[Integrity Mix] was an idea that came from Kevin. For a while there, he was making a new mix CD every month, made up of the best stuff he was listening to in the last 30 days or so. The idea was, you’d have a neat chronicle of your most impactful listening experiences. And a good mix CD in general. — From Record Store Tales Part 46: Integrity Mix
RECORD STORE TALES #900: Integrity Mix Again
In the years before beginning to publish my writings, I poured my musical creative energy into making mix CDs. I spent hours on them. I tested them in the car before giving them them “OK”. I called them “Integrity Mix”, after one of Tom’s favourite words. Integrity. Music with integrity, people with integrity…that was Tom’s word. The concept of the CD originated with Kevin, one of the guys I worked with at the very end of the Record Store. Kevin and I had a falling out over the way I portrayed the store, but he deserves credit for many things, including these mix CDs.
The idea was simple. Make a new mix CD every month (or so), made up on songs you were into during that period.
It was a great concept and one which I latched onto with gusto. I made many, and some months ended up getting double CDs because there was just too much music that needed to be remembered. Each one had a cover, though some were just simple track listings, some were more elaborate.
It’s fun to put things away and not look at them for a long time. That’s what happened with these discs. When I switched gears to writing on a daily basis, I wanted to listen to full albums. Mix CDs started to collect dust. I hadn’t looked at my Integrity Mixes for about five years, but noticed them in a corner and thought it might be fun to have a look.
What I discovered was, without even having to play a single track, I could see by much of the artwork just what I was into at that given time. Here are all the covers I made with some kind of art:
February 2008: Arrested Development
September-October 2008: “Bird is the Word” via Family Guy
December 2008-January 2009: Kenny Vs. Spenny
February-March 2009: Battlestar Galactica
January 2010: UFOs
February 2010: Dedicated to my buddy Chris Thuss who had just left work
June 2011: Super Troopers
May 2008: Transformers
The music often reflected the shows I was into. “All Along the Watchtower” is a key track on the Battlestar Galactica disc. You can find tracks from movie soundtracks.
Kevin was right about doing that. Looking back at these discs, the tracklists, and dates, I can clearly remember events from my life. I don’t have to guess when it was — the discs are all dated. Brilliant idea Kevin. I feel bad that we fell out, and I’m sorry that I ever hurt him. I hope he would have enjoyed that his idea had legs and I kept going with it long after we worked together. Credit where credit is due!
I got into the downloading business later than everyone else. As a Record Store manager, I had zero interest in downloads. I’ve never used Napster and I sided with Lars Ulrich when it came down to it. You might not have cared about Lars’ bottom line, but I cared about mine. Downloading hurt us. And we weren’t a corporate entity, we were just a small indy chain. Eventually in the year 2001, I relented and began using WinMX and Limewire to download rare tracks. I bought so many CDs annually, I figured “why not”? I quickly discovered all the new Guns N’ Roses songs that they played in Rio.
I still remember the first time using WinMX. It was at an old girlfriend’s house and she was showing me how she downloaded music. Hey neighbour was using WinMX too, and gave her a mix CD of all the tracks she had downloaded. I’ll never forget putting on this mix CD, and suddenly from the speakers it’s “Who Let the Dogs Out”! As the song went on, I remarked “I don’t think I’ve ever heard the verses to this song before. Just the chorus.” Do you know how the verses go?
I copied what the girlfriend showed me, downloaded WinMX, and before you know it, I was listening to “The Blues” by Guns N’ Roses.
After everything dried up on WinMX, we both switched to Limewire where I continued downloading the odd rarity. I accumulated a large music folder, and began burning all my new tracks to mix CDs. I have several volumes of mixes all with tracks downloaded during this period. But there were always odds and ends that I never fit onto a mix CD. I thought all those tracks had been lost, but I just dug up an old CD labelled “MP3 downloads”. It is here that I burned the stragglers, and then stuffed the CD in with some photo discs and forgot all about it.
The title “MP3 downloads” is misleading as there are video files here too (none of which work anymore). The downloads are also not exclusively from Limewire, as we’ll get to. Let’s have a look track by track at what mp3 files I still had in my music folder back in 2004.
This CD is only 303 mb (of 656).
First, the video files are a weird variety of stuff I downloaded and intended to keep. I didn’t have cable back then, so “Gene Simmons on MTV Cribs” is one I wanted. Then there’s a file called “Gene’s hair on fire”. Then there’s a file called “some jackass tells a cop to fuck off”. I remember that one. I think I had been searching for Jackass videos, and came across this idiot getting beat by a cop after walking up and giving him the finger. Some Star Wars videos include the Star Wars Kid vs Yoda, a deleted scene from A New Hope, and something called “Episode 3 Leaked Marketing Video”. All the video files appear to be corrupt and won’t play on anything.
Onto the music. I can see there are some tracks here from albums I didn’t own then, but do now. From the compilation CD Spaced by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, it’s “Mr. Tambourine Man”, “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins”, “I Walk the Line” and “When I Was Seventeen”. These are strictly novelty covers, although Nimoy does give it a good effort. All of these songs were originally released on separate Nimoy and Shatner albums in the late 1960s. Related to these, I also have “Shaft” by Sammy Davis Jr. I have long loved Sammy’s glittery version of the Shaft theme. Who’s the black private dick who’s a sex machine with all the chicks? Sammy Davis Jr. was! The guitar work on this is great slippery fun. I’ll have to get a copy for real.
A fun treat next: A full hour Peter Criss interview show by Eddie Trunk. This is with all the songs and music. Peter was out of Kiss once again, and he spilled the full beans on his whole perspective. Doing the Symphony show with Tommy Thayer, Peter complains “without Ace, it’s not Kiss”. This interview is definitely a keeper. According to the file name, this interview is from May 4, 2004.
Several of the files are really, really low quality Dokken. These are tiny files, they are so poor. Demos of “Back for the Attack”, “We’re Illegal”, “It’s Not Love”, “Unchain the Night”, “Upon Your Lips”, and “Sign of the Times”. A live version of “Paris is Burning”. Remixes of “Nothing Left to Say” and “I Feel”. I could have burned all these to a Dokken rarities CD, but the sound quality is poor, I knew I’d never want to listen to it.
There is also a smattering of rare Leatherwolf, including some live stuff. Some were downloads from their social media pages at the time. “Tension” is definitely one such official track, an instrumental solo that isn’t on any albums. (You can tell by the file size it’s official, compared to the low quality Limewire downloads.) I also have “Black Knight” live with original singer Michael Olivieri, and a partial instrumental called “The Triple Axe Attack”. I’m not 100% certain what these are, but they don’t seem to have originated on the rare Leatherwolf live album called Wide Open. Best of all the finds are the three official demos they did with singer Jeff Martin: “Burned”, Disconnect” and “Behind the Gun”. Martin did not last, and was replaced by Wade Black of Crimson Glory on the album World Asylum. Fortunately I had already burned these tracks (and “Tension”) to a bonus CD.
