The Friday Tape Files

Volume 1, Episode 5: High

2008-07-18T16:49:00.001-07:00

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 heavens 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 finding distractions in transcendental entities. 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.

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: (xx > tt) hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?ujnpdizw9uw
Format: mp3 | m4a* | zip
Subscribe: Via Feedburner (and LJ)
Suggest: At this Post

tftf: back in action

2008-07-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

The Friday Tape Files will be back with a brand new mix on Friday. I promise it will be worth the wait.

It's been a busy couple of months on my end. Lots of job interviews and applications plus my hard drive crashing led up to this moment. Now with my musics (mostly) back in hand, it's time to resurrect the mixes. Keep the party going, or something like that.

I'll be very pleased to present TFTF No. 5, High. Stay tuned for some trivia and sneak peeks in the next few days, and the new mix on Friday!

tftf: on break

2008-05-24T22:30:00.001-07:00

Just a note: The Friday Tape Files might be erratic for the next few weeks for a few reasons:

The most important being that my external hard drive, where I keep my music, has crashed. I'm in the process of re-ripping everything which is going to take some time, but I might get off my bum and record some mixtapes old-school like, and then record them to the machine via Garage Band. Cross your fingers.
The second reason being that the Seattle International Film Festival began yesterday and I have already seen four films, with three more planned over the next few days, and then 13 more over the next month. I hope to post my reviews here, so keep watch.

Thank you all for your constructive comments thus far. I hope to not keep you waiting too long for another mix!

The Friday Tape Files, Vol 1, Ep 4

2008-05-16T16:30:00.000-07:00

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 been a bummer so far: we can only go up from here.

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: (xx > tt) hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?tmnnjzhw1it
Format: mp3 | m4a* | zip
Subscribe: Via Feedburner (and LJ)
Suggest: At this Post

TFTF Today

2008-05-09T16:59:00.001-07:00

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, Vol 1, Ep 3

2008-05-02T18:01:00.000-07:00

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).

The Toasters — Don't Let the Bastards Drag You Down
The Aquabats — My Skateboard
Discount — Waiting By the Wayside
The Weakertahns — 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: (xx > tt) hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?3i0jajby1nu
Podcast: Coming soon!
Format: mp3 | m4a* | zip
Subscribe: Via Feedburner (and LJ)
Suggest: At this Post

The Friday Tape Files, Volume 1, Episode 2

2008-04-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

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 us, if you don't think anything is playing, wait a bit or turn up your volume.)

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

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

Movies and Music, Part 1

2008-04-18T02:32:00.001-07:00

Yann Tiersen, composer of the soundtrack to Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, plays the keys rather nicely. Perhaps it's too early for thoughtful commentary, or perhaps I am speechless every time I listen to this soundtrack, but I hope to blog more about the magic behind soundtracks. Consider it a product of finally watching Juno, which has a fabulous indie rock soundtrack (despite having a little too much Kimya Dawson, even for such a die-hard fan of The Moldy Peaches that I am).

And because I can, more Tiersen goodness (this time, playing a different breed of keys):

Get more Tiersen videos on YouTube, of course. They're all equally mesmerizing.

The Friday Tape Files, Volume 2 Preview

2008-04-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

I go through phases as an OCD completist where I spend too many hours scouring the internet searching for rarities and oddities by my favorite musicians. (It's made me lazy, actually; I remember spending countless hours scouring record store bins long before forums, blogs, and file sharing was born; and especially prior to my move here, growing up in a small West Texas town where indie and punk rock were still truly considered "underground", my musical taste was acquired by practice, practice, and practice. But alas, I digress.)

Presently, I have been hunting down the discographies of Sparklehorse and The Mountain Goats, two very prolific writers and musicians. The Mountain Goats, aka John Darnielle, have produced no less than thirty albums and EPs (and appeared on countless compilations and the like, also). Sparklehorse, aka Mark Linkous, has only produced four records as Sparklehorse, as well as little more than a handful of singles and EPs. Linkous's music is equal parts lo-fi and alt-country, producing a soft, natural indie pop-infused sound. This song, "Some Sweet Day," off the 2004 release Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of the Mountain is my personal favorite from the release.

Download: Some Sweet Day, mp3. hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?ggn222ms9a0
Website: Sparklehorse.com
Myspace: Here
Wikipedia: Article
Yahoo! Group: Painbirds

Modest Mouse meet John Vanderslice

2008-04-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

(Click to view larger.)

From strand, who submitted the very first TFTF theme. I'm beginning to understand where it came from...

The Friday Tape Files, Volume 1, Issue 1

2008-04-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

At my mixtape challenge meme on my LiveJournal (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. This was last week's inaugural mixtape. Stay tuned for more this Friday. :)

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

Subscribe to tftf: the feed, via feedburner

Tape Suggestions

2008-04-16T16:31:00.000-07:00

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. The files are posted weekly here (and a few scattered places). Please stay tuned for the podcast-friendly version!