prickly thorns

The Friday Tape Files, Volume 1, Episode 5

hermintage — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:40:01 GMT

I told you it would happen eventually. As always: my commentary, and this week's theme:

High. An attempt to fill in the gaps that Aldo Krass once wrote about, this mix is not necessarily one you might expect with that title. It isn't about drugs. It isn't about getting high or getting loaded. Granted, I've been more high this year than not (thank you, dilaudid, vicodin and wine), but it's about what to reach for. It's about filling in the sky with sound. It's about what the heavenes would sing if they could. Maybe not that cheesey (for frak's sake, Cut Chemist is on here). Maybe it's just a mix about where can all go when we decide to "f" this place called Earth. Regardless of what you see in it, this is different from the other TFTF mixes: this is seriously lo-fi, exuberantly minimalist in some cases, and quixotically trippy in others. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Tracklisting:

Beck—Leave me on the Moon
Mos Def—Climb
Cut Chemist (Featuring Hymnal)—What's the Altitude?
The Jimi Hendrix Experience—Up From the Skies
Bitter:Sweet—Heaven
Duston Cole with the Specialist—To Fall*
Cibo Matto—Clouds
The Jesus & Mary Chain—Man on the Moon
M. Ward—Half Moon
Six Organs of Admittance—Saint Cloud
Laura Veirs—Where Gravity is Dead
Ohbijou—Lamppost
The Hush Sound—You Are the Moon

Download Details: Here, at the blog
Format: mp3 | m4a* | zip
Subscribe: Via Feedburner (and LJ)
Suggest: At this Post

Please comment if you download, and thanks for listening!! :)

leave me on the moon

hermintage — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:34:49 GMT

I announced this in a friends-locked post, but in case any of you are here just for the mixtape series: The Friday Tape Files will return this week with a brand-new mix, High! Not only am I very excited to have (most of) my music back, but I need mixin' practice. Hopefully there won't be anymore hiatus-y glitches. :)

If you would like to suggest a theme for a mixtape, please do so here. The next few weeks are allotted already ("food", "onomatopoeia", "quietus", and so forth...), but I will get to all the suggestions, eventually!

The Friday Tape Files, Volume 1, Episode 4

hermintage — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:45:30 GMT

Apologies, I know I was supposed to post this last week. Alas, it just did not happen. My commentary, and this week's theme:

Whether it's apocalyptic nihilism or some new beginning, everybody knows it. Everybody knows that there's a point of no return. A sense that after the destruction, something new must be created. You can't ever go home again, no matter where you've been. And these changes, this breakage: you can either wallow in the ruins, or continue moving on. Hopefully, these tunes will help keep you moving.

Lately I've been wanting fresh paint of my own. Not that I'm not happy here, but that I feel the need to fully explore this place and make it my own. Whether it's finally painting my apartment or just getting around town for the weekend, movement and the organic possibilities of said movement give me hope. This year's largely been a bummer so far: we can only go up from here, right?

Tracklisting:

Leavin' — Mad Caddies
The World Stops Turning — Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
Buick City Complex — The Old 97's
I'm a Cuckoo — Belle And Sebastian
Old Shit/New Shit — Eels
Gone Beyond — Akron/Family
I Feel It All — Feist
MX Missles — Andrew Bird
Maps — The Snake The Cross The Crown
Waste of Paint — Bright Eyes
Mobile Home — AbBC
Straight Lines to Bad Lands — South
A Better Life Since — southpacific
Oh! Sweet Nuthin'! — The Velvet Underground
Revolution — The Beatles

Download Details: Here, at the blog
Format: mp3 | m4a* | zip
Subscribe: Via Feedburner (and LJ)
Suggest: At this Post

Please comment if you download, and thanks for listening!! :)

TFTF today.

hermintage — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:58:06 GMT

I have a TFTF mix ready to go but it's KEXP Invades Ballard Day, and also, I woke up late (because I'm lazy) and forgot until just now. Oops. Since I won't be home this evening, expect it tomorrow / some other time this weekend.

The Friday Tape Files, Volume 1, Episode 3

hermintage — Sat, 03 May 2008 01:18:33 GMT

My commentary, and this week's theme:

Obsession. It was somewhere between 1994 and 1997 that my obsession turned from purely writing to writing about music, and even in those tender, angst-filled, rebellious teenage years, I came to the conclusion that independently produced music was just about the best thing ever (with the possible exception being independently produced reading material). I still had my embarrassing youth collection: No Doubt, Reel Big Fish, mass-produced so-called "third-wave ska". But when I discovered Moon Ska Records near the end of their tenure as THE definitive ska label, I became, how do we say, obsessed. It became my mission to collect every Moon Ska record ever produced (and I'm still working on that). When I left my sleepy Texas dust-bowl-of-a-town for a slightly less sleepy town to the north, new people introduced me to new genres and though my adoration of The Toasters (and the Chinkees, and Discount, and just about every band on the pre-P!atD Fueled By Ramen) remained, new favorites had emerged.