There is a smattering of Gene Simmons demos, varying in quality. “Heart Throb” is almost unlistenable. “Howling for Your Love” is OK but I can’t identify if it was later rewritten into something more recognizable. “It’s Gonna Be Alright” is bright and poppy with a drum machine backing Gene. Then there is “Jelly Roll”, a heavier track with a riff like “Tie Your Mother Down”. “Rock and Rolls Royce” is the track that was rewritten into “Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em” from Rock and Roll Over. “Rotten to the Core” was recycled way later on 2009’s Sonic Boom as “Hot and Cold”. Like the Dokken tracks, I never burned these to CD because of the poor audio that I knew I wouldn’t want to listen to.
Other miscellaneous rarities here include Faith No More, Motley Crue and Van Halen. Faith No More were known to mess around with covers live, and here I have “Wicked Game” (Chris Isaak) and “We Will Rock You”. Sound quality is awful and neither are full songs, just them messing around on stage. The two unreleased Motley Tracks are “Black Widow” and something just labelled “unreleased track” which is actually “I Will Survive”. Both of these are officially released now so I have no reason to keep them. Onto Van Halen, not everything sounds shite, but “On Fire” is just a few seconds of a demo. “Let’s Get Rockin'” is complete. A good sounding track that later was reworked as “Outta Space” on A Different Kind of Truth. Then I have 90 seconds of the sneak preview single for “It’s About Time” (2004). And then just two seconds of shred on a track labelled “VANHwhee”. So strange!
Other rarities include one Def Leppard treasure called “Burnout”, which was an official download from their site. It was also available on the CD single for “Goodbye” and a Def Leppard boxed set. I also have an audio rip of “Lick My Love Pump” from the movie This Is Spinal Tap. I should really take this and add it to the soundtrack as a bonus track!
I downloaded some miscellaneous songs that I didn’t own the albums for, but intended to get later:
Blue Oyster Cult – “Don’t Fear the Reaper” (I was watching Stephen King’s The Stand that year!)
Budgie – “Breadfan”
Buckethead – “Nottingham Lace” (might be an official download)
Cat Stevens – “The Wind”
Creedence Clearwater Revival – “Down on the Corner” (mislabelled as “Willy and the Poor Boys”)
Fleetwood Mac – “Go Your Own Way”
Iced Earth – “Dracula”
Iced Earth – “Jack”
Kenny Rogers – “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)”
Marty Robbins – “El Paso”
Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper – “Elvis is Everywhere”
The Pursuit of Happiness – “I’m An Adult Now”
The Pursuit of Happiness – “Hard to Laugh”
Of these, there are some I still have not bought and some I have no intention of getting anymore. I do own the B.O.C., Budgie, Cat Stevens, CCR, Kenny Rogers, Marty Robbins, and Fleetwood Mac. I’d still like to get Mojo Nixon to be honest with you!
Finally, there are bits of pieces of funny things that I liked to have hanging around for making mix CDs. Many are from a website that used to have mp3 files of movie quotes, and the rest are from Homestar Runner. Does that take you back to the 2000s? From Homestar, I have “Alright 4 2Night”, “Strongbadia National Anthem”, “Everybody Knows It”, “Ballad of the Sneak”, “Cheat Commandos”, “CGNU Fight Song”, and a computer voice saying “back off baby”! I might have been using that as an MSN Messenger alert sound. Any time someone messaged me, the computer would say “back off baby”! If I didn’t, I should have. From the movie Sexy Beast I grabbed a bunch of Ben Kingsley’s best lines. Saying he’s going to put his cigarette out in somebody’s eye, calling someone “porky pig”, yelling “no!” repeatedly, and announcing he had to take a piss. Because of course.
The last files I found on this CD are strange, but for the sake of a complete and thorough inventory, they are:
no_respect: 24 seconds of the pretty terrible “Rappin'” Rodney Dangerfield song from the 80s.
50_10sec: Actually 11 seconds of the “Smoke on the Water” riff. I can tell it’s Blackmore. Why did I keep this?
MM Jukebox Plus Upgrade: 18 second software ad that obviously got left there by something I downloaded. This is probably the first time in my life that I actually played this track!
cant_holdon: 36 seconds long. This took forever to identify. Lyric searches told me nothing. Then I figured it out by uploading to YouTube and waiting for the copyright block to tell me what it was! “Can’t Hold On / Can’t Let Go” by a band called Thunder, but not the band Thunder that you know today. Probably downloaded by mistake is my guess. Sounds like something you’d hear in an 80s Bruce Willis flick.
I don’t know how interesting this will be for you to read, but I found it entertaining enough to do this complete inventory. I had clearly not tried to listen to all the files before, or I would have weeded at least a few out. It is likely that in 2004 I was getting a new hard drive put in my computer and hastily burned my mp3 files to CD, intending to eventually put them on mix discs like I did with the rest of my mp3 collection.
After a little further digging, I did find that I had burned some of these songs to a mix CD. Not all, but some. You can get an idea here of how I’d make use of weird stuff like this. The rest of the tracks never made it to the mix CD stage, so finding the original mp3 disc is a fun reminder for me of just what I was doing in 2004. And I’m going to keep that Peter Criss interview, and a few other worthwhile things too.! Productive morning spent, and I hope you enjoyed this look at the way we did things a decade and a half ago.
In the early 2000s, the best way to “share” music (note the quotations) was to burn a CD for your friends.
I had a customer, now friend, named Len. I knew him originally via some mutual highschool pals. I recognised him because he was in a Kiss air band when I was in grade 10. I befriended him later on as a customer at the Record Store, and I learned more about his taste in music and his collection. We were on the same page in virtually every way musically.
Len had a neat way of tracking his music, in the days before computers made this easy. He made a black and white photocopy of every CD cover, and filed them all in order, in a huge binder with title, year and tracklist. A work intensive process I’m sure, but it benefited me tremendously as you’ll soon see.
Len loaned me the book and said “pick anything you want me to burn for you.”
I still have all the CDs Len burned for me! One was a Kiss rarities disc (we’ll look at that another time), and another was all Bon Jovi B-sides. He made me a CD copy of the first Hurricane EP with a non-vinyl bonus track. And he put a whole ton of miscellaneous songs on two CDs that I titled, obviously, Len Mix!
The title confused a few people. I remember I had a girl over and she saw the CDs. “Are those all songs by the band Len?” At that point I may have realised I should have picked another title.
