinners/JULIE (RMX) - jens lekman/ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES - los lobos/DISTORTED ANGEL - elvis costello+attractions/(THE ANGELS WANNA WEAR MY) RED SHOES - hem/WALK AWAY RENEE - billy bragg/UPSIDE DOWN - yo la tengo/NO SKY - guided by voices/RAZORBLADE - the strokes/WALK AWAY - franz ferdinand/NOW AND SLEEP - daedelus/I BUILT THIS CITY (MICHAEL MAYER MIX) - baxendale/NO FUN - vitalic/U DON'T KNOW ME - armand van helden/SUGAR (GIMME SOME) - trick daddy f. ludacris + cee-lo/TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS - danger mouse and gemini f. j-zone/WE GOT PANACHE - princess superstar/I'M A SLUT - bis/SUBURBIA - pet shop boys/SIDE STREETS - st. etienne/ON THE WAY TO THE CLUB - blur/PUNK AS FUCK - american analog set/SNOW - jesse winchester/SNOW SHOWERS - trembling blue stars/THIS LITTLE UKELELE - stephin merritt

this was a much looser and obviously wide-ranging mix that only lives up to the promise of "beats" about half the time. a couple "significant" songs; the rest just whatever seemed like a good idea. the first part of side two (basically all the techno and hip-hop stuff) was one of my earliest attempts at live-to-cassette continuous-mixed djing, and was done on the fly and i think in one take. [i only regret not putting "our little angel" instead of "distorted angel" (because it's a really nice song that i haven't already used on a bunch of mixes, and maybe other reasons), and maybe i regret using that dm+gemini song, although i guess it's interesting that danger mouse and cee-lo are sequenced together like that.]

so. none of these are just straight-up valentine's day, love-themed mixes. and neither is the li'l mix/podcast i put up yesterday that you're probably (hopefully?) listening to now, which is probably called "genrephilia" (it's not called "this boombox loves you," that's just a message from the boombox.) it might seem like it, and it is in part, but it's doing double duty in order to set up a series of posts which i guess is commencing with this one (though the others will be different) about various things i've been listening to and thinking about, but mostly about genre, that fave bugbear of mine, each of which will take up one of the songs from the 'cast as its "keynote," if you will. in the order listed, which is to say the reverse order from the mix. (just to make you more confused, though it will all come out right in the end.) i'm being a cock-eyed optimist by saying this, but i'll hope to get them all or mostly up by the end of this weekend. let's just assume that, unlike christmas, the valentine's season starts on the day itself and extends for a while after.

most of my mixes, like most pop songs, are already basically about love anyway. which makes sense; it's both practical and fun, with lots of interchangeable approaches to the same few familiar situations. recently, both gold star for robot boy and liquid crystal slivers are overtly love-themed, the former prob'ly more appropriate for valentine's, as the latter's somewhat somberer. [v's day is about happy love, i'm pretty clear - not necessarily happy romantic love, especially if you haven't got it at the moment; in that case you can substitute broader, general, elemental, humanward love. which happens to be the special province of mr. ross of love.]

if i had made a lovey-dovey mix, it probably would have wanted to have some of the songs from those, and the others documented above - it just would have been somewhat boring and redundant, generally - and certainly some of the things from this next, which still contains most of my favorite love songs despite being five years old now (!) [lately i've been thinking "you send me" might be the ultimate.] it's not a mixtape, although it has become one; it was a radio broadcast that we have a cassette recording of. it's sort of embarrassing to listen to, not just for the usual reasons but also because i think i'm being obnoxious and a little bit nasty towards alyssa in our bantering. hopefully i'm not like that anymore.

Title: Reality is Lubricated, special Valentine's edition
Format: two-hour radio show (also on 120 minute cassette)
Date: 14 February 2002

tracklist courtesy of reminced archives:
Oooweeoooh! Oooh! Oooh! [i.e. "Welcome to Tokio Otis Clay" by Clinton; our theme music]
“Grandpa” Myron (Mike) “The Moose” Cantor - As Time Goes By

Blur - Tender
XTC - I’d Like That
Björk - Like Someone in Love
[flubbed announcement - mic set on cue] [radio silence]
Paul Simon - For Emily, Wherever I Will Find Her
[apology to the listenerhip, repeat of set rundown]

The Old 97’s - Question
The Beach Boys - God Only Knows
The Kinks - Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy

The Fairways - Close to Me
The Pixies - La La Love You

The Sam Cooke - Medley: Try a Little Tenderness/(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons/You Send Me (live)
Prince - Kiss
[clarification from Alyssa about it being a song about sex]
Randy Newman - Falling in Love
[A n ODE to WSRN]
Joni Mitchell - A Case of You
Plastic Fantastic Machine - Love is Psychedelic
Jeff Magnum - I Love How You Love Me

Joe Jackson - Be My Number Two
R.E.M. - At My Most Beautiful
Pain - One-Legged Girl
[a little show here for people from Alyssa]
Kings Of Convenience - I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From
Pizzicato Five - Baby Love Child

The Moldy Peaches - Anyone Else But You
[apology to all the non-{Moldy Peaches Fans} in the audience]
The Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)
Joe Henry - Scar
The Shins - New Slang (When You Notice the Stripes)

Buddy Holly - True Love Ways
The Yo La Tengo - The You Can Have it All
Jonathan Richman - When She Kisses Me
Ella Fitzgerald - Something’s Gotta Give
Chet Baker - My Funny Valentine
The Big Star - I’m In Love With A Girl
[Alyssa's declaration of love]

Nat King Cole - The Very Thought of You
Billy Bragg - Valentine’s Day is Over

so that's that! somehow, amazingly, neither that show nor any of the tracklistings i posted above include the elvis costello rendition of "my funny valentine," which is an absolute staple of the season for me. me being me. (as is listening to that billy bragg song on the 15th.) ["mfv" is admittedly sort of a silly song (in particular the lyrics to the middle-eight) - but it's still great.]

however... it is on "genrephilia"!:

12 my funny valentine Y elvis costello

so there you go.

mystic crystal revelations

better do this before i get too far behind / ahead of myself:

Title: liquid crystal slivers
Format: CD-R
Date: december '06-january '07
Packaging: jewel case with navy and silver artwork made from cut-up folder and aluminum foil, with typing on the foil, and a line drawing (from my headphone instructions) of a headphone-wearing dj-boy with no pupils crying a big silver tear.

(maybe we'll get an image of the cover here sometime. [eta: eventually!] for now, these crystals are silver, a word i left out of the title because it was redundadant.)

Made for alyssa. because there was no one better to make a mix for. because there is no one better to make a mix for.

my mixtape muse, if i have such a thing.

eye-tunes:
[1] Sensuous 4:18 Cornelius
[2] Love Knows (No Borders) 3:22 Howe Gelb
[3] Since K Got Over Me 3:47 The Clientele
[4] Turn On Me 3:35 The Shins
[5] If It Weren't For The Words 3:35 Edith Frost
[6] I'll Walk Away 3:59 James Hunter
[7] Black Flowers 4:24 Yo La Tengo
[8] The Grass Is Always Greener 4:39 Barbara Morgenstern
[9] I'll Keep My Baby Warm 3:47 Charles May and Annette May Thomas
[10] Moodswings 3:09 Charlotte Church
[11] This Piece of Poetry is Meant to Do Harm 3:26 The Ark
[12] Accident & Emergency 3:12 Patrick Wolf
[13] With Every Heartbeat 4:13 Kleerup ft. Robyn
[14] Broken 3:56 Bertine Zetlitz
[15] Just Like A Woman 4:47 Bill Frisell
[16] When the Deal Goes Down 5:04 Bob Dylan
[17] It Can Only Get Better 3:27 Amy Diamond
[18] I Don't Know What You Got But It's Got Me 4:05 Little Richard
[19] FM 5:46 Junior Boys
[20] Indefinite Leave To Remain 3:08 Pet Shop Boys

started out more as an informal, informe, mix/playlist (concurrently with gold star for robotboy, sort of as a repository for songs which wouldn't fit there), and gradually became ambiguously but decidedly for/about you, much as this entry started out as impersonal reportage and is turning into a direct address. hard to say what i mean that it's about you, cuz it's hard to say (except in the case of "if it weren't for the words," which has always reminded me of you.) eh, you're probably not even reading this.

i guess the mix speaks well enough for itself. it's mellow, it's about love, like music is. it's pretty much just the songs. i think every one of these songs is beautiful, and i think several of them are astonishingly beautiful.

oh,
p.s. the reference in the title is at least as intentional as the references, in the shins and clientele tunes, to which it refers.

p.p.s. peter guralnick calls that little richard song (which doesn't sound like any little richard song you've ever heard before) "the mount rushmore of soul." i didn't read that until after i'd made the mix, however.