Get the mix here and now and/or continue reading… (173MB)

Here it is! The second volume of the Flip That Bastard series, which is pretty much just the B-sides of The Bastard Love Child of Punk & Disco series, which is (or will be) three mix CDs full of first singles of bands that are commonly thought of as 80s bands, but actually started in the 70s.

Got it?

Well, in March I released Volume 2 of The Bastard Son…, which featured the first singles of Joy Division, PiL, Simple Minds, The Cars, B-52s, The Fall, Magazine, OMD, Ultravox and many more. This CD contains the b-sides to all of those singles.

I’ve always been a huge fan of b-sides, especially when they we non-album tracks and even more so when they were weird. Weird is something that we get here. Take, for example, PiL’s first b-side, “The Cowboy Song.” Weird, huh? And how about the amazingly unexpected “Circus of Death” by The Human League?

Not all is weird, of course. Some songs are just good songs. Magazine’s “My Mind Ain’t So Open” and OMD’s “Almost” are every bit as good as their A-sides. The Buggle’s “Kid Dynamo” even rivals “Video Killed The Radio Star” (or surpasses it if you’re really sick of hearing that one).

The Fall’s “Repetition” is all about truth in advertising. The Fall’s “Repetition” is all about truth in advertising. The Fall’s “Repetition” is all about truth in advertising. The Fall’s “Repetition” is all about truth in advertising. The Fall’s “Repetition” is all about truth in advertising.

One little oddity shows up here. The A-side mix featured The Specials first single “Gangsters.” The B-side was actually by The Selector – it was a split 7″. Fun!

The song that really blew me away was the B-side to Men At Work’s “Keypunch Operator.” It’s called (and basically is) “Down Under.” This is the song that would eventually give them worldwide super stardom. However, this is a very early version and very different from the tune we all know (and love?). You’ll definitely recognize it.

Remember, many of these songs were only available on the first 7″s. Sure, some were slapped on remastered CDs as bonus tracks, but many were not.

Ok, ready? Here’s the track list…

And now, how about some sample songs?

Men At Work – Down Under

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PiL – The Cowboy Song

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The Human League – Circus of Death

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The Fall – Repetition

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OMD – Almost

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Magazine – My Mind Ain’t So Open

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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…

Want to hear a bunch of songs about animals? Click here and/or read on!

What do ants, eels, muskrats, dogs, cats and horses all have in common? That’s right, they’re all animals! Not only that, they’re all featured on the new mix CD!

It’s really a bunch of fun to do mixes based on a theme that’s not a genre of music. This way, I can chuck all sorts of styles at you. And chuck, I do! We’ve got the alt country stylings of the Handsome Family as well as the punk rock screaminess of Submission Hold. There’s fun from Louis Armstrong, Sparks, Lou Reed, They Might Be Giants and a lovely little duet by David Bowie and Iggy Pop.

Animals are weird, so I’ve found some equally weird songs. Take Fishfood’s “Seventeen Eels,” please. Also, ever wonder why there wasn’t an answer to “Surfin’ Bird”? Well there was! Wade Curtis does “Puddy Cat.” “Monkey Speaks His Mind” is an old gem about how a monkey disagrees that humans came from the noble ape. Actually, most of these songs are weird. The Handsome Family has a song about being a “Giant Ant” (“My ass is as big as Omaha”).

I’ve been able to find some rarities as well. “The Caterpillar” by The Cure, for example, is from an early demo. Pink Floyd’s “Pigs on the Wing” is the full version that was only released on the 8 Track of Animals. “Bring on the Dancing Horses” is an extended version only on the 12″ single. The whole mix ends with Talking Head’s “Animals,” but it’s a live version and they’ve changed the bridge. You’ll see.

Here’s the track list…

And here are a few tracks for you to enjoy?

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Fishfood – Seventeen Eels

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Submission Hold – Last Surviving Crocodile

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Wade Curtis – Puddy Cat

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Pink Floyd – Pigs On The Wing

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Syd Barret – Effervescing Elephant (Take 2)

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…

Every road trip needs a soundtrack. Those are usually created on the fly – CDs pulled out from dusty bins or quickly burned before leaving. This spring trip is no different, it needs one. However, listening to music while riding isn’t the best idea ever.