I made a list of songs that Len had that I wanted. They were generally big singles from bands I liked, that I didn’t own the album. A lot of songs I was exposed to on the Pepsi Power Hour in the 80s.
Let’s have a listen then, shall we?
LEN MIX Vol. I
Autograph’s “Loud and Clear” is a killer rocker, far less commercial than “Turn Up the Radio”. I do have the album today (on CD), but I don’t own the Krokus that follows. “Midnite Maniac” is still enjoyable, especially since I haven’t played it in over 10 years. Kingdom Come’s “Get It On” is one I own a couple times over now, and I think I like it more today than I did in the beginning. Y&T’s “Summertime Girls” is horribly cheesy, and yet so much guilty fun. It’s bright, it’s catchy and I don’t give a fuck! I still don’t own it properly on album. Nor do I own “Run Runaway” by Slade, a song I have liked since I was a little kid. I should pick up a Slade compilation, shouldn’t I?
According to MSG, “Love Is Not a Game”. I have this one on vinyl today, but Len Mix is still my only CD copy. Next, a very important song for your Ozzy collection. “Close My Eyes Forever” is by Lita Ford, featuring Ozzy in a stunning duet. Yet it may as well be an Ozzy song featuring Lita if that’s what you prefer. You can’t get it on any of the Ozzman’s albums. Today I have it on a Lita CD. Then King Kobra advise us to “Never Say Die”…”Iron Eagle”, baby! I still don’t have this album, and the song is a guilty pleasure. Not one of King Kobra’s proudest moments. You gotta admire that they all cut their hair for the music video, though.
I was always jealous that Len owned a four track copy of Def Leppard’s “When Love and Hate Collide” CD single. Mine only had two tracks! So I requested that Len burn me the demo version of the song that I did not yet own.
“Why Do You Think They Call It Dope?” asked Love/Hate. I ask myself why I still do not own Blackout in the Red Room! It was rare back then, but there is no excuse today in the age of Discogs. The Blink 182 song that follows it sticks out like a sore thumb, but I still like a lot of Blink. Travis Barker is a tremendous drummer, and these guys wrote some great pop punk. Then Kingdom Come are back with their tremendous ballad “What Love Can Be”, followed by the incredible British band Thunder. They had a number of great tracks on hard to find albums. “Low Life in High Places ” classes up the CD by several increments, but then Y&T are back to crash the party. “Contagious”, like “Summertime Girls”, sounds a bit dated today. Yet it’s just so damn catchy.
The next two songs are ones I have happily acquired on CD. Actually, Keel’s “The Right to Rock” is here on LP and CD. It’s an old classic I grew up with, and so very 1980s. So is Aldo Nova’s “Fantasy” but in a completely different way.
Len had some extra space on the end of this CD and so threw on Axel Rudi Pell’s “Tear Down the Walls”. I have not played this song in over a decade, but it sounds great! Far more modern than anything else on this disc, but Len was right to add it! Discogs tells me that the stunning lead vocal is by Johnny Gioeli of Neal Schon’s band Hardline. Of course!
LEN MIX Vol. II
That’s it for Len Mix Vol. I. The rest of the songs went onto Vol. II, which like Vol. I, begins explosively. Kingdom Come had a few bangers, and “Do You Like It” is the best of them. This one comes from their underappreciated second album In Your Face. (Legend has it that some stores thought the band was called “Kingdom” and the album Come In Your Face, and refused to stock it.)
The next three songs in a row are ones I still need to own on CD or LP: More Y&T, Autograph and Krokus. So far, all the Y&T songs have been pretty weak (though catchy and fun). “Mean Streak” is anything but weak! Y&T’s heavy metal roots are on full display with a riffy blast. Then it’s Autograph’s return, with the previously mentioned “Turn Up the Radio”! This song is probably better known today then it was in the early 2000s, thanks to video games and radio nostalgia. Krokus’ “Ballroom Blitz” cover was one that, like “School’s Out”, I grew up thinking was a Krokus original! Fortunately in time I learned the truth.
House of Lords albums were hard to come by at the time, and back then I didn’t own any but their first. On this CD is the ballad “Remember My Name”. This is from the second album Sahara which I now happily have. I don’t particularly care for this one, as it has that overly saccharine faux-romantic sound that was too common in the late 80s into 1990. But then like a kick in the face, it’s an Udo-less Accept with “Generation Clash”! Though David Reese’s tenure in the band was brief, this song is a triumph. I am happy to own the oddly titled album Eat the Heat today, because this darkly sparse prowl is still ace. What a voice on Reese, who could reach for those Udo screams when necessary.
Hey mom, Have you always followed the golden rule? Cause this just happens to be my first love. And that being a must – a must. That being playin’ my guitar!
It’s hard to come down from such a peak, and unfortunately the fall is broken by an out-of-place Blink 182 song. “All the Small Things” is such a diametrically opposed song, it’s like cold water dumped on your head! Two older goodies are not far behind: “Blackout in the Red Room” by Love/Hate, and the amazing acoustic ballad “Loving You” by Kingdom Come. It’s oh-so-very Zep, but what the hell. Zep weren’t making that sound in 1989 and there was obviously a demand for it.
The aforementioned “School’s Out” by Krokus marks their last song on this set, meaning that via Len Mix I got all the Krokus songs that I knew as a kid. Then it’s Y&T’s final song, the ballad “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark”. It’s not one of their finest moments, but I would have requested this one because I had it on VHS but nothing else. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, Y&T were obviously aiming to score that “hit ballad”, but Meniketi’s always perfect voice is still a pleasure to listen to.
Thunder’s “Dirty Love” from their first album reminds me that I really need to buy some Thunder. Then comes a band from whom I only know one song. It’s a good’un called “You’re So Strange”, though the band had a silly name: Kik Tracee. Their ace in the hole was singer Stephen Shareaux. What a set of lungs on this guy! He was one of many who auditioned for the vacant vocalist role in Motley Crue in 1992. Gotta wonder what kind of music they could have made with a pair of lungs like Stephen Shareaux’s.
Moving on to the end, it’s the final Autograph song “Blondes in Black Cars”. I don’t think it’s their best moment, but I sure have a lot of childhood memories associated with the music video. I pretty much discovered what puberty was all about thanks to that video. I must have worn out that pause button.
MSG’s “Gimme Your Love” was their other single from Perfect Timing, an album I now have on LP but would like on CD for the bonus tracks. I’m getting the feeling an Amazon order order is forthcoming. Following MSG is a remix of “Armageddon It” by Def Leppard, from the same since-acquired single as “When Love and Hate Collide”. At 7:44 it’s a bit much, but I’m a Def Leppard completionist. Once again Len had a little bit of space at the end of a CD and so wisely included the brief Dokken instrumental “Without Warning”.
