A glance at this mix tape shows how little my taste has changed in 26 years
I used to be a “cassette guy” since that was all we had back then. I’d buy any new albums, and immediately play them while recording to a cassette tape. I would then play the tape instead of the record, to preserve the record from wear and tear. I bought a lot of K-mart branded 3-packs of C-90s [red label] and C-60s [blue label] since they used maybe “second” stock from a major supplier. As my income flowered, this soon became Maxell UX-XLII tape; my favorite brand after dalliances with TDK and Memorex. Of course, while that was my main use for cassettes, there was also the mix tape aspect that was pretty cool, though incredibly time consuming compared to what we have now. The act of picking 90 minutes of songs and cleaning/playing the record to record it was really time consuming. Maybe a 2:1 ratio with a C-90 taking maybe three hours to record!
As I had a big record collection, I made a lot of mix tapes for friends who needed to hear this or that. I actually didn’t make too many for myself. I recall that after I started buying vinyl again around 1992, and having a care with only a cassette deck, I started to dump incoming vinyl to tape for listening once again. Even though CDs had all but wiped the need for cassettes in the previous few years following the first CD player.
I’d met JT in 1993, a scant few weeks before he graduated from the school he was attending in my city, and returned to the Midwest. As such, we bonded immediately after chasinvictoria introduced us over the round, spinning things. Given that he pretty much moved away as soon as we met, I sent him this mix tape with some of my obsessions the following year as we have kept up a correspondence [with occasional visits] over the ensuing years. He was talking about archiving his cassettes to digital recently and mentioned that he had three tapes I had sent him still in house. Two were album dubs but the third was a mix tape, so he scanned the J-card and sent it to me. I just noticed the typo, proving that my hasty typing is nothing new. What was on it?
Les Disques Du Crépuscule | Belgium | 7″ | 1982 | twi 038
A1. Thick Pigeon: Subway
I’ve written about this here.
Polydor | UK | @x7″ | 1982 | POSP 384
A2. The Passions: Africa Mine
I’ve written about this here. And there.
Factory Benelux | BENELUX | 12″ | 1984 | FBN 28
A3. Nyam Nyam: Fate/Hate
I’ve mentioned this record here.
Metamatic | UK | CD2/3 | META63BX | 2018
A4. John Foxx: Young Love
I’ve written about this track here.
Flexipop | UK | 7″ flexidisc | 1981 | FLEXIPOP 004
A5. Adam+ the Ants: A.N.T.S.
I’ve written about this record here.
Parlophone | UK | 12″ | 1984 | 12R 6079
A6. Armoury Show: Castles In Spain [LP]
I’ve written about this 12″ single here. But the LP mix was what I used on the tape. I didn’t have the 12″ yet. Good thing too, the 12″ was weaker.
A&M Records | USP | 12″ | 1982 | SP-12064
A7. Europeans: Animal Song
Wow! the first tracks I’d not referenced before on PPM. This was stentorian Post-Punk ca. 1982 that I happened to catch a scarce video of on MTV.
Virgin | UK | LP | 1980 | MILK 1
A8. The Flying Lizards: Hands 2 take [early mix]
I’ve written about this track here.
MCA Records | US | LP | 1984 |MCA-5467
A9. Jacqui Brookes: Lost Without Your Love
I’ve written about this track here.
Interdisc UK | LP | 1983 | INTO 2
A10. Gardening By Moonlight: Letters
I’ve written about this track here.
A+M Records | US promo | 12″ | 1983 | SP-12077
A11. Machinations: Pressure Sway
I’ve written about this track here.
Idiot Records | NET | LP | 1985 | 240 675-1
A12. Fay Lovsky: Underwater
Aaaah. Another rare one I’ve not written about. My friend Ron was into Fay Lovsky, a brilliant Dutch artist who he set me up with her first four albums back in the mid-80s. Ms. Lovsky was an artist who started in 1980 as a teenager with with a quirky set of 2-track pop tunes under the name “Fay Lovesick,” but by the time of her fourth album, “Cinema,” had developed an expansive, art rock sound with sumptuous production for her entrancing songs. Put these songs next to Kate Bush productions of the same time and they come out smelling like roses.
Island Records | UK | 12″ | 1983 | 12IS 125
B1. Martha: Light Years From Love 12″
Yet another record discussed here.
Backstreet Records | US | EP | 1983 | BSR-36004
B2. Hilary: Kinetic
As was this record here.
ZE Records | EURO | CD | 2004 | ZEREC.CD12
B3. Cristina: Don’t Mutilate My Mink
As written about here. Thus completing our Post-Punk Mononym Femme opening trilogy to side “B” of this tape.
Sire | US | LP | 1981 | SRK 3631
B4. Jerry Harrison: Worlds In Collision
I really need to devote a few days to this whole album, but I wrote about it not nearly enough here.
I.R.S. Records | US | 7″ | 1980 | IR 9013
B5. Henry Badowski: My Face
A great single written about here.
Cherry Red | UK CD | 2007 | CD MRED 338
B6. The Photos: I’m So Attractive
I discussed this great single here.
Cherry Red | UK | DLX RM CD | 2009 | CDMRED346
B7. Girls At Our Best!: Pleasure
Another pop classic was discussed here.
Polydor | UK | LP | 1980 | 2383 589
B8. Invaders: Magic Mirror
Another record of accomplished New Wave pop that haunts me to this day. First discussed here.
RCA | US | LP | 1981 | AFL1-4056
B9. Landscape: Face of the 80s
Shocking! Another post on this record here.
