Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Ian's Shuckhuckster Mix


I decided that this year, each month I'm going to feature a "classic mixtape" ... i.e. an actual cassette mixtape that a friend made for me "back in the day" ...

being the sentimental pack rat that I am, I never got rid of any of the many many mixes that my friends made me throughout the years ... in fact, I have them all in one giant suitcase ... at least the cassette ones are ... haha

I really love mixtapes ... making them AND receiving them ... you can capture a mood, a feeling, a thought, even a bit of an era with one ... they are a bit like musical time capsules ... small personal treasures ...

This particular one was given to me by my great and wonderful friend, Ian Frearson who now lives in Seattle, WA ... I think the tape dates back to the year 1996 and most of my memories associated with it involve riding my bike all over Orr Park in Montevallo ... It also makes me remember the job I had back then at a vegetable market called Fresh Market and my funny boss, Ronnie who had a bit of a lisp and always had a big pot of peanuts boiling in the back room ... and he never called me Paul, he always called me John (the name of the guy I replaced) ... haha

It also makes me think of Ian himself, of his personality, his musical tastes, memories of things we experienced together, etc ... Listening to it these days (as opposed to back in '96) some of the songs are rather dated (The Beastie Boys, Nirvana & Luscious Jackson ones for example) while others are pretty unique and timeless (Joe Jackson, Richard Davies and Thee Headcoats) in their own special way ... and still others just make me laugh and fill me with amazement at their strange addictive playability (Air Miami, Noise Addict, Nick Drake) ... I recall in particular the Wire song ("Outdoor Miner") blowing my mind and listening to it over and over again ... It felt a bit Life-altering, really

Anyway, HERE it is in all of it's tape-hiss & big-spaces-between-each-song magical glory! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. And after all these years, thanks Ian!

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This past week I did many things, and one of them was finishing this huge painting of a bunny lady I did ... Here's a sort of "3 photo time lapse" deal:




Also, as I mentioned last week, Bad News Bearons have started practicing again ... and amazingly the weather these past 2 Sundays has been miraculously Springish ... Here's a silly video that Eileen made during the last practice ... In it, I hit the ball & run, but Colm & Rachel are too quick for me:

This past Friday, Laura & Nancy invited me to go to J&J Junk, this epic thrift store way out in Chelsea ... It was a ton of fun, too and I ended up with lots of Christmas lights, some clothesline, 2 rolls of old wallpaper and this ugly 70's dress I'll use in some sort of future short film project ... Thanks for the good times, Laura & Nancy! ... Below is some very smiley photographic evidence of the trip:

Nancy & her apple

Laura & Nancy

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In video news, the word ridiculous could be the uniting theme for all four of the following videos that I came across this week ... I'll post them in order of least to most ridiculous ...

okay, this 1st one is actually pretty great ... especially the album that it comes from, plus it features vocals by Noah Lennox from Animal Collective ... it's just the "tree man" (or whatever he is) that strikes me as silly ... see for yourself:



this one is hands down pure ridiculous, along with just plain old terrible music it's laugh-out-loud hilarious to think that the band is actually serious about what they're doing ... Brian Teasley sent me the link ... He loves stuff like this:



I heard the song for this next one at Bottletree the other day and it suddenly made me want to look up the video, since it was stuck in my head ... Watching it makes me realize just how ridiculous pretty much all the videos from the 80's were:



finally, speaking of the 80's we have this one, which is not only ridiculous, but kind of frightening in a way, seeing Paul Reubens playing Pee Wee at the age he is now ... if anyone thought he was creepy then, he's waaay creepy now! I do, however enjoy the fact that he ends up using the iPad for a drink tray in the end ... nice one, Pee Wee ... haha:















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