It’s important to note that these CDs would have taken Len a bit of time to put together for me. Few of us kept our music on computer. Len would have been painstakingly switching discs in and out of his computer to make these for me. The addition of bonus tracks shows how much care he put into it.
For Len Mix Vol. I and II, I’d say the verdict is clear. These were a blast to listen to again.
It took some searching, but I finally found a copy! This is the first Christmas mix CD I ever made, back in 2006. I didn’t start making these until I had left the Record Store. Nobody who works retail wants to listen to Christmas music outside of work. Once I had been gone a year, my brain and soul were freed!
As discussed in the previous Christmas Mix article, after a few years I was running short on good songs to use, so I had to repeat a few from prior years. Several tracks from the 2006 disc made a return appearance in 2010.
Repeaters included:
1.Hawksley Workman – “3 Generations”. Truly an incredible, family-oriented song that is a highlight of Hawkley’s excellent Christmas album, Almost a Full Moon. The 2006 CD has lots of Hawksley songs.
2. Extreme – “Christmas Time Again”. My sister always liked this one, which sounds like early Extreme – perhaps first album era.
3.The Beatles – “Christmas Time is Here Again”. I leaned heavily on this one, though not a great song, just because it’s the Beatles and it’s a rarity you may not have heard.
4.Jon Bon Jovi – “Please Come Home for Christmas“. Bon Jovi have done several Christmas songs, but Jon’s solo version of “Please Come Home for Christmas” is by far the best. Let’s face it, this is a great tune!
5.Jim Cuddy – “New Year’s Eve”. Another one I lean on because a song about New Year’s Eve is a nice change of pace. Plus, it’s Jim Cuddy!
6.Ted Nugent – “Deck the Halls”. I think every Christmas mix needs a kick in the nuts to keep things interesting. Here’s the kick!
7. Bob & Doug McKenzie – “Twelve Days of Christmas”. It can get a little tedious, as many joke songs are, but people know it and like it.
That’s not bad for repeat. I’m sure Kiss have repeated more than just seven songs on their greatest hits CDs….
For creative types, the first thing you try something is often the best. Maybe that’s the case with my line of Christmas mixes. This first instalment is a great listen, even if you hate Christmas music and everything to do with it. Check out the amazing songs you would have heard in 2006!
“Linus & Lucy” isn’t a Christmas song at all, but it works because Charlie Brown is associated with Christmas. Wynton and Ellis Marsalis did an entire album dedicated to the music of Charlie Brown (Joe Cool’s Blues), but “Linus & Lucy” is the most instantly memorable. And now, all of a sudden, you’re a kid again watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special.
Hawsley Workman’s first appearance here is “First Snow of the Year”, a song that is much too happy for a song about snow! It’s homey, upbeat and jovial. Keeping things upbeat, I went for the Brian Setzer Orchestra next. “Jingle Bells” mixes the big band style with jaw-dropping guitar as only Setzer can do. I then chose to cool things out with “The First Nowell” by the sublime Eric Johnson. His acoustic/electric instrumental contains just as much original music as it does traditional. It’s wonderful.
There was a time when Queen’s “Thank God It’s Christmas” was a rarity. Now you hear it on the radio. When I first had it, it was on a bonus CD within a Queen Classics/Greatest Hits box set. (The “Green Cover”.) Since just about everybody likes Queen (then and now) including it is a slam dunk. It’s 80s Queen but that’s OK, isn’t it?
I used a lot of instrumental music on these Christmas mixes, which tended to come from Merry Axemas 1 and 2. “Joy to the World” by Steve Morse is a beautiful rendition, much like the Eric Johnson track, though Steve’s is entirely electric. Then it’s Joe Perry’s Hawaiian guitar version of Elvis’ “Blue Christmas”. You may recall that I put Elvis’ version on my 2010 CD. Joe’s version is cool because it’s different, though not as popular around our dinner table.
Trans-Siberian Orchestra is, honestly, a band I don’t get. Look, I’m a huge Savatage fan. Massive Savatage fan. I’ve been a fan since I was 15. Trans-Siberian began as a spinoff of Savatage, and I was absolutely shocked when little old men and ladies would come in to the Record Store asking for them! Trans-Siberian isn’t as “metal” as Savatage, but the bombast is all there. They’re popular though, so I put as much Trans-Siberian on here as I could handle. “A Star to Follow” is a pretty gothic version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”. Much better is “A Mad Russian’s Revenge”, an interpretation of Tchaikovsky. I also threw on “The Silent Nutcracker” because it is a simple acoustic guitar instrumental, not at all like the other TSO tracks.
One of Marillion’s very best Christmas tunes is “I Saw Three Ships”, so for my debut Christmas mix, I used nothing but the best Marillion. This is from 2001’s A Very Barry Christmas. There is something special and unique about this band. “I Saw Three Ships” is both true to the song, yet intrinsically Marillion.
Hawksley’s third appearance is a hat trick of perfect celebratory pop. “Claire Fontaine” isn’t particularly seasonal, though it’s from his Christmas CD. It’s about a girl who makes lovely decorative paper. There’s a line about “going home for Christmas” but otherwise there is little connection. Claire could use her paper to wrap gifts, though Hawksley uses it for writing. “Your sheets are very smooth, I like to rub my pen across them.” This was a selfish inclusion. I just love this song.
“Ring Out Solstice Bells” is also a selfish inclusion, because although it is a brilliant track, nobody I knew actually liked Jethro Tull. In fact some, like Mrs. LeBrain, are quite anti-Tull. So who was this song for? Me! And I stand beneath the Christmas tree, doing my best Ian Anderson single-leg stand.
Lo, what is this I hear? More Hawksley? Yes, Hawksley Workman had four tracks on my Christmas CD. That is a full one-half of his original album! I chose “Common Cold” for the last Hawksley. Nobody gets through the holidays without getting sick, not in my family anyway! (Last year I had the flu.) “Nearly OD, on Vitamin C, you’re standing in a lineup with a gift just for me.”
The disc ended with a slew of tracks I’d use again. Cuddy, Nugent, and Bob & Doug closed the CD. A joke song makes a good closer sometimes, so that’s why I re-used Bob & Doug in the exact same position on 2010’s CD!
I like this CD, but I today I would axe the first two Trans-Siberian tracks. I don’t think I’d change anything else. In fact I’m quite thrilled to hear “Linus & Lucy” again for the first time in ages. (I’ll have to give the whole Wynton & Ellis CD a spin again.) Hawksley is always a delight, and I used his very best Christmas songs here. And that Jethro Tull song is brilliant; I don’t care what cynics say.