And that’s where you come in.

Get the mix here, or keep on reading…

Last year I did a road mix for a road trip that could never happen. That was Hot Sun Beating on a Blacktop. And like that mix, this mix is set up like a mix tape.

There are two tracks: side one and side two. Like a mix tape, it’s meant to be listened to front start to finish, like watching a movie or reading a book. If you want to skip a song, you’ll have to fast forward through it. But really, you shouldn’t do that.

Between the songs are bits of found sound, samples from little things here and there. It’s fun to make these and hopefully fun to listen to.

Of course, the real point of this (and any) mix is the music. Finding songs about the road can lead to cliche boredom and predictability that will put you to sleep. I’ve steered clear of such things (hopefully).

Side One, however, does start rather predictably. How could I not include a Springsteen song? And, as the title of the road trip and the mix would indicate, “Born To Run” had to be here. However, this is a live version from a 1975ish bootleg. I can’t remember which one, but you’ll dig it.

Aside from that, this is a pretty eclectic mix. Some songs are about driving, sure – Sparks’s “How Are You Getting Home” and Aerosmith’s “Back In The Saddle,” specifically (ok, that last one could be called predictable too – sorry). But most everything else seems to come from several different left fields.

The Jam, Bauhaus, Anthrax, Bunny Grunt, Tubeway Army, Holy Model Rounders, Rollins, TV Personalities and The Smiths would seemingly have very little to do with each other. But on this mix, the flow into and complement the songs fore and aft. Not bad, eh?

With most of my mixes, I give you samples. It’s not really easy to do that for this one. So let me walk you through some snippets.

This is how we’ll start the mix…

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How would you slide from Red Monkey to Bauhaus? Here’s how I did it…

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And from Holy Model Rounds to Rollins?

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Can you think of a better way to introduce Anthrax’s “Indians”?

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What can we make of this?

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Make whatever you like of it, I guess – but I’d suggest getting it here.

Get the mix here, and/or continue reading… (174MB)

In music, and pop culture in general, decades don’t really mean what we think they mean. For example, most of what we call 60s music lasted well into the 70s. Punk rock, generally thought of as 70s music, didn’t really start until 1976 and died out quickly, by ‘78 (take THAT!). Disco started a bit earlier than that and died out a few years into the 80s.

This six volume mix consists totally of first singles (and their b-sides) from bands that had their biggest success in the 80s. All of these songs were recorded in the 70s.

For this, our second installment, we again explore what we typically think of as 80s music and how it was actually 70s music. Sure, bands like Boomtown Rats, The Cure, OMD, Ultravox and Men at Work went on to fame, fortune and failure in the 80s, but their starts were well rooted in the late 70s.

We’ll start with Joy Division’s “Transmission,” a dark post-punk number filled with guitars and reverb and wind out way through Men At Work’s first single (but wait till you hear the b-side in a couple of months!).

The Buggles’s “Video Killed the Radio Star” is now pretty much the quintessential 80s song. It was the first video MTV ever played and is on pretty much every 80s comp known to man. But no, it was 1979. The 80s got off to an early start.

Post punk was probably a mutual invention, but if there’s a band that should be the pioneers of the field, it would be Public Image Ltd. They took punk rock and flipped it over, enough though their first single could easily be mistaken for a Sex Pistols song.

In the US, The Human League were best known for happy pop songs about working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, but in the late 70s, they were dark and strange. “Being Boiled” has become one of my favorite songs ever.

“Don’t You Forget About Me” by Simple Minds sounds very little like their first single, “Life in a Day.” Same goes for OMD’s stark “Electricity,” which is a far cry from “If You Leave.”

One of my favorite pieces on this comp was saved for last. Magazine’s “Shot By Both Sides” gets added to a lot of post-punk comps, but that’s usually the album version. The version that I’ve found is the first version which was released as a single prior to the first album. It’s a completely different recording, so if you’re used to the album cut, you’re in for a few subtle changes that will throw you a bit.

How about some samples…

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Men At Work – Keypunch Operator

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The Human League – Being Boiled

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Simple Minds – Life in a Day

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Magazine – Shot by Both Sides

Get it here! (174 MB)

It’s a zip file, so everyone in the universe should be able to open it.

