I’m cheating this week. And making no attempt to hide it.
Tonight’s mix has never featured on these pages before, but has appeared elsewhere on t’internet: over at JC’s ever magnificent The Vinyl Villain blog.
But this week I’m even more pressed for time than usual. I’m in the middle of composing a Christmasy mix for next week (you’ve been warned…) so I figured I may as well share this, in the unlikely event that anyone who comes here doesn’t also regularly frequent JC’s place and may have missed it. If that’s you, then have a word with yourself.
And since I’m using the same mix (actually, I have redone it to get rid of some of the skips which cropped up in the original mix – no need for the disclaimer that The Robster referred to in his post which reappeared over at No Badger Required a week or so ago), I may as well use the same words I did back then:
“Hello. My name is Jez and I am addicted to making playlists.
It has been three days since I put together my last playlist.
I’ve done mixes – compilation tapes, CD-mixes, playlists – for years now, always managing to find spaces where they could be heard: when I was younger, there were compilation tapes in the 6th Form common room, or in the motorway ‘restaurant’ I worked in during the holidays at 6th Form and at college (and for a year after I graduated). I would craft a new tape every other evening to take in the following day with which to wow my friends and work colleagues. Like snowflakes (the old usage of the term), no two were ever the same.
Becoming a DJ at college was almost inevitable and my plans for world domination moved on at pace: I started off by taking over the fortnightly Indie Night, before also becoming the regular DJ at the retro-80s night (which, incredibly, started in 1990), occasionally hosting the retro-60s & 70s night, playing between and after the bands on live music night, and eventually even the coveted Saturday night “Chartbuster” gig. (The fact that I was the Social Secretary and decided who got paid to DJ which nights was *coughs* entirely coincidental.)
After I graduated, I worked in a video shop for a few years, which only had a cassette player to play music through, so the compilation tapes kept coming. But as technology progressed I willingly followed, creating CD-mixes and then iPod playlists to soundtrack a Friday night with my flatmates, when we were too skint to go out, but between us could afford the ingredients to make several pints of White Russians all night until one of us inevitably fell asleep in the bathroom. This was the birth of the Friday Night Music Club which I’ve recently resurrected over at my place, A History of Dubious Taste (a link for which you can find over in the sidebar should you care to investigate further).
And of course, there was the far-more-frequent-than-I-care-to-admit compilation tape or CD-mix lovingly prepared for a young lady I was trying to impress. If you’ve ever read Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, (and if you’re reading this, then I would be extremely surprised if you haven’t) then you’ll know, if you didn’t already, that there are rules one has to observe when making one.
For example (and I’m paraphrasing here):
• Thou shalt not include the same artiste more than once in the same mix; and
• If there is a particular song which you want the recipient to hear thou shalt bury it somewhere towards the end of the mix (but not within the last three songs, and definitely not the final track) – mid-way through the second “side” of a C90 compilation tape should be about right
As you’ve probably guessed, it’s my love of putting together playlists which brings me here today. For last week, whilst laid up with a touch of the Covids and trying to decide what could feature in this week’s mix at my place (which is now last week’s mix, do try to keep up), the latest missive from our host dropped. It included a playlist, which, as one would expect from such an eminent source, was rather fine, featuring a load of songs with the word love in the title.
And there, at the end of the post, JC had written these words: if anyone out there wants to have a go, I’ll willingly make space for a guest posting.
Now, one of the things I love about doing a mix is trying to make a theme of it, but drunken flatmates would inevitably roll their eyes when I started to grill them as to what the theme might be each week, so I try to shy away from them these days (themes, that is: I got rid of all the flatmates years ago). But here was an invitation to create just such a thing, so I knocked this mix together and sent it to JC:
(Love is…also not caring that neither of you appear to have genitals…unless it’s just cold there….)
Love Is…Friday Night Music Club
- Squeeze – Labelled With Love
- Sandie Shaw – Long Live Love
- Erasure – Victim Of Love
- Sub Sub feat. Melanie Williams – Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)
- Little Boots – Love Kills (Buffetlibre vs Sidechains remix)
- Icona Pop featuring Charli XCX – I Love It
- The White Stripes – Fell in Love with a Girl
- Frank Wilson – Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)
- Kim Wilde – Chequered Love
- Echo & The Bunnymen – The Back Of Love
- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Love Burns
- The Smiths – Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
- The Bluetones – Autophilia Or ‘How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Car’
- The Wedding Present – Give My Love to Kevin (acoustic)
- Half Man Half Biscuit – I Love You Because (You Look Like Jim Reeves)
- The Beautiful South – Love Is…”
[Seems I couldn’t be arsed with sleeve notes back then, either!]
More soon.
A History of Dubious Taste 