Making mix CDs was a lot of fun (and work). I used to make custom Christmas discs that didn’t suck, for my family and friends every year. Why did I stop? I ran out of good Christmas songs. Let’s face it: unless you’re one of “those” people, Christmas music is nails on a chalkboard. You can only take so much. If you’ve worked retail in the past (or present), you probably can’t take any at all!
2010’s Christmas CD is a good example of what I used to make. You’ll notice there’s no Trans-Siberian Orchestra on there. I used up all their best stuff on the previous instalments. I tried to avoid duplicating songs from previous years although Hawksley Workman’s Christmas album is so good that I made exceptions for him. Hawkley’s Almost A Full Moon is the best Christmas CD that I own, and probably the best one I’ve heard. I bought it twice. He reissued the album after only a year with two extra songs! I forgave him, because Almost A Full Moon is so warm and perfect.
What do you think of the Christmas 2010 CD? Would you have wanted a copy that year?
1. Bill Ward – “Twas the Night Before Christmas”. Yes, that Bill Ward! The Black Sabbath drummer did a spoken word recording of the classic Christmas poem, and I opened the CD with it. I can tell you that when we played the CD at dinner time, this track was a failure. Nobody paid attention.
2. Kathryn Ladano – “Jingle Bells”. I got their attention back by putting on a track by my sister. This instrumental version on bass clarinet is from her CD The Christmas Album. Of note, her Schnauzer Ali is credited for barks on “Jingle Bells”!
3. Lemmy, Dave Grohl, Billy F. Gibbons – “Run Rudolph Run”. This breakneck Christmas carol is done in the Motorhead style. I played it in the car for sis. “This is shit!” she proclaimed. “Why do these guys get to put out albums and not me?”
4. Marillion – “Let It Snow”. This drunken favourite is from 2007’s Somewhere Elf. The spirit is intoxicating, as I’m sure they were!
Found some booze in a flight case, And I’m afraid that we’re all shit-faced, So I guess that we’ll have to go, Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
5. David Bowie and Bing Crosby – “Little Drummer Boy / Peace on Earth”. This is the David Bowie song that your grandma likes. It’s just lovely. I didn’t own anything with this song on it, so I had to download. That’s why it didn’t appear until 2010!
6. Helix – “Happy Christmas (War is Over)”. Yes, it rocks, but not too hard! Helix covered Lennon for their Heavy Metal Christmas. Singer Brian Vollmer is trained in the Bel Canto technique and he’s more than capable of singing songs for your Christmas dinner in mind.
7. Extreme – “Christmas Time Again”. My mom always liked Extreme, or “Nick Strean” as she thought they were called. This isn’t the greatest Christmas song in the world, but it doesn’t suck.
8. Hawskley Workman – “3 Generations”. Told you there would be some Hawksley. This touching song is about three generations of women in the kitchen making Christmas dinner together.
9. Elvis Presley – “Blue Christmas”. I must have downloaded this one too. I am a bit of a sucker for Elvis. I included Joe Perry’s instrumental version on a previous CD.
10. The Beatles – “Christmas Time is Here Again”. Not one of their best songs, but it’s the Beatles so it had to be included eventually. This version comes from the 1995 CD single for “Free As a Bird”. Relatively few have heard it, and I thought that would get people’s ears perked up, but by this time, the wine was out….
11. Steve Vai – “Christmas Time is Here”. This is from the first Merry Axemas. It’s a lovely track and not too shreddy. Remember this song from the Charlie Brown Christmas special? Steve does it on guitar, of course!
12. Jethro Tull – “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman”. This funky flute version will get the toes tappin’. Hard to believe that this is from Tull’s final studio album in 2003, The Jethro Tull Christmas Album! It would have been nice to get one more, but Tull’s Christmas Album is a good one to have around. If you need to tolerate Christmas music, you may as well listen to Tull jamming it out.
13. Brian Vollmer – “The First Noel”. Helix’s Vollmer put out a rare charity album in 2005 called Raising the Roof on Mary Immaculate. “The First Noel” is one of the best tracks. Vollmer is the first artist to get two appearances on my CD.
14. Ted Nugent – “Deck the Halls”. Much like “Run Rudolph Run”, this one smokes! It’s a guitar instrumental at full speed. Grandma didn’t like this one.
15. Twisted Sister – “O Come All Ye Faithful”. I really don’t like the Twisted Christmas album. This song was a hit though, and since it’s virtually identical to “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, I can…errr…take it.
16. Cheap Trick – “Come On Christmas”. My sister was a huge Cheap Trick fan at one point. She had this song before I did. Essentially just a Cheap Trick pop rocker with Christmas lyrics. Sounds like classic Cheap Trick to me.
17. AC/DC – “Mistress For Christmas”. I put this song on as the joke it is. I like to remind people that AC/DC did have a Christmas song. “Jingle bells, Jingle bells, jingle all the day. I can’t wait to Christmas time, when I roll you in the hay.” Hey, it counts.
18. The Darkness – “Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)“. In my review, I said, “Even though the guitars are thicker than a good ol’ bowl of Thin Lizzy pudding, there is no mistaking this for anything but a Christmas song. It is a joyous rock re-imagining of a Christmas carol, with the unmistakable Justin Hawkins falsetto.” Plus, sis likes The Darkness.
19. Jon Bon Jovi – “Please Come Home for Christmas”. I like this one. Fuck off.
20. Jimi Hendrix – “Little Drummer Boy/Silent Night/Auld Lang Syne”. From an EP called Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Jimi and band jammed out some impressive licks but the dinner party didn’t enjoy.
21. Jim Cuddy – “New Year’s Eve”. Cuddy’s solo debut All In Time is tremendous CD and comes highly recommended by this guy right here. It’s like listening to a Blue Rodeo album, but only the Jim songs. The sentimental “New Year’s Eve” is a lovely ballad that fits right in with the Christmas theme.
22. Bob & Doug McKenzie – “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. You gotta end with a classic. From 1981’s The Great White North comes the big Christmas hit. We used to hear this every single year on my mom’s old clock radio. We’d squeal with laughter trying to sing along. “A beer…in a tree…”
How would you rate this one? Trying to avoid overlap was previous instalments was my Achilles’ heel. I’d swap out a lot of the lesser songs for better ones, but it’s not bad. It’s listenable. It’ll do.
Cleaning out Jen’s mom’s house after she passed away was very emotional work. Nobody’s been living there since July. One day she got up and broke her hip. We didn’t know it yet but the cancer was in her bones. She never came home again. When we started working on the house in September, everything was more or less how she left it.