Check out my other mixes here.

This is a strange mix, even for me. Click here to get it and/or read on…

The idea was simple – seven songs about days, twelve songs about months and four songs about seasons (one song for each). Now, my music collection is pretty large, but not large enough to cover the scope of this mix. I had to do a lot of searching for the right songs to make it all fit. I’m not totally sure that it works. I’ll leave that up to you.

Days
We’ll start the mix with days. There are a lot of songs about Monday. The cliche thing to do would be to pick “Tell Me Why I Don’t Like Mondays.” I almost did. It’s a great song. But instead I opted for Duran Duran’s “New Moon on Monday.” This is an edited down (and slightly changed) version of the Dance Mix. I picked this over “Blue Monday,” which isn’t the best way to start a mix.

The next three songs were in my collection. I discovered Clem Snide a very long time ago and they’ve showed up on several mixes. My dad introduced me to Simon & Garfunkel at a really young age. I think we had this album on 8 track. Giles, Giles & Fripp is a forgotten gem from the late 60s. Definitely check them out. I bought this in high school completely based on the album cover.

While I had heard a lot of The Replacements songs, I somehow missed “Love You Till Friday.” And while I have recently been on an Ultravox kick, I had never heard of their song about Saturday Night. It’s from their first album. Royal Fingerbowl, however, are one of my favorite bands. And “A Month of Sundays” is one of my favorite songs. I think you’ll like it.

Months
Bluegrass in January? Sure, why not? I don’t know anything about this band, but it’s a really fun song. And while I really dig the TV Personalities, I wasn’t familiar with this song before looking for songs about February. It’s pretty cute. Mirel Reznic is a violinist who apparently makes songs for you to spin plates to. I was apprehensive about putting two instrumentals so close together, but I think you’ll be able to handle it. I had no idea who or what Rusty James is, but the song about April is pretty nice.

My friend Brad re-introduced XTC to me with some demos and this song was on a CD he gave me. Maybe it’s not really about May, but it’s a beautiful song anyway. When I was a kid, I really dug Camper Van Beethoven. I think I missed this song – it was probably on one of their later albums. A million years ago, someone mailed me a Plumtree CD scotch-taped to another CD to act as packaging. The other CD was a mix (thanks), but I fell in love with Plumtree. Maybe you will too. Mama! Milk is a dumb name for a band. But great song about August. I had never heard this before.

In honor of Alex Chilton’s very untimely death, how about Big Star’s “September Gurls”? Polaris is actually Miracle Legion. They did much of the music for Pete & Pete. Even though I want to like Tom Waits way more than I do, I continue to find songs that make me really happy. Which is odd for Tome Waits songs. When I was in high school, The Lemonheads were the cool band to like for about ten minutes. It’s good pop punk, but I never got why they were so well loved.

Seasons
The Pretty Things are now the cool proto-punk garage band to like. I get this, so check out “Spring.” “The Other Side of Summer” is the most beloved Elvis Costello song, but I really like it. It’s definitely got a summer song feel to it. Just as much as Billie Holiday’s “Autumn in New York” has an autumn feel to it. We end things with Iron & Wine, which is maybe a little surprising for me. But there we are. This is a strange mix, remember?

Let’s take a listen to some of the songs…

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Giles, Giles & Fripp – Thursday Morning

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Mirel Reznic – The Month of March

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Plum Tree – July 3rd

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The Pretty Things – Spring

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…

Get the mix here, and/or continue reading… (174MB)

In January, I posted a mix CD called The Bastard Love Child of Punk & Disco; First Singles: The 80s in the 70s, Vol 1. It was, as the title suggests, a collection of first singles put out in the 70s who later became more popular in the 80s. That mix contained 25 songs – all A-Sides. This mix is the flip side to every single one of them.

Ever since I was a kid, I loved B-Sides. They were almost always a bit left of center, strange and usually not available on the album. When I decided to make this three volume mix of singles, I figured that I just had to include the B-Sides.

Talking Heads kicked off the first mix and they kick this one off too. “New Feeling” was the b-side to “Love → Building on Fire” Both songs are strong and either could have been the single. In the case of Devo, the flip side to “Mongoloid” was “Jocko Homo” which later became much more famous. This version is the first and, in my opinion, the best.

