MIXTAPES

So last Thursday was take you kids to work day and I had to help. I wasn't looking forward to it much but it turned out to be pretty fun. To get myself in the mood I wore a tee shirt to work:

Halfway through my boss interrupted my little kid tour group (me and 3 fifth grade girls) to make me attend a meeting. That led to a lunch with my boss and his boss. My boss's boss used to be my boss. Anyway, he asked me what was the deal with the tee shirt and who Pianos Become the Teeth are and are they good or what? I always have a hard time fielding questions like that with any kind of honesty. Why? I usually sense that people just tune out my answer, particularly when I mention the words Punk, or hardcore. At least my boss's boss asked me something about the music, like if the singing was all screaming and could you understand any words at all. As I composed an answer of sorts he hit scan on his radio dial and that part of the conversation was truncated. I wasn't offended at all, I'm used to it. But really, the loss was his. Had he checked out the video for "I'll Be Damned" maybe his interest would have been tweeked. But maybe not, especially if he stopped listening to new music after Hootie and the Blowfish. He's got kids too. There's a communication channel there that I think he's probably also disconnected from. Yesterday when I was running with my ipod playing at first I was thinking that all of the mixtapes and playlists I've made over the years were jive and shit. But I know that's bullshit because at least I like them and they kind of make a time capsule or diary for my reference when I check them out years later. I one time made a cassette with side A called Boy Groups and side B called Girl Groups and sent it to my brother. A whole long time later one of his kids burned me a copy onto CD of that tape. It's pretty funny to listen to now, almost impossible really. So at the end while cooling down yesterday I got all endorphiny behind "The Bleeding Heart Show" by The New Pornographers. That made me want to make a mix last night which I called Bands I Wanna See. Here's the playlist:

So if you're reading this you must check out some of this music or you won't get the full effect of this blog. Take a song title (like Constant Headache by Joyce Manor, or The Heat Death of the Universe by Off Minor) over to Youtube and just search for it. Find it without video if you can and crank up your speakers. Do you see why I like music like this? If not no problem to me. But maybe if you give it a chance you'll see some kind of redeeming quality of music like this.