Virgin | UK | LP | 1982 | OVED 7
B10. Billy MacKenzie/B.E.F.: The Secret Life Of Arabia [dub]
Here’s a record so important to me, I have written about it:
Here.
Here.
Here.
Here.
…AND Here. [phew!]
Epic | US | LP | 1982 | ARE 38287
B11. Holly Beth Vincent: Unoriginal Sin
This epic track got the love here, first. And here, second.
Another Side | BENELUX | LP | 1984 | SIDE 8406
B12. Blaine L. Reininger: Mystery + Confusion
Finally this record was discussed here, and here!
Yow! I’m tired now and this post almost qualifies as a “listicle,” and for that, I’m sorry. Still, it was fascinating to see what things entranced me 26 years ago still hold me in their intoxicating thrall even now. When I looked at this J-card scan, I was still enthused to contemplate each of these songs and I was going to just write about them before I thought to look and see if I had done that before. A few seemed to trigger memories of earlier PPM posts. And how.
– 30 –
Post-Punk Monk 
What a delightful trip down memory lane! Any article that mentions Cash Cows, Methods of Dance (two of my top five fave compilations) and the utterly spellbinding “Hands2Take” is worthy of a languid stroll through. Your compilation was an incredible jaunt through the best stuff of the time, and lots of lovely memories emerged looking through this list. Give my regards to JT when next he appears.
And now, a weird connection from this post to your previous one: Blaine L. Reininger is credited as strings arranger for “Les Demoiselles De Rochefort” on Antena’s Camino Del Sol!
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Regards back at ya’!
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What an interesting mixtape. I can see how programming it could take hours – mine used to as well.
As for media, I graduated from TDK SA 90 mins tapes to Maxell XLII 90 min tapes until I discovered Denon HD8 100 min cassettes were compatible with my system. That extra 10 minutes was everything!
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Hah! Yes, those 100 min tapes felt like a deluxe version!
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I am sure I would have been playing that tape non stop for many years!
I also made loads of carefully curated tapes for friends,one in particular was Mikey (still my best friend) and we still have all of each other’s mix tapes.
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Gavin – I have a small box of cassettes left after the Great Cassette Purge of tapes which include every mix tape that chasinvictoria ever sent me in the ‘81-‘83 era when he lived in Miami/Atlanta.
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Ah the era of mixtapes – so much time spent picking the perfect playlist, hand lettering the cassette… It feels like I’ll never have that much free time again. Love that I don’t recognize the majority of the tracks you have listed here – so much to check out!
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Somehow Mixed CDR’s never where that good, the build up of two sides was missing and of course the extra playtime of at least a C90. In the days of the walkman a good mixtape was sometimes a daysaver.
I remember a pal of mine who started his own databank (way before discogs) to trace every track and version of it with playtime to get his mixtapes better organized.
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slur – That’s nothing! At least 50 years ago the cartoonist Mad Peck used to make “playlist” comics with “recipes” to fill each side of a then-new C-60 with Rock + Roll oldies; thematically curated!
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Of COURSE the playlist itself is top-notch… but I’m more interested in why you’d be making this mix in ‘94. Were these songs new to you at that point? Were you feeling nostalgic? Were you just exasperated with the state of ‘modern/alternative rock’ in 1994?
I’m asking because I made a similar mixtape in ‘96. Tracks like department s ‘is Vic there’ and the like, just recording post punk singles I’d acquired over the years (and likely learned of in Trouser Press). For me, it was definitely related to wanting to re-hear the music of my early teens. Work, relationship, money (i.e. adult) woes were likely all factors. And not finding any solace in the ‘96 hipster musical offerings. BUT… no matter how bad things got, I was always able to find refuge in the music commonly discussed here!
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Ah, after reading again I think you explained why you were making this tape in the 90’s— to share discoveries with a friend. Lucky you… not sure if any of my friends would‘be still listened to this stuff at that point.
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bpsp3 – I was exasperated with the state of modern/alternative rock in 1994, but this tape was for a friend who lived far away. We had musically bonded in the two weeks he still lived in my city and then he moved away. Had he ever heard these somewhat obscure songs? That what was driving the bus there.
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Monk, did we only know each other for two weeks before I moved? My recollections are that it was a couple of months, but you have a better memory in general than I do. You and that girl Lynne took me for sushi, it was the first time I ever had it!
For anyone reading this, I happen to be a sound engineer with a keen interest in archiving and restoration. Spent a bit of my quarantine time digitizing a big box of old mix tapes: 29 sides made *by* me (one tape had no side B), and another 42 sides of mixes made *for* me, all made from about 1987 to 2002, but largely containing music from the post punk / new wave era. Considering uploading them somewhere to share with the world. Might do a torrent, I’m not sure yet. Is there interest in such a thing?
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JT – Yep. I met you that night when chasinvictoria was holding court at Orlando club Big Bang where he might have had a Crusty Old Wave Night where he DJ’d on occasion. Or no. My Monsatic Sense is tingling and telling me that it might have been “Shaft Night” where funk was played by Fred Ehmen.
You were there as a listener to his WPRK-FM “Chas’ Crusty Old Wave” show and we were introduced at that time by chasinvictoria. I recognized you as a kindred spirit immediately. I recall visiting your apartment soon afterward as you were packing up to split Orlando and we were discussing favorite bands and played the “have you heard…” game that music nerds like ourselves revel in for some hours. I’d forgotten the sushi lunch event, but that might have been your swansong. I swear two weeks, total.
The next time I saw you was when you were coming back to The States from an Easter Island trip and we met you and your spouse in Ft. Lauderdale where you introduced us to the splendor of the Mai-Kai. Fortunately, we’ve had other run ins since then. Always a pleasure.
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