ben folds

Part 192: Mix One

MIX ONE

RECORD STORE TALES Part 192:  Mix One

Blank discs are so cheap, and musical tastes so fleeting today, that I wonder if anybody but me still has the first mix CD they ever burned?

I’m hoping some of you have, and I’m hoping to hear it about from you too.  My first disc was made in early 2001 when we got our first burner.  It was made for a very specific purpose.

At the store, there was an informal rule that if you were closing one day and opening the next, it was “OK” to borrow a movie overnight, watch and return it.  So if that was true for movies, why not a CD?  Why not a dozen?  A few nights after having the CD burner installed, I borrowed a bag full of discs and burned this compilation on a Maxell CD-R 650.  74 minutes!  Up to 16x certified!

I returned the discs the next day, all albums that I wanted one or two songs from, but not the whole album.  Many were soundtracks and tribute albums.  I ended up buying The Strokes’ album a few weeks later, an ill-advised purchase that yielded only two or three listens.  I don’t have that one anymore.  But I still have my mix CD with “Last Nite”!

The Robbie Williams + Queen track is taken from the soundtrack to A Knight’s Tale.  I shall maintain the anonymity of the store employee who had the crush on Heath Ledger and inundated us with this soundtrack.  The same disc also yielded “I Want to Take You Higher” by Sly and the Family Stone.

Track 3 is an industrial-rock hybrid tune called “Violent New Breed”.  I later purchased the Violent New Breed album by Shotgun Messiah.  Industrial rock fans will know that Messiah’s original bassist/singer was Tim Tim, aka Tim Sköld of KMFDM, Marilyn Manson, and his eponymous band.  I liked the title track enough to later buy the album and the prior one too.  Both were keepers.

I’ve been a Goo Goo Dolls fan for a while so I thought I would grab their INXS cover “Don’t Change” from an Ace Ventura soundtrack.  Their cover of “Bitch” came from the 1993 No Alternative compilation album.

Apparently I was on a Warrior Soul kick at that time as well.  Shame that there isn’t a great Warrior Soul compilation album that suits all my needs.  I bought and sold their studio albums.  As for Michael Jackson, I later decided to add a single disc compilation to my collection, offsetting my burning of “Billie Jean”.

This being a real odds n’ ends disc, it’s not a spellbinding listen today.  It’s fun to remind myself of some oddball tracks that I liked enough to burn but not enough to buy.  I’m also amused by the title Mix One, the first of many!  And I was even doing cover art back then, too.  On the cover is myself dressed up as the alien from Part 148: Navigate the Seas of the Sun!

2/5 stars!

NEXT TIME ON RECORD STORE TALES…

The return of the Dandy!

Part 102.5: Coda – “Dumped In Barrie”

After getting Dumped in Barrie, I came back home and began the process of “getting over it”.  I was now sick with a cold, too.  My immune system had gone to shit, working those crazy hours.

I ran into Dandy at one of the stores, while doing a stock transfer.

“Hey,” he said.  “I think I saw that chick JJJulie at the mall with some fat guy.”

“Really?” I said.  “Are you sure?  She’s not from here.  She lives in Etobicoke.”

“Yeah,” he replied.  “She had pink in her hair right?  But, like, faded?”

“Yeah,” I growled.  She just dumped me the weekend before, and I knew who the fat guy was, too.  “This fat guy.  Did he have a shaved head?”

“Yeah dude,” nodded Dandy.

So we just broke up, and she was already seeing this other dude!  I confronted her about it, and she eventually admitted to coming to town to “see” him.  This is five days after dumping me.  Five days!  Well, she wasn’t just “seeing him”.  I later found out that they “did the deed” that day, before his shift at the local McDonalds.

When he found out that I knew about this, he came into my store to make amends, because he genuinely wanted to make up and be friends.  He delivered me a tray of two McDonalds triple thick McShakes as a peace offering.

True story!