There are some great songs here. Check out Tubeway Army’s “Oh! Didn’t I Say.” Brilliant stuff. Also, “Don’t Cry Baby” by The Polecats is a creepy, but really fun song. How about TV Personalities “Oxford ST”? And Peter Gabriel’s “Moribund the Burgermeister” – that one is really weird. You’ll like it. Oh! And Pere Ubu’s “Heart of Darkness” – it’s passionate and crazy. Wonderful stuff.

The Police, Japan and Madness all have some good stuff here. Madness, especially. Or maybe Japan, especially. Know what? The whole thing is good. It’s not like a bunch of second rate songs that weren’t good enough to be the release side. For many of the bands, the b-side was simply the other song they recorded.

Here’s the track list…

How about some sample songs?

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Tubeway Army – Oh! Didn’t I Say

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Devo – Jocko Homo

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Thompson Twins – Could Be Her … Could Be You

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Peter Gabriel – Moribund the Burgermeister

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Pere Ubu – Heart of Darkness

Ok, enough of all this. Go check it out!

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…

Words? Who needs words when the music is this good? Here are 19 songs that would have been ruined by words.

It would have been easy to fill a CD with instrumental jazz or late 50s surf music. True, I’ve got Bud Shank (mid-50s jazz surf music before there was surf music), Link Wray and Dick Dale, but there’s so much more.

We start off with a band I heard in a used record store in Morgantown, West Virginia circa 1995, Hoven Droven. I immediately fell in love with their Iceburn meets Scandinavian folk music. Oven more obscure is Pink Floyd with an early B-side take on the not-yet-classic “Careful With That Axe, Eugene.” Speaking of B-sides, how about Simple Mind’s 7″ B-side “Theme for Great Cities.”

I didn’t want to only be obscure, of course. I wanted some classics. That’s where Link Wray and the Ventures come in. But also They Might Be Giants treat us to a fairly straight rendition of “Jessica” while Zappa goes a bit crazy with “Bolero.” Speaking of crazy, check out Scott Walker’s “Part 2.” Eno and Byrne’s song as well.

Dissent’s “Stress” was the last thing they ever recorded and it’s really a shame. They started out as a basic hardcore punk band and began to evolve into something much more complex. Rush is complex. If you’re cool, you’ll know the song. If you’re not so cool, you’ll recognize the song from the start of Primus’s Frizzle Fry LP. I was of the latter group.

When I was a kid and rap was just started to gain some attention, they’d play Herbie Hancock’s “Rock It” video as an example of what rap was (they’d also play Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”). Pretty lame, really.

And lastly, if I ever made a movie, I’d want the Dead Milkmen’s “Vince Lombardi Service Station” to play over the end credits. Let’s try to make that happen, ok?

1. Hoven Droven – Kjellingen
2. Link Wray – Jack the Ripper
3. They Might Be Giants – Jessica
4. Scott Walker – Part 2
5. Dissent – Stress
6. Pink Floyd – Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up
7. Bud Shank – Going My Wave
8. Mogwai – May Nothing But Happiness Come Through Your Door
9. Dick Dale – Miserlou
10. Frank Zappa – Bolero
11. Weird Al – Fun Zone
12. Simple Minds – Theme For Great Cities
13. Herbie Hancock – Rock It
14. Camper Van Beethoven – Interstellar Overdrive
15. Brian Eno and David Byrne – Two Against Three
16. Ventures – Walk Don’t Run
17. Anthrax – Across The River
18. Rush – YYZ
19. Dead Milkmen – Vince Lombardi Service Center

The cover is a b&w of a photo I took in 2004 of friends Ashley and Nikki on a beach in California. I think it was when we went to Bodega Bay. That’s where Hitchcock filmed The Birds. Interesting, no? The back cover is (obviously) just a little remix of the reversion.

This year, the mixes will mostly feature reversions of photos that I took. I have all these pics, so why not?

So here you go. February’s mix is a mix full of instrumentals. I hope you enjoy such things. Feel free to let me know what you think.

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!

Here are some samples…

Hoven Droven – Kjellingen

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Frank Zappa – Bolero

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Camper Van Beethoven – Interstellar Overdrive

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The Ventures – Walk Don’t Run

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