A stack of mixtapes

Every month, I take a pre-recorded cassette I got for 99 cents or less from the record store and I tape over it: first I tape over the recording protection tabs, then I tape over the music, then I tape over the tape covers.

Here are playlists for all the mixtapes I’ve made so far this year:

Nurturing your inner child
January 2025

Spotify | Apple Music | Youtube

This one I wanted to have a wintry, childlike feel to it, because that’s the way I wanted to feel while finishing the first draft of the book I’m working on, Don’t Call It Art, which is all about what I learned about being creative from my kids.

SIDE ONE

– Paul McCartney, “Every Night”
– Grizzly Bear, “Ready, Able”
– The Beach Boys, “All I Wanna Do”
– Robert Wyatt, “Heaps Of Sheeps”
– Here We Go Magic, “Collector”
– William Onyeabor, “Atomic Bomb”
– Chino Yoshio, “193193 (For Marimba)”

SIDE TWO

– Francis Bebey, “Pygmy Love Song”
– Herman’s Hermits, Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter
– Harry Nilsson, Listen, The Snow Is Falling
– Timmy Thomas, Why Can’t We Live Together
– Broadcast, Echo’s Answer
– Radiohead, “Kid A”
– Norma Fraser, “First Cut Is The Deepest”
– Buddy Emmons, “Singing Strings Of Steel”

Love is not a gadget
February 2025

Spotify | Apple Music | Youtube

This is the first mixtape I’ve made with my brand-new Tascam deck, which was not cheap, but is pretty wonderful after a year’s worth of mixtapes on a somewhat shoddy deck whose record function was quickly deteriorating. (I made the January mix on my old Sony boombox.)

I’ve started really playing with Side 1/Side 2 constraint of tapes. Some of my favorite records sort of front load all the pop stuff on the first side and the second side is all the weird stuff that I really love and never get tired of. (See: Pixies’ Doolittle, for example.) Other records split a sound in two, like Dylan’s Bringin’ It All Back Home, whose first side is more electric, and the second side is all acoustic. (And side two was recorded in a single day?!? And the whole record was recorded in 3?!?)

Anyways, you’ll get the picture here:

SIDE ONE (LONELY)

• Lou Reed & John Cale, “Nobody But You”

• Purple Mountains, “Darkness and Cold”

• Brooks &