ex-tapes
Not sure when exactly this site popped up, but label guy/17 dotter Patrick just fowarded it on to me yesterday. It’s a simple, fun concept that should bring a twinkle to the eye of any music nerd (or music nerd dater). I’ll let ‘em explain themselves:
They were into you, so they made you a tape. Today you don’t have a cassette player, but you still can’t toss that mix. We share the stories and the soundtrack to your earliest loves.
The mixes (obviously, thankfully) are all over the map genre and theme wise, but often the real nuggets here are the (sometimes half-remembered) backstories.
An immediate notable here is a mixtape from a former boyfriend of Claudia Gonson (pianist/drummer/backing vocalist for The Magnetic Fields). It’s a charming mix of proto-indie Flying Nun-y stuff, ’70s butt rock and great punk-pop nuggets. Check the intro for a revealing anecdote about Claudia’s boyfriend (and tapemaker) John meeting her friend (and Mag Fields maestro) Stephin Merritt for the first time (for starters: they argue passionately about Lindsey Buckingham solo albums).
I think I only ever received one mix cassette from an ex, and all I can remember is that Cody Chestnutt was on it. And not even “Look Good In Leather.” Oh well…
I’m Definitly a Mixtaper (CDs and M3Us now though) This site is awesome. I often think about the fact that I’ve never (ok three time in almost 20 years of making tapes) made a tape/cd for anyone but 1)A girl I Like or 2)myself. I used to (Late 1980s-Early 1990s)Hook My Tapedeck to the back of my Mono-Vcr and record bits of Movies (like Army of Darkness for instance) just to have little interludes and stuff.
My Mix making was definitly one of my main reasons for becoming the Recording Engineer.
I used to Have a rule that at least one Nine Inch Nails Track be on every Mix.
Thanks Patrick and Alex for the Memories and the Solidarity.
No prob MiDoJo - I was never tech savvy enough to add movie dialogue and stuff. Otherwise something smartass from Spaceballs probably would have found its way onto a tape created by 14 year old me.
This site actually has inspired my upstairs neighbor and I to make actual mix TAPES for each other - pretty exciting…
I can’t even count the hours I’ve spent devoted to this, making the sleeve, struggling with whether or not to include a track list, asking yourself that age old ethical question - if it’s ok to re-use a song that you used for someone else - when it’s just so good you have to. What I like about this site is that you see the story, the person, and the actual tape itself. It’s hard for me to remember back now on all of them, only the really bad ones stick out, like “I can’t believe I showed her that Rachel’s song, what a waste…”
What’s funny is I remember being 17 when High Fidelity came out, and watching it and feeling robbed of what I thought made me special. I honestly thought I was the only one who took making mixes that seriously. Which may have been the case for my high school, but certainly not the rest of the world.