February 7th, 2010 | Published in 42
I was beyond excited to finally receive my Rockwell mix in the mail. I was the one wondering why it had to take Steve A MONTH to simply pass out some compact discs. When it finally arrived I brought it in, put it on the hi-fi, and sat down to enjoy my new favorite record, or so I had hoped…. by track 4 my wife says, “What the HELL are you listening to?” Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly some highlights on my mix, but on first listen it is heavy in what my wife likes to refer to as “sad bastard music”
Track 01: Decent: Funk soul brother, I can dig it. I don’t recognize this song but it’s very listenable soul, with excellent guitar tone. A promising beginning.
Track 02: Cool/Mellow: Outside my window…. I do love me some mid sixties guitar effects.
Track 03: Classic Rock Story Telling from the land of the midnight sun, I’m starting to see how this is going to shape up, or so I think…
Track 04: 80’s~ish synth pads “yo ho ho and a bottle of rum” is where my wife is wondering what I’ve gotten my self into. I’m not sure if this is Warren Zevon? maybe it isn’t…
Track 05: Now we have 2 pan flute tunes in a row, not so rock’n'roll, but I do like the folk implosion
Track 06: 1:05 String quartet instrumental, tasteful, but seems out of place
Track 07: My favorite song yet: Neil Young on Harmonica, love is a rose
Track 08: JOHNNY CASH! The man in black, fan or not, read ‘CASH’ by Johnny Cash. It will change how you look at him. These are my people is 70’s Cash, and one of my favorites. Things are definitely looking up all of the sudden….
Track 09: Nope, not looking up, just a tease. We’re back onto pan flute classic rock, I mean what happened to McCartney? What is this carousel he’s suddenly so concerned with?
Track 10: Slow jam, the most modern sounding track yet. I am actually really impressed with the production here, it sounds like a fairly new recording, but is still in the classic rock vein. Maybe a newer song by an older band, or some sort or reissue/re-recording
Track 11: 7 Minutes Long woodstock reminder….maybe I’m supposed to be on drugs to listen to this mix?
Track 12: shakers, funk guitar, ready?
Track 13: Born on the Bayou, Creedence gets no complaints from me.
Track 14: Bruce Springsteen, but I wasn’t familiar with this song, I looked it up and it’s the title track off of 2007’s “radio nowhere’
No offense Boss, but this song is not to today, what ‘Born in the U.S.A’ was to 1984
Track 15: Lou Reed,…. It’s simultaneously upsetting and awesome to have a mixtape of all old songs and old artists. I always think about mixtapes as a ‘music discovery’ tool, so to get a bunch of oldies, and some questionable goodies isn’t unwelcome, but I was hoping to find some new favorites through this process, and as yet it’s been more like going through my dad’s vinyl….
Track 16: FUCK YES, I don’t know how the Ramones ended up on this record, but how nice to have something upbeat. True Story, one time I was at work, but my lame ska band had a show later that night. I had my guitar cases in the back at work, when a customer noticed the eclectic sticker collection on my gear. She says, to me, “Hey, maybe you know my cousin Doug? He’s Dee Dee Ramone. Do you know who the Ramones are?” ~yes ma’am I do.
Track 17: We’ve gone back to the 60s rock, Hammond organs, fairly interesting guitar work.
Track 18: Piano driven classic rock again, I can only imagine how much hair went into the making of this record….and it has kazoo
Track 19: Acoustic guitar/a roland?juno? synth arpeggiator, funk guitar, pretty interesting build, 4 on the floor, loose spacey snare. Cool song breaks out.
Track 20: More Synth sequencer programming, which is maybe even more my speed than all the 60’s rock. I think it is Pete Townshend though, so even more Who and classic rock roots…not that I’m complaining
Track 21: 70’s funk rubberband man…
Overall, I don’t have any issues with the selections for my mix, it was not what I was expecting to receive, but I suppose that is a big part of the experiment. Thank you for making it, thank you Mr J. Steven Davis for organizing all of this and inviting me.
Suppositions: Not a single track from my record is what you would consider ‘bleeding edge’ modern music, the newest tracks are from artists that made their debut no less than 30 years ago. The person who made this mix either grew up on 60s 70s music, whereas I grew up on mostly 80s music, or only had their parent’s record collection at their disposal when completing the task Steve set forth…
Final assumption: Colonel Mustard in the Study with the Candlestick
