Below is a picture of the peninsula I'm from, and Rt 28 is the major autoroute that runs through her. It becomes 128 once you hit Boston. And as I lived in down on the Cape and up in Boston for a few years each, I thought I'd make a mix to remind the rest of the world that the ladys of Cambridge know who I am...
Like the cover? Download Rt 28 and each track will display it!
Duncan (Colbert intro)..............................................Paul Simon
Even though I harvested the sample myself--want for quality though it does, I still credit my buddy Mike who put this song on the final mix he made me when I graduated university. And for the record, my father was a fishermen....and I may just have been born from the bordom and the chowder.
Roadrunner..............................................................Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers
This song was on the opening credits to one of my favorite public access shows, Naked with Bacon. When I moved out to LA a few years after, this was the first song I heard playing inside Amoeba Music, (the only music store fit to rival Newbury Comics back east.) The moment felt cosmically appropriate.
Walcott....................................................................Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend is not from neither Cape Cod nor Boston, but this is forgivable because they're basically the only modern band to even notice us.
 |
| Getting noticed is surreal. |
Mass Pike (R.Frost/Outsiders intro).........................The Get Up Kids
This Outsiders quote was originally attached to a version of a New Found Glory Song that was forever on my high school mixtapes. I don't know if they couldn't get the rights to the sample or something but I can't find that version anywhere, and it's totally in a box of other mix cds~ Anyway, this mashup is an homage to the fact that those two bands would have totally been on the same tape. Plus, Robert Frost was from New England, nbd.
The Ocean..............................................................Dar Williams
"Let me tell you the song of this town, she said everything closes at 5. After that, well you've just got the bars." I knew a transman from Maine who could relate to the small town seaside feel of this song,so, Cape Cod can't claim it alone. But Dar was a gift from my best friends Lean Milly-a & Ryehanson, aka Rhitard, aka Rye-ann-nom Al-shaminger...this will all be relevant when you get to the song I wrote for her a few tracks down...almost.
Down Easter Alexa................................................Billy Joel
Billy Joel was huge when I was still just a sprat. And like any cool kid, I got all my first CDs from my mom. No, my friends, I didn't start the fire--but it's still just rock and roll to me. Anyway, BJ is a wash-ashore who transposes the keyboard while he's vacationing on Nantucket. For the uninitiated, those are three solid reasons to disapprove of him completely. And frankly forget the swordfish, there ain't no luck in Cod Fishin' here.
Brandy (Toll Booth Willy Intro)..........................Looking Glass
Rumor has it I might just get my whimsy from my mother's side of the tum-tum tree. Anyway, one time when she was dropping me off back at school, this song came on and she told me that apparently, my father had said this song reminded him of her. I've always it a fancied it a romantic scope under which to view the recombinants of my DNA. Naturally I had to spoil the moment by adding samples from the best dirty CD mc ever.
Homecoming King.................................................Guster
I used to be up Guster's shorts and I even met them once before a concert and found out one of them used to life-guard at the pool on Winter-hill. That was cool, but this was really the last album of his I could get into. I check in with them now and then and still find that through the way they chose to play their instruments and due largely to how effortlessly they blow goats, I am just no longer interested in
hearing them meow. But they say Massachusetts a gang of times on this track.
One 11 Princeton Street.........................................The Stares the Loots and the Lyres
This song is for my best friend, Rhi. When my band mate came to me with the piano part I knew I wanted to write a track for her. If it sounds a bit like the Ben Fold Five cut that ends the album that's pure coincidence...we were trying to make it sound like Penny Lane.
Boston (Mr. Lif Mix)..............................................Vampire Weekend
I think this is both my best track as well as the one I'm least satisfied with. Not many rappers with a name have made it out of Boston so I had to put Mr. Lif on here. Howevski, one hip hop number woulda stood out most grotesquely. But these samples were recorded live at the Middle East and that's all Scyentifik, for putting me on to Lif.
I Hate The Unseen.................................................Dark Buster
Dark Buster should have made it out of Boston. They were my favorite punk band of that era. Even though they shared the Knights of Columbus stage with many amazing Bean-town acts such as: Zippo Raid, Toxic, What and the Unseen. You might have actually heard of the Unseen if you're into punk.
Jonathan.................................................................Nerf Herder
This is amusing pick because it's about the singer of the second track on this mix. Plus those scruffy Nerf Hearderz mob his guitar style and taught me everything I ever bothered to learn about Jonathan
Richman. Nerf Herder also wrote the first song I could sing and play at the same time.
Don't Change Your Plans (Will Hunting)...........Ben Folds 5
Ben Folds Five carries a lot of currency in my adolescent and his lyrics and my memories are stamped all over those dolla dolla bills y'all. But I did change my plans once and I did move to LA and even if the leaves are still falling back east the road goes ever on, for Will Hunting as well. I tried to put Mystic Pizza on this track, but the quote I decided on reminds me of every genius I ever grew up around. Just think of a whole town worth of talent living on unemployment half the year.
I love Cape Cod and I love Boston and I will always have the salt of the first 13 in my viens. But I wasn't captain of the New England Drinking team for nothing: I'm a Masshole first, in a ll things. I'll always scoff at Canadians, New Yorkers, Yankees fans, and anyone in the entire world wearing a hat with an NY on it. Especially if they don't like (or even understad the rules of) baseball. I will warmly extend this disdain to all persons from Rhode Island whose major contribution was Ocean State Job Lot, Maine, a land mass not even worth defending from the British, New Hampshire, who seriously wishes they were Vermont, and Vermont who needs to remember that those are barely mountains. Of couse I would never leave out anyone who pretends Connecticut isn't a suburb of, or perhaps mealy a parking-lot for New York.
Yep. That last paragraph is the kind that helps you make friends and ensured my tenure as the captain of the New England drinking team--where my principal job was to set the minium standard for alcohol poisoning and survival. Those sick fucks wanted me dead...can't imagine why.
And if it doesn't make you want to download this mix:
THE MIXXXXOXOXOXOX
Nothing will.
Cover art for upcoming mixes:
Places to pick up free mixes:
I speak in tunes (Any genre)
Stay Glued (Any genre)
Birp (electro/disco/pop)
Mashup breakdown (Mashup, Dj cuts)
Datpiff (Hip Hop)
DJbooth.net (Hip Hop/RnB)
Plus, sometimes I just search tumblr for mixtapes. Many of those sites also except submissions so please participate and feel free to send me a link when you do.
I have no problem making mixes and mashups and calling them art. Mixtaping isn't meant to an infringement on privet property. If you dig a track, buy the album, or go to a live show--it's free advertising. Ask Radiohead if they regret giving their comeback album away. If you've made a mixtape and you want to share it with me I'm sure I can find a mood to match it to. If you know a great site to get more music for free, please leave a comment. And by all means, if you download the mix let me know.
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