Her music collection was small with a few gems. One disc that I kept was Cat Stevens’ Icon. I had to take it for “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out.” As told in Getting More Tale #702, that song seemed to make a connection with me when she was sick. One day we went to see her in the hospital, and she was unconscious. No longer able to communicate. That song was stuck in my head for reasons I can’t explain. I like to think she was sending me a message. Not to be sad. It would have been like her to say that to me. I get tears in my eyes thinking about her lying there dying, and that song playing on repeat in my head. I had the song played at her funeral. It just seemed like such a “mum” song, even though I have no memories of us ever listening to it together. When I found out that she actually owned that song, I got the chills again. Finding Cat Stevens made my heart swell.
We also found a number of CD-Rs that I made, but had no labels or covers. For today’s chapter I’m focusing on one specifically. I can’t figure out why I made it, or who I made it for, or what it was doing at Jen’s mom’s house!
It is a lightscribe CD, and burned into the top is the old background from my website. It’s a photo of some model guitars and guitar picks. The 15 song track listing is most bizarre and I can’t figure out what I was doing!
Track 1: Craig Fee saying “LeBraaaain”. This dates the CD to 2012 at the earliest. I liked to introduce my CDs with something amusing, so this works.
Tracks 2-4: “Whiskey in the Jar”. The first is Metallica’s studio cover from Garage Inc. The second is Thin Lizzy’s take from 1972. Last is a live Metallica version, possibly from the CD single. That’s a lot of whiskey – 15 solid minutes worth. Listening back, the Metallica live version absolutely kills their studio cut. Yeah-hah!
Track 5: Steve Earle – “Home to Houston”. This track is from Steve’s political 2004 album The Revolution Starts Now. I haven’t played that album in years and I don’t remember this song. Why it stuck out enough to put it on this mystery disc, I haven’t a clue. Good tune, but I don’t know it anymore!
Track 6: Jeff Bridges & Colin Ferrel – “Fallin’ & Flyin'” from the 2010 soundtrack Crazy Heart. Now, memories are starting to form. I can remember driving around with Jen and her mom, listening to this song in my car. Did I make this CD for her mom? If so, why the Metallica?
Track 7: Johnny Cash – “The Man Comes Around”. One of the greatest Cash songs, from the best American album in my opinion. Goosebumps, still to this day. Jen and I love Cash and had him played at our wedding.
Track 8: Me doing a song intro! The backing track sounds like Motorhead’s acoustic version of “Ace of Spades” with the main lick looped and no vocals. I made this for a past Sausagefest countdown! The track I’m introducing: “Renegade” by Styx! I mention that it was covered by Daughtry and then add sound effects of Nicko McBrain burping and farting. I have to admit it’s a pretty great (and funny) intro! It was #30 on the 2013 countdown. From that I can now assume I made this CD the same year. Which is strange because I wasn’t really making mix CDs anymore in 2013.
Track 9 is a personal favourite, “Rock An’ Roll Angels” from Whitesnake’s 1982 album Saints & Sinners. I’ve always been into rock and roll songs with boogie woogie piano. I have loved this song for three decades. Then Track 10, another Whitesnake classic: “Slow An’ Easy” from the landmark classic Slide It In. That’s another personal fave, because of the slide riff. It’s incredible and I spent many hours as a teenager playing air slide to it. Not to mention air drums! Cozy Powell was so fucking cool.
Then more slide! Track 11: The Black Crowes – “Twice as Hard”. I was clearly trying to make the CD flow. Indeed I used to spend hours shuffling track order until I had it “just right”. With all this slide business going on, I wonder if the next song is going to be some “Travelling Riverside Blues”?
Nope! A total surprise to me, Track 12 is The Tragically Hip! “50 Mission Cap” is Jen’s favourite, for reasons you’ll understand.
Bill Barilko disappeared that summer, He was on a fishing trip. The last goal he ever scored, Won the Leafs the cup. They didn’t win another till nineteen sixty two, The year he was discovered. I stole this from a hockey card, I keep tucked up under.
I think the lyrics are brilliant because they tell two stories at once. First, they tell the true tale of Toronto Maple Leaf Bill Barilko, who tragically died in a plane crash in a remote part of Quebec. Nobody knew what happened to him until his body was found 11 years later. The second tale is that of a young Gord Downie who read about it on the back of a hockey card.
Track 13 is another surprise: “The Boys are Back in Town” by Bon Jovi! Don’t scoff, this is actually a really good Thin Lizzy cover from their New Jersey period. Lyrically, Jon and Phil Lynott were on similar wavelengths. This is exactly the kind of tune that Jon was writing. “Wild in the Streets” is Bon Jovi trying to re-write “The Boys are Back in Town”.
Track 14: “Big Foot” from Chickenfoot III. Gotta be one of my favourite car tunes. “Got Houses Of The Holy on the box, got it all cranked up cause, yeah! That shit rocks!” What a groove — you can’t help but stomp along. Joe Satriani has a way with a riff.
I had a guess that Track 15 was going to be all of side one of 2112. The track time was over 20 minutes, so I had an inkling it was either that or side two of Abbey Road. I’ve ended mix CDs with 20 minute epics before, and I think it works. The Beatles did it! Granted, the 2112 epic was a side one, but it still functions perfectly in the closing position. Try it yourself!
Listening to this mystery disc has been enjoyable, but my reasoning still escapes me. It’s such a bizarre mix, with the front loaded threesome of “Whiskey in the Jar”. From there it starts to make a little more sense. But how it did it end up at “mum’s” house?
My best theory is that I made it as a gift for Jen’s Uncle Rick, and it never got mailed. He lived in Texas at the time — maybe that’s why I included “Home to Houston”. Rick is also a Whitesnake fan, and a Toronto Maple Leafs fan. I’m just not sure.
How would you rate this mix CD if you were the recipient? I think I’d give it a solid:
RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale #386: ‘The Mighty Priest’ – A Mix CD
In January of 2009, I determined to make another mix CD for my best friend Peter. He really enjoyed them and wanted some more tunes from the LeBrain Library. The theme this time was Judas Priest. We had both been playing the video game Rock Band a lot, and I enjoyed singing lead on the song “Painkiller”, so we played that one frequently. Peter decided that he wanted to check out some Priest, so I worked very hard to make a CD suited to his own personal needs. I set out five constraints to my Mighty Priest mix:
1. Peter only knew three Priest songs: “Painkiller”, “Breaking The Law”, and “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin'”.
2. Peter generally hates slow songs. Therefore, unfortunately, I could not include classics like “Dreamer Deceiver”.
3. I always try to include a variety of tracks from as many albums as I can.
4.Must be limited to a single CD.
