RIP captain lou. many childhood memories involve you somehow...
wow. does anyone even remember that "Rock N Wrestling" existed?? i think it came on right before (or maybe after) pee wee's playhouse... man, THAT brings back memories...
(okay, i can't embed the girls just wanna have fun video... weird... but that's likely what most people remember him from....)
17 October, 2009
blank... now with filler
i have had bloggers block for weeks.
i have some halloween-ish ideas. but... hmm...
consider this filler:
___________
From High Fidelity
"The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up is hard to do – it takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick it off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch -but you don’t wanna blow you wad, so then you gotta to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules…"
so one of the things i spend an awful lot of time doing - or have spent at least, over the past... oh... 15 years or so - is making mix tapes. and cd's. mostly cd's, but it started with tapes...
here's a decent sampling of some of what i have done over the years. not all of them, but quite a few.
now, most of them have been for girls. yes yes, i know... it's almost a cliche, boy making mix tape for girl (granted, many of these were for friends and/or girlfriends, not merely girls i had crushes on, but i certainly made my share of those too). and, for the most part, though certainly not entirely consciously, i have followed Rob Gordon's rules, and certainly agree that it takes ages longer than it might seem (i have really only successfully "thrown together" 1 mix in my entire life. 1. and even it took 3 days instead of the usual 2 or 3 or... well... more weeks).
some other basic rules i follow:
1. don't put their favorite song on it.
they have their "favorite song." they don't need to hear it again. i once made a tape for someone who requested all sorts of stuff be on it. it was awful (and was the one thrown together in a few days). you can definitely sidestep it by putting on a song they might not know by the same artist, or something similar, but if you out their favorite song on, while you might score some points, you might as well be buying them the record. (okay, that assumes you know their favorite song. there's a lot to be said for not knowing what their favorite song is and putting it on inadvertently. that, actually, is awesome).
2. always throw in something fun
unless it's a very serious mix, this shows you're not taking things TOO seriously. also, it's good to make people laugh. this can be anything from outright comedy songs to funny covers ("music of the beatles goes disco," etc.). if nothing else, you make them laugh or create a conversation starter (which, if that was sort of your point...)
3. covers are your best friend
see rule 2 and rule 1 and combine them. covers can be fun or funny. covers can sidestep the favorite song issue by giving them a new version of the song to enjoy. covers have always been a big part of the mixes i have made. i also used to do this thing where i sort of spliced 2 versions of a song together (all very technical. involved creative use of the pause button...)
4. close it off with a bang
some songs are meant to end mixes. you know them when you hear them. yeah, they aren't EXCLUSIVELY end songs, but they just work perfectly. maybe they sum up the purpose of the tape. maybe they just add a fun endpoint (this is sometimes where the fun or funny song comes in well). the closer is definitely just as important as the opening track, so definitely not a place for filler...
5. filler is okay.
with tapes, it was a necessity. you had to fill 45 minutes of side A of a c-90 and you had about 3 minutes left... 3 minutes of dead space just wouldn't do, so this is where you can throw in pretty much anything, as long as it doesn't go against the spirit of the tape (this also is a good place for the fun or funny song...). with cd's it's less of a problem, but really, if you're not filling the 80 minute capacity of the cd-r you just put into your drive, what's the point?
for me, it's a whole process. yeah, you have to grab them with the songs, but it has to be a nice package too. and this can take as long as the mix to make if you really work at it... yeah, you can just write the song titles on a j-card (if you're making a cassette) or cd-booklet, but to me, taking the time to make the artwork, shows as much passion behind the project as the songs you choose...
example, here is the artwork for a mix cd i made for my girlfriend recently:
yes, it's designed to look like a Penguin Classic. Took forever. but this is the kind of detail i'm talking about. it's really an art... i'm certainly not saying everyone should make highly detailed artwork for mixes, but really, why not? even if it's just a weird/funny picture (tons of those online)/ something from a movie... it just shows that you actually put that extra effort into it.
__________
in 2005, thurston moore edited a book all about mix tapes called, appropriately "Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture," where people from different walks of life - DJ's, musicians, artists, actors, etc. talked about mix tapes they've made ranging from love tapes, break up tapes, and "indoctrination" tapes (i once made a friend a series of 3 tapes of musical history/music they should know since at the time the only music they knew was savage garden (eew) and they might be giants. so i suppose it's something like that.) it's a good, fun book. definitely worth the 2o something it costs.
_____________
so, the mix tape. as the website says, it is certainly an art. As thurston moore says (or at least the publisher's product description of his book says), it is a "new way of re-sequencing music to make sense of our most stubbornly inexpressible feelings-a way of explaining ourselves to someone else, or to ourselves".
i make mix tapes.
the end.
