Composition: Music From Before I Could Drive (2010 Christmas Mix)

Merry Christmas, Happy Yule and Good tidings of all things wonderful.

Click here to get the whole mix, and/or read on! (356MB)

This is the fifth Christmas CD that I’ve done and quite possibly my favorite. Here are 45 or so songs that I listened to (or had thrust upon me) before I could even drive. That’s right, from 7th to 10th grade I wasn’t exactly the coolest kid in the world, but I did listen to some surprisingly good music.

And while the mix is fun, the booklet/packaging was a whole bunch of fun to make. Last year’s was completely computer-based, so this year, I wanted to get a bit more organic, like I used to do with mix tapes.

For the 2010 Christmas Mix, I’ve decided to dip into my late middle school/early high school past and picked out 44 songs that I remember from before I could drive. Over the advent season, I’ll be featuring one per day, counting down to Christmas party time when the mix itself will be released.

In the past years, mixes have focused on specific artists, subjects and things the songs had in common. This year’s mix, however, is autobiographical.

I was introduced to “alternative” music (then called “College Rock”) at a very young age. It was probably before the 7th grade, but that year (1987) was pretty pivotal for me.

Through friends, MTV’s 120 Minutes, chances took and even a cool cousin, I discovered a musical underground usually reserved for hip college kids or those already in the scene.

This mix is just that: a true mixed bag. There is no specific genre or style here. Just the music that I listened to from 1987 to 1991, all before I could drive.

And it probably started before I heard the Dead Milkmen, thanks to my cousin Joe. He played them and the Violent Femmes for me over the course of a couple of years.

The truth is, I’ve always liked the odd and the strange. Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel and Men Without Hats gave way to Camper Van Beethoven and Fishbone. The next year it was Public Image Ltd., Lightening Seeds and Faith No More. XTC, Meat Puppets, fIREHOSE and Sinead O’Connor prepared me, as a 10th grader, for a whole life of seeking out and finding the underground music (eventually creating it too).

Enjoy this trip through my middle school and high school years.

Remember, every one that will be on this mix was recorded from vinyl records by me. All of these records are still in my collection and still in heavy rotation.

I’ll often have a ton of songs for you to preview, but all this month, I’ve been featuring a song-a-day on my blog. So look back through December for that, okay?

Now, would you like the mix? Go get it!

Just click on the link and save the zip file to your desktop. Then open the zip file with WinZip (or whatever program you use to open zip files). Add to your MP3 library or burn it to a CD-R. Easy as pie!

Check out my other mixes right here…

Technical Information:
Media Used:
Vinyl LPs, 7″s and 12″s from my personal collection.

SoundConverter 1.4.1
-Converted WAV to 320kbps MP3