5. One rare track – my trademark is always sneaking in a rarity.
So I whittled down the 50 songs I started with to the nice and cozy 79 minutes you see below. Keeping in mind my self-imposed constraints, what would you have done differently?
I sought feedback, and I received feedback. My ever faithful rock compatriots had these words:
Uncle Meat: Well…Michael…valiant effort. It is a good mix of new and old Priest. But…no “Electric Eye”? What is wrong with you? I cant even believe you would make this list without including it. That “Turbo Lover” is on here…and not “Electric Eye”…kinda makes me feel dirty…unloved. And?!?!?! No “Freewheel Burning”? . I’m getting mighty confused Mr. Ladano. No “Sinner”? “Heading out to the Highway”? I know their catalogue is extensive…but the omission of “Electric Eye” especially is very disturbing….
Sarge: No “Metal Gods”? Actually I only ever owned British Steel, so I cant comment on anything. “Metal Gods” was always my favourite on that album.
Andy: I’m going to have to register an alternate opinion entirely, and that is, with any band that’s been around as long as Priest has, and has done as many albums as they have, simply cannot be captured in a “best of” that is only one CD. You just can’t do it – there’s too much good stuff, even disqualifying the “slow” songs like you did. I tried it with Manowar, and ended up with a full CD after their first four albums. I’ll be doing my personal The Best of Manowar, Volume II sometime soon….
So what I would have done differently is this: Go in chronological order, and put in all of the absolute “must have” songs from each album (remembering the rules for your friend, of course). Don’t overlap songs from one album on more than one CD, so you might have to juggle the playlist a little. Then, when CD #1 is full, move on to Volume 2. Eventually, hand over your two (or in the case of Priest, maybe 3!) CDs to your friend, apologizing that you simply couldn’t fit it all onto 1.
Johnny Sixx: What I would have done is include their track “Love Bites”…it’s a gem.
All of them made excellent points, and I think it must be concluded that a truly great single disc Judas Priest collection cannot be made. As Uncle Meat said, I think I made a valiant effort, but 80 minutes is simply not enough time for the Mighty Priest. The next time I attempted to do something like this, I went with Andy’s advice in the back of my head…
Alas, it’s the end of THE BEST FUCKING COLLABORATION WEEK EVER!* I made a five disc Judas Priest box set for Aaron a while ago. Let’s take a close look at the tracks. Dig in!
RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale #380: Custom Priest Box Set Mania!
I’ve known Aaron, your incredible co-host over at the KeepsMeAlive website, for almost 20 years. For most of those 20 years we haven’t lived in the same town, so we kept in touch via email, text messages, and physical mail. It wasn’t that long ago that we were sending each other parcels semi-regularly, including musical gifts and mix CDs. Mix CDs are an art that we both take very seriously.
At one point Aaron had expressed interest in hearing more Judas Priest, so I took it upon myself to create a custom box set, by me, for him. The official Metalogy box set is pretty good, but as I said in my review for it, “just not the box set that I would have made given the opportunity.” Aaron gave me the opportunity so I decided to out-do Metalogy and go for a full five discs, and update him to the then-current Priest album Nostradamus.
I found a track listing that I drafted for that very set. The final CDs that I made for him may have differed, because I was rough-guessing my disc times here. As close as I have records of, this is the box set that I burned for Aaron. Let’s take a look at it disc by disc and see how it holds up.
Rocka Rolla – The Old Grey Whistle Test
DISC 1
1. One For The Road
2. Rocka Rolla
3. Diamonds and Rust
4. Dreamer Deceiver
5. Deceiver
6. Cheater
7. Caviar and Meths
8. Prelude
9. Tyrant
10. Dissident Aggressor
11. Better By You, Better Than Me
12. Race With The Devil
13. Stained Class
14. Beyond The Realms of Death
15. Exciter
16. Delivering The Goods
17. Rock Forever
18. Burnin’ Up
19. The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown)
20. Take On The World
21. Hell Bent For Leather
In my Metalogy review, I complained about the absence of “Rocka Rolla” and “One For the Road”. I have fixed that oversight here, but at the cost of “Never Satisfied”. It’s not the perfect trade-off. The ending to “Never Satisfied” was as epic as early Priest got, so it is a win for a loss. I replaced the live “Diamonds and Rust” with the studio version though, so that is a good thing for a listener like Aaron. I like that I included the rare “Race With the Devil”, a cover of The Gun. There is also a healthy dose of Hell Bent for Leather/Killing Machine. I’m not sure what I was thinking with the track order, but I probably modified that before I burned the final CD.
When the Tax Man comes for Priest’s money, he loses his head and pants!
DISC 2
1. Victim of Changes (Live)
2. Sinner (Live)
3. The Ripper (Live)
4. Breaking The Law (Live)
5. You Don’t Have To Be Old To Be Wise
6. Living After Midnight
7. The Rage
8. Desert Plains
9. Heading Out To The Highway
10. Troubleshooter
11. Turnin’ Circles
12. Riding On The Wind
13. (Take These) Chains
14. Bloodstone
15. You Got Another Thing Comin’
16. Devil’s Child
17. The Hellion / Electric Eye (Live)
18. Steeler (Live)
I see here that I included the live versions of “The Ripper” and “Victim of Changes”. I suppose that I left these on, because Unleashed in the East is such a critical live album. It simply must be represented on a box set like this, so I chose to keep a few songs, some of the best ones. I also like to include rare tracks, so I snagged the live “Steeler” from the radio broadcast CD called Concert Classics. I see a lot of personal favourites on this CD, especially from Screaming for Vengeance. Pretty damn fine disc!
In the dead of night, Love Bites
DISC 3
1. Love Bites
2. Jawbreaker
3. Rock Hard Ride Free
4. The Sentinel
5. Some Heads Are Gonna Roll
6. Night Comes Down (Live)
7. Heavy Duty
8. Defenders of the Faith
9. Turbo Lover
10. Parental Guidance
11. Reckless
12. Out In The Cold (Live)
13. Metal Gods (Live)
14. Freewheel Burning (Live)
15. Ram It Down
16. Hard As Iron
17. Blood Red Skies
From Defenders of the Faith to Ram it Down, the 80’s can be a tricky period of Judas Priest to navigate. This third CD could have been the worst. I opened with the studio version of “Love Bites”, where Metalogy utilized an unreleased live version. I think it makes a great disc opener. For rarities I went with the live “Night Comes Down” instead, a great version from the Priest Re-Masters. I also had to represent Priest…Live! from this era, so I chose its dramatic concert opener “Out in the Cold” as a live version. The live version of “Metal Gods” from that album is more melodic than others, so I went with it too. I look at this disc as some of the very best Priest from this period.