By 2002, I had discovered Olympia, WA and the 1990's punk rock revival that I had largely missed because I was too busy skanking to pay attention to the Beat Happening. I was already armed with an arsenal of obsessions, a myriad of songs to which I quickly learned the lyrics. My obsession with Built to Spill came from a mixtape, in fact. My obsession with The Aquabats came from spending too much time at the comic book store. But regardless their origin, these songs, these shy discoveries, to borrow a line from Mr. Sampson, were my new anthems. Ironically, or maybe not so much so, these anthems gave me the audacity I needed to break free of a society and a structure that did not suit my liking, and became the presumptuous soundtrack to my early adolescence (much to my mother's continuous and audible chagrin).

Tracklisting:

The Toasters — Don't Let the Bastards Drag You Down
The Aquabats — My Skateboard
Discount — Waiting By the Wayside
The Weakerthans — Aside*
Built To Spill — Distopian Dream Girl
That Dog. — Never Say Never*
764-HERO — Sunburn
Elliott Smith — Between the Bars
The Velvet Underground — I Found a Reason
Neko Case — I Wish I Was the Moon*
Belle & Sebastian — The State I Am In
Sleater-Kinney — Hot Rock*
Built To Spill — Twin Falls
Elliott Smith — Rose Parade

Download Details: Here, at the blog
Podcast: Coming sometime later this weekend!
Format: mp3 | m4a* | zip
Subscribe: Via Feedburner (and LJ)
Suggest: At this Post

Please comment (there) if you download! :)

oh hay

hermintage — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:22:37 GMT

By the by, no mixtape this week; I'll be in AZ on Friday for my sister-in-law's baby shower. I could very well post it on Thursday, but I need to add and rearrange some things on the mix now that my drive is back in working condition. Consider TFTF to resume next week.

The Friday Tape Files Volume 1, Episode 2

hermintage — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:21:59 GMT

My commentary, and this week's theme:

The second edition of the Friday Tape Files is based on Dance by the Czechoslovakian Art Nouveau painter, Alphonse Mucha. Suggested by gigglestheblood, this presented quite the challenge -- and rendered a mix full of heartache in the chase. A hushed, hallowed sound full of aesthetic poetry, acoustic guitars, and amicable, rhythmic quirk. Refined and yet lo-fi all at once. (And trust me, if you don't think anything is playing, wait a bit or turn up your volume.)

Tracklisting:

Some Sweet Day — Sparklehorse
The Man From Metropolis Steals O — Sufjan Stevens
Vitorrio E — Spoon
A Setting Sun — The Grand Archives
Waiting for Nineveh — Gingerbread Patriots*
Nightingale — Laura Veirs
Canyon Girl — The Fruit Bats*
I'll Be Yr Bird — M. Ward
Ballad of Bitter Honey — Eef Barzelay
Burnin' Mine — Built Like Alaska
Dove My Dove — Little Wings
Pretty Girl From Locust — The Avett Brothers
Love Comes — The Posies
Wish You Were Here — Ryan Adams
Mary, Please — The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Dress Sexy At My Funeral — (smog)
Beautiful Feeling — PJ Harvey*

Download Details: (xx > tt) hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?zc0zozrgmj2
Format: mp3 | m4a* | zip
Subscribe: Via Feedburner (and LJ)
Suggest: At this Post
The blog: The Friday Tape Files

*Apologies for this. I really will start trying to convert my tracks all to mp3. The starred tracks are m4a.

friday tape files 001: on time travel

hermintage — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:44:26 GMT

At my mixtape challenge meme (which I encourage all of you to participate in), strand suggested the theme "time travel". Here, a very abstract representation of a very abstract theme. Maybe you can garner something about my thoughts on time travel.

Also, welcome to The Friday Tape Files, folks: a new weekly mixtape series. Guess what day it runs! Stay tuned for more next week. :)

Tracklisting:

The World Backwards - Broadcast
Time Travel Is Lonely - John Vanderslice
Time Lapse - Call And Response
Three Day Night - The Books
Remember Me As a Time of Day - Explosions In the Sky
Masterfade - Andrew Bird
Carousel - Iron And Wine
One Minute - The Album Leaf
The Past and Pending - The Shins
(I Believe In) Travellin' Light - Belle And Sebastian
What Light - Wilco
I Love the Unknown - Clem Snide
Cause = Time - Broken Social Scene
Last Ride Together - I Love You, But I've Chosen Darkness
These Are the Ghosts - A Band Of Bees

Download Details: hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?nmngtg2zmxx
Format: Zip | Mp3 | M4a

Please let me know what you think of the mix, and this idea!

Subscribe to tftf: the feed, via feedburner

mixtape meme

hermintage — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:07:53 GMT

Stolen from boundary (and modified):

Comment with a theme, an image, a value, an idea. (For example, "vendetta".) I'll compile ten to twenty tracks that I feel embody or exhibit your theme, image, values, etc. A mixtape, if you will. Then I'll post it for you all to enjoy!

Mixtapes will be posted in the form of The Friday Tape Files, a new feature in this journal. The files are posted weekly here and to indie_exchange, both of which are members or friends only. Stay tuned!