Sunday, May 18, 2008

Various Artists '2 Nasty 4 Radio'


In case you missed the entry that I posted on Saturday, you may want to read it before you read any further…

The first mix tape that ever wowed me and showed me the “art” of it all was created by a guy in Knoxville. Doug Edsel was a friend of Melanie, my girlfriend at the time. I remember her being excited about getting a mix tape from her friend Doug or “DUG!” as she called him. I just thought it was a little wacky until I heard the art of Doug’s mix tape.

Doug used sound clips from movies, television, and comedy routines to keep the mix rolling without breaks. His creations were 90 minutes of non-stop art (except when you had to flip the tape over from the A side to the B side). I listened and I listened good. I was turned onto things that I would normally wouldn’t listen to. My young mind was opening up and I saw the cassette tape as a canvas for the things that I can create.

I started swapping tapes with Brad Kesler (a Peaches Music & Video coworker) and made them for my own amusement. Brad continued my education with a mix that seemed like a musical novel in 90 minutes. The songs weren’t listed. He instead listed brief chapter titles giving you the idea of how the song was being used to perpetuate the storyline. I thought it was genius and very creative.

I tried and failed to match anything close to his creation. I gave up on it and just kept making odd & sod mixes that were made more or less for folks to “relax” with.

When I was watching the television movie called Helter Skelter that I had taped off of TNT or TBS or something… I felt inspiration. I grabbed a notebook, a bottle of beer, a pen, and the VCR remote. I started lifting dialogue out of Helter Skelter and started through my music collection looking for songs about murder and mayhem along with selected tunes from The Beatles ‘White Album’.

I called it ‘Mansonism’ and I made a few copies for folks like Chip Kinney (a mix art guy his damn self) and a HUGE Beatles fan named Randy. They loved it!

What put it over the top was how I mixed the dialogue from Tex Watson’s conversation about Manson’s use of Revelations Chapter 9 over the recording of “Revolution #9” from The Beatles. The timing worked almost perfectly and made Manson’s crazed interpretation of the Bible verse even more spooky.

I have that master tape sitting on my entertainment center right now. I’ve been meaning to convert it digitally to a 2 CD set, but I haven’t. I suppose now I can save it as an MP3.

Here’s the track listing from ‘Mansonism’:

Side A

Real Solution #9 - White Zombie
Piggies - The Beatles
Look At Your Game - Charles Manson
Lithium - Nirvana
Used To Love Her - Guns N’ Roses
Helter Skelter - The Beatles
Garbage Dump - Charles Manson
Living With The Law - Chris Whitley
Buenos Noches From A Lonely Room (She Wore Red Dresses) - Dwight Yoakam
Happiness Is A Warm Gun - The Beatles
Millie & Billie - Alice Cooper


Side B

Sick City - Charles Manson
Sexy Sadie - The Beatles
I Am Legend - White Zombie
Sex Is Violent - Jane’s Addiction
Killers - Iron Maiden
Night Crawler - Starz
Revolution #9 - The Beatles
Gas Chamber - L7
Hey Joe - Jimi Hendrix
Is That A Streetlight Or The Moon? - Starz


If you’re interested in a copy of this mix, don’t hesitate to let me know. That’ll light a fire under my ass to convert it to CD’s and MP3’s.

That one 90 minute mix eventually led to my series called “A Slacker’s Day Off”… More on that later.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:46 PM

    Ok..I'm game.

    Hurry up and convert it to CD. You never really included me in that tape mixing.

    It will be interesting to hear what lurked in your mind way back in the day.

    J

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9:10 AM

    What about AC/DC "Night Prowler"?!

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Night Prowler" made it to the list, but it didn't make the cut. Nothing personal... It's a great song. I just wasn't feeling it at the moment.

    ReplyDelete