Priest with Ripper – Blood Stained, live in London
DISC 4
1. Heart of a Lion (Demo)
2. Painkiller
3. Hell Patrol
4. One Shot at Glory
5. Jugulator
6. Rapid Fire ‘98
7. Burn In Hell
8. A Touch of Evil (Live)
9. Blood Stained (Live)
10. One On One
11. Feed On Me
12. What’s My Name
13. Running Wild (Live)
14. The Ripper (Live)
15. Diamonds and Rust (Live)
16. The Green Manalishi (With The Two Pronged Crown) ‘98
There it is! “Heart of a Lion” is one of the best rare Priest demos, only available on the Metalogy box set, but recorded in the Turbo era. It would make a good disc opener, but following it with “Painkiller”? I’m not sure about my transition there. It could be like a sledgehammer of awesome, or it could be an awkward stumble. I think the most difficult mixture of different periods has to be the sudden change of lead singers. When Tim “Ripper” Owens replaced Rob Halford on 1997’s Jugulator, the band’s sound changed. That’s probably why I chose a remake of the oldie “Rapid Fire” to be one of the first Ripper songs on this CD. There are also plenty of live versions here of old Priest classics, from the various live albums Priest did with Ripper. “Blood Stained” was a live take on a new Ripper song, from their ’98 Live Meltdown album. I think it’s vastly superior to the original version on Jugulator. “What’s My Name” is included as a rare B-side from the Japanese version of Demolition. On the whole I think this is a pretty good CD representing a difficult period in Priest history, and in hindsight it could use more tracks from Painkiller.
The Hellrider, live — same version that I used
DISC 5
1. Judas Rising
2. Revolution
3. Worth Fighting For
4. Demonizer
5. Angel
6. Hellrider (Live)
7. Between the Hammer & the Anvil (Live)
8. Eat Me Alive (Live)
9. Dawn of Creation
10. Prophesy
11. Revelations
12. Death (Live)
13. Persecution
14. Calm Before The Storm
15. Nostradamus
I remember having a really hard time with this disc. I wanted to give Nostradamus a fair shake, but as a double concept album it didn’t lend itself well to chopping up into bits for a mix CD. By the time I got to this mix CD, all I had left to include were two studio albums (Angel of Retribution and Nostradamus) and a live album (A Touch of Evil) to utilize. The version of “Hellrider” from that live album is among my favourite tracks due to Rob Halford’s over the top screaming. This disc doesn’t appear to have any rarities among its tracks. Not a bad disc but I think I could have done better here.
I remember having difficulty burning the CDs to my satisfaction. There was some quirk happening with my Nero version, and ultimately I just abandoned the project and sent the discs to Aaron. Apparently I didn’t even bother making a track list or covers for him.
Making mix CDs to my own satisfaction is a lot of work. I know I sunk a lot of time into this Priest set, ripping the discs and meticulously choosing the songs. Ultimately though, it was just fun to hand pick the Judas Priest songs to help Aaron in his exploration of this awesome band.
For more reading of this nature, I recommend the1001 Albums in 10 Yearssite, by Geoff. He is always posting interesting musical nerdiness like this so cheers to Geoff and his excellent site.
RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale #363: The Art of the Mix CD
We have come a long way from the mix tape. If you’re of a certain age, you probably made many mix tapes. I know I did. Dozens upon dozens, spending hours doing so. We had to make the tapes in real time. I would meticulously cue up the tapes so there wouldn’t be excessive gaps between songs, or awkward edits. I couldn’t have a song getting clipped at the start or finish. Mix tapes were a matter of pride and I sank a lot of time into making them, from the recording to the J-card. Sometimes the tapes were for me, but most often they were for someone else (usually a girl I was trying to woo).
Making a mix CD is much easier than making a mix tape. Still, for my level of perfectionism, it requires a lot of work and attention to detail. I have certain “rules” that I always adhere to, when making a mix CD. In the past, I have burned and then thrown away many CD copies that did not meet my exacting standards. I would not settle for a mix CD with an annoying flaw in it! My friends deserve better!
Here are my rules:
1. All songs must be more or less equal in volume.
Nothing worse than diving for the volume knob when a song that was mastered waaaay too loudly comes on! Nero has a built-in “normalize” function that analyzes and automatically equalizes the volume on all tracks. However it doesn’t always work well. It can create volume swells within an actual track that weren’t there before. I do not use this feature any longer. Now, I use Audacity to raise or lower a track’s volume manually, before adding it to my mix. Painstaking, but you get better results.
2. All live songs must have fade-ins and fade-outs.
I cannot stand the sound of crowd noise starting and stopping abrubtly. I add my own fade-ins and fade-outs. Sometimes this is tricky, because certain live albums may have the song breaks in odd locations. There may not be enough room at the start or end of a track. So, sometimes I have to manually add in enough crowd noise to enable a fadeout, a time consuming fix. I also enjoy doing the occasional cross-fade between songs, which used to be very hard on Nero but is easy as pie with Audacity.
3. CD must have a start, middle and ending.
All tracks are carefully selected for each one of my mix CDs, but usually there are several contenders for opening and closing songs. I try to create a flow, with slow parts and heavy parts, through the disc, with a dramatic climax. I don’t always succeed but my goal is to create a mix CD that works like an album. It has to have a direction.
4. Throw on a rare track.
It doesn’t matter who I’m making a mix CD for, I want an obscure song or two on there. I don’t want to make a mix CD entirely of songs you already know. I want to surprise you with something I know you’ve never heard before, but will probably like.
5. All songs must be properly labelled.
Don’t you hate getting a CD from somebody without having a clue what’s on it? Every CD I make for a friend comes with a computer generated cover, including full and accurate track list, down to every punctuation mark and detail. Sometimes I’ll even throw some pictures or logos on the cover for fun, if there is room. Nero also encodes the song and artist names onto the CD. So I have to make sure the file names are all done correctly too, because when you pop my mix CD into certain players (like my car deck) you’re going to see the titles come up automatically. This must always be done correctly. No spelling mistakes, or I’d junk it, and make a new one.
And finally, there is the optional not-rule:
6. Optional – Include short, funny bits between songs to surprise the listener.
This only applies in certain circumstances. The “Integrity Mix” CD shown here, with G.O.B. and Franklin Bluth on the cover, has such bits at strategic points. One is the song “Big Yellow Joint” from the show Arrested Development, and the other is the appearance of the “Hot Cops” busting George Michael from the same episode. You can see I wanted to keep those bits a surprise for whoever ends up with a copy, because I didn’t number the tracks and didn’t list the bits. So in a sense they are “hidden” until the listener stumbles upon them.
Are you as picky as I am, or is your quality control as extreme as mine? What are you own techniques in the art of the mix CD?
mikeladano.com 