I just dreamt about Paul from Brooklyn last night for the second time in a week. And Drew from the neighborhood, too. These people are almost twenty years in my past. Paul sent me Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, and Lone Justice. Yes, I still have them. I can't remember what I sent people, it's not like I made a copy - when it was done you gave it away - another beauty of the mix tape. I don't know what it means that I am falling away so far back in my dreams, it is unusal.

I remember reading about mix tape vs the mix cd of now, and the person was pointing out that the mix tape was much better because you force the recipient to listen to the tape in the order that you dictate (if they don't want to piss around fast forwarding). So you have a lot more control over the mix tape and the way you put the songs together is more meaningful.

Damned if I can remember who initially wrote that.

When the girl I liked at work mentioned that she liked the Boomtown Rats but didn't like the cheapy collection that currently available I quickly made a 90 minute best of mix. It was complete with artwork (thanks to zipatone letters, glue stick, and an old issue of Trouser Prss) and over annoatated liner notes. I made her a few other mix tapes over the next year and she made a mix for me (which was excellent and fun as hell). I know she still has the mixes becasue I see them whenever I go through our cassettes. Yeah, that's right, she's Mrs Slack-a-gogo.

And on the reverse side, a girl I liked in college made a mix tape for me that was just awful - from the musical selection to the quality of the tape brand. There was no track listing and the audio levels were all over the board. And she included multiple songs by several artists, which at the time, was unforgivable by my then rigid mix rules. To be honest, she seemed less cool after that mix. And no, I don't have the tape anymore. I know her heart was in the right place, although I suspect she just gave me a mix she had lying around. Which is sort of like giving somebody a love letter from someone else and say "just insert your name where ever it says David".

gaspode:

I remember reading about mix tape vs the mix cd of now...you have a lot more control over the mix tape and the way you put the songs together is more meaningful.

Most of the mixes I make are still done in old school way - hitting paue and record through my stereo in real time with an external burner. Quite often the best follow up song choices occur while listening to the mix unfold. And as you can see, I love making mix discs.

My finest mix hour was a tape called "If You Were a Travelling Jukebox". I think this was a reference to a drunken injoke of the time. Travelling Jukebox was a genre-spanning, toe-tapping groove machine of a tape. Talking Heads' Nothing but Flowers, Ray Charles' Let's Go Get Stoned, Bob Marley's Mellow Mood, Beatles' I Dig a Pony. It worked really well in stepping up one nascent relationship. It was a feel-good, happy tape, all spirited and optomistic.

Unfortunately, emboldened by the success of Jukebox and by a physical relationship that seemed to be progressing well, I made a follow-up tape titled "What Venus is Dreaming" that contained mostly very bold, outright songs whose sexual message was not subtle. Liz Phair's Flower, Chili Peppers' Aeroplane, Bill Withers' Use Me, Salt'n'Pepa's Sexy Noises, Marvin Gaye's Let's Get it On, Alanis' All I Really Want. [As you can see, I kind of got caught up in the 90s rock revival]. My 'release' of this one coincided with a bumpy spot in our relations, and was probably kind of scary. The relationship ended soon after.

I still have both tapes (I kept copies of all my mixes). They are both great to go running to, particularly "Venus". The guy's married now, and I much prefer the life I have to the one I would have had with him. It's a good thing he didn't the second tape.

When I worked at the bookstore, one day Dave the Special Orders Guy told me we had anew female employee. "she cute?" I asked. "Nah, she looks like a librarian." When I laid eyes upon her, she didn't seem librarianish at all except for the glasses.. She wore a Gruesomes t-shirt under plaind flannel and jeans. Basically, she was me in drag. My other co-worker (who was howard cosell's granddaughter and dating my friend Todd the Sports Guy) kept saying we should go out, when we passed I noticed a Ramones pin and a Replacements pin and we got to talking. She made me a mix tape featuring stuff like the Muffs, Lovedolls and Wussies with the Brady Bunch and soundbites from Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls thrown in for comedy relief. needless to say I was swooning. I mad her a tape featuring my usual stuff, punk and hard rock mixed in with stuff like John prine and Hound Dog Taylor. We got to talking more and I asked if she wanted to go out sometime. She told me that her last few relationships had been with girls, could I handle that? I was nervous but crushing like a madman so I said sure. We never had an actual date, but one night after an office outing at the local bar one thing led to another, you know the drill...

A week later she said that she was freaking out over being in a relationship with a guy and we broke it off. For a few months I grumped around the store being a pain in the butt to everybody. Then Pips started working at the store and things started looking up. Later me pips and the mixtape girl went out for coffee and mixtape girl said "On behalf of all jon's co-workers: thank you for making him normal again."

Later mixtape girl moved into our old apartment with our former flatmate who is currently living with a fellow Mefite here in NYC. It's all very incestuous. But we're all still good friends.

Wow, great link.

I used to make them all the time, and still make many a mix. I don't use them for courtship anymore though (that might be bad from a certain perspective). I do know my mix tapesCDs have started to suffer since I've been doing them with itunes. The mastering / volume is all off, the song selection and sequences are close, but not quite right (which you only realize until you've burned at least one copy). Some of my highlights were my ATF (alcohol, tobacco, firearms) mix, a holiday mix with a Menorah lighting a Christmas tree on fire cover art, a few party mixes, my winged/birds mix, and a couple made well over ten years ago that were used in courtship / relationship type aspirations. I can tell you what really works in that department: start a band for the sole purpose of asking a specific person out and write a couple of lou barlow meets new order songs and put them on the tape -- trust me on this. My all time favorite mix is one that was not made by me, or for me, but that I've had the pleasure of being able to hear a copy of: it's called "cocaine" and it features some of the best songs from the 80s mixed together with quotes from movies of the same era as well. It's a fantastic work of art and I wish we could transfer it to CD/MP3, but we're not there yet in my house.

I made this mix CD for a guy at IU whom I had a major, major crush on. (We were actually friends, since we were both nontraditional students. At the time I was 28, he was 24.) I was too chicken to give it to him, though. Instead, I kept it and I still like to play it.

I used to make mix cds on my old barbie tape deck when I was a kid - it only had one cassette thingy, so I had to record the songs off the radio. The first mix tape I made for a boy was summer after 6th grade, after we had met at summer camp. I never actually sent it to him, and our LDR ended shortly after.

My boyfriend and I periodically make mixtapes together (well, mixCDs) for long road trips, parties we throw, etc. I think it keeps us closer musically and romantically.

This has me thinking about whether I should make a V-Day mix for my new squeeze. I have a preliminary list of songs based on the listening I've done this week as part of my LP revival.

Gypsy Queen - Van
Only You Know & I Know - Delaney & Bonnie
Crazy Face - Van
Call Me Up in Dreamland -Van
Love Ain’t for Keeping - The Who

...more to come. Though I have yet to decide whether this is too retro/childish a gesture.

{Yes, if I make it, it will probably break Slack-a-Go-Go's variety rule]