(and, included for your reference, a couple of links, one if which i find the existence of hilarious. guess which one!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixtape
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Perfect-Mix-Tape-or-CD
i have some halloween-ish ideas. but... hmm...
consider this filler:
___________
From High Fidelity
"The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up is hard to do – it takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick it off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch -but you don’t wanna blow you wad, so then you gotta to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules…"
so one of the things i spend an awful lot of time doing - or have spent at least, over the past... oh... 15 years or so - is making mix tapes. and cd's. mostly cd's, but it started with tapes...
here's a decent sampling of some of what i have done over the years. not all of them, but quite a few.
now, most of them have been for girls. yes yes, i know... it's almost a cliche, boy making mix tape for girl (granted, many of these were for friends and/or girlfriends, not merely girls i had crushes on, but i certainly made my share of those too). and, for the most part, though certainly not entirely consciously, i have followed Rob Gordon's rules, and certainly agree that it takes ages longer than it might seem (i have really only successfully "thrown together" 1 mix in my entire life. 1. and even it took 3 days instead of the usual 2 or 3 or... well... more weeks).
some other basic rules i follow:
1. don't put their favorite song on it.
they have their "favorite song." they don't need to hear it again. i once made a tape for someone who requested all sorts of stuff be on it. it was awful (and was the one thrown together in a few days). you can definitely sidestep it by putting on a song they might not know by the same artist, or something similar, but if you out their favorite song on, while you might score some points, you might as well be buying them the record. (okay, that assumes you know their favorite song. there's a lot to be said for not knowing what their favorite song is and putting it on inadvertently. that, actually, is awesome).
2. always throw in something fun
unless it's a very serious mix, this shows you're not taking things TOO seriously. also, it's good to make people laugh. this can be anything from outright comedy songs to funny covers ("music of the beatles goes disco," etc.). if nothing else, you make them laugh or create a conversation starter (which, if that was sort of your point...)
3. covers are your best friend
see rule 2 and rule 1 and combine them. covers can be fun or funny. covers can sidestep the favorite song issue by giving them a new version of the song to enjoy. covers have always been a big part of the mixes i have made. i also used to do this thing where i sort of spliced 2 versions of a song together (all very technical. involved creative use of the pause button...)
4. close it off with a bang
some songs are meant to end mixes. you know them when you hear them. yeah, they aren't EXCLUSIVELY end songs, but they just work perfectly. maybe they sum up the purpose of the tape. maybe they just add a fun endpoint (this is sometimes where the fun or funny song comes in well). the closer is definitely just as important as the opening track, so definitely not a place for filler...
5. filler is okay.
with tapes, it was a necessity. you had to fill 45 minutes of side A of a c-90 and you had about 3 minutes left... 3 minutes of dead space just wouldn't do, so this is where you can throw in pretty much anything, as long as it doesn't go against the spirit of the tape (this also is a good place for the fun or funny song...). with cd's it's less of a problem, but really, if you're not filling the 80 minute capacity of the cd-r you just put into your drive, what's the point?
for me, it's a whole process. yeah, you have to grab them with the songs, but it has to be a nice package too. and this can take as long as the mix to make if you really work at it... yeah, you can just write the song titles on a j-card (if you're making a cassette) or cd-booklet, but to me, taking the time to make the artwork, shows as much passion behind the project as the songs you choose...
example, here is the artwork for a mix cd i made for my girlfriend recently:
yes, it's designed to look like a Penguin Classic. Took forever. but this is the kind of detail i'm talking about. it's really an art... i'm certainly not saying everyone should make highly detailed artwork for mixes, but really, why not? even if it's just a weird/funny picture (tons of those online)/ something from a movie... it just shows that you actually put that extra effort into it.
__________
in 2005, thurston moore edited a book all about mix tapes called, appropriately "Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture," where people from different walks of life - DJ's, musicians, artists, actors, etc. talked about mix tapes they've made ranging from love tapes, break up tapes, and "indoctrination" tapes (i once made a friend a series of 3 tapes of musical history/music they should know since at the time the only music they knew was savage garden (eew) and they might be giants. so i suppose it's something like that.) it's a good, fun book. definitely worth the 2o something it costs.
_____________
so, the mix tape. as the website says, it is certainly an art. As thurston moore says (or at least the publisher's product description of his book says), it is a "new way of re-sequencing music to make sense of our most stubbornly inexpressible feelings-a way of explaining ourselves to someone else, or to ourselves".
i make mix tapes.
the end.
(and, included for your reference, a couple of links, one if which i find the existence of hilarious. guess which one!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixtape
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Perfect-Mix-Tape-or-CD
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)