It's possible though not probable that you can't tell which of your daunting pile of CD-Rs is the one I burned; it can be recognized by the cover art, a depiction in Sharpie of a musical note surrounded by detritus and debris of all sorts, drawn on staff paper. The reverse of this insert bears a tracklist, whose numbers have been cut off due to my moderate proficiency at operating a copier. This may be alarming to those disinclined to count to twenty-one (and who isn't), but do not fear: What follows is a complete tracklist, with numbers.

1. Birthday Cake - Cibo Matto
2. Firecracker - Yellow Magic Orchestra
3. One Word - Tony Williams Lifetime
4. Mr. Apollo - the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band
5. Wow and Flutter - Stereolab
6. Kind Of Boy You Can't Forget - the Raindrops
7. Nothing Like You - Miles Davis et al.
8. Moonshake - Can
9. Down with Love - Blossom Dearie
10. Telstar - the Tornadoes
11. Cannabis - Serge Gainsbourg
12. Moon Gas - Dick Hyman
13. Sugar Panty - Andy Capp & Ken Parker
14. Pretty Ballerina - the Left Banke
15. Ceremony - Rainer Maria
16. Lait Au Miel - Oh! Penelope
17. Antenna - Kraftwerk
18. The Loser - Derrick Harriot
19. This Beard is for Siobhan - Devendra Banhart
20. Swansea - Joanna Newsom
21. Tapestry From An Asteroid - Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Arkestra

Okay. This mix is bereft of any "theme," I merely picked a CDfull of what I considered to be grade-A tunes. The order in which they are placed is a musical progression which should be quite clear upon even a cursory listen.

I don't think I'll prattle on about each of these tracks, the phase of the moon on their release date, and what the artist ate before recording them unless anyone asks, and I suspect that I picked obscure and interesting enough musics that such interest will be generated. Do note that tracks 19 and 20 were chosen partly because of interest in these artists expressed by Mr. Coughlin who later dropped out of the trade, and partly because they happen to be great tunes.

Please enjoy my mix CD.

-mm

I am currently enjoying this CD.

The Cibo Matto track was pretictably quirky - an interesting, if off-putting, way to start this mix. And then to follow it with a meandering instro by fellow Japs YMO, who I like but have never really been able to get into, well - a challenging beginning indeed.

Now Lifetime, that I can sink my teeth into. I had Tony Williams at track 2 on my mix, but with Buckethead rather than John McLaughlin doing the guitar slashing. But after those other tracks, all I can think is, what would it sound like if Yamatsuka Eye sang this song? So congrats on putting an already intriguing (and difficult) song into an intriguing new context.

Then we got a great Bonzo cut, and a typically boring Stereolab tune.

That's all I've gotten thru so far, but I'm likin' the looks of the rest - one of my 2 favorite Dick Hyman trax, great Can, Kraftwerk, Gainsbourg and Blossom Dearie choices, not to mention a little Joe Meek with "Telstar." Sweet!

Cha Cha Cha Chia...

This one took some warming up to.
It's outta my league, I think. It made me feel like I was lost somewhere and had no idea how to get back, so I just stayed and it wasn't all bad.

Not being one to form an opinion in haste, I gave it another listen.
Same thing, only this time the lost feeling started to grow on me, hell, I might not go back.

There's clearly some kind of "genius rock" vibe going on here.
I bet my really smart friends (all 3 of them) will really dig it.

Wow, this will probably sound clichéd but this is a very eclectic mix. I may have heard of an artist or two but pretty much everything here is new to my ears. I didn’t hate anything although track 20 came close at times. What saved this track for me were the interesting lyrics. Everything else was mildly or very interesting for me. I enjoyed the Stereolab and Raindrops tracks and felt they worked well together. The Miles Davis was different than I heard by him before. Not to make light of the vocalist but it sounded like David Sedaris. The Tornadoes song was really cool and the absolute highlight for me was “Sugar Panty”. What a great song. My guess is I preferred the less challenging stuff but I appreciated being exposed to songs I probably wouldn’t hear otherwise.

Yes, very interesting. I admit that the first part of the disc I'll have to give another spin, but the mid->later part was fantastic. *Really* liked the Left Banke track followed by Rainer Maria. I didn't know Left Banke also did 'Don't Walk Away, Renee' so I'm pleasantly surprised. Too bad their 'best of' cd is out of print and is being sold used for $90 on Amazon. Insane. I thought the song was recent given the way it sounded. Kinda wish it was.

I also enjoyed Can, the Tornadoes, Andy Capp & Ken Parker, and Derrick Harriot. Stereolab wasn't too bad and Joanna Newsom I was content with. Newsom's voice is definitely something one has to get used to, but the musicianship/lyrics are solid. And finally, I'm really liking this trend of ending mixes with a jazz track. I think this is the 3rd I've listened to that has one, and Sun Ra was a good one.

Good stuff!

Guess again. Hint: He sings as Bill

-mm

i put this on last night before being driven out of my room by my housemate stealing my down quilt. this mix made a good soundtrack to said incident, as well as a good spiky soundtrack to my very strange evening in general. it needs a closer look to really say, but what i heard i liked OR appreciated if not actually liking it.

the thing that struck me was how often times a song would sound kind of normal and songy but then if you listen to it closely, it's VERy strange.

i think that was the single least grammatically correct sentence i've ever written.

the song i'm specifically referring to had something to do with taking your teeth out.

Things I liked: Joanna Newsom - cool voice, great song, especially the lyrics; Derrick Harriot "The Loser", very cool reggae/jazz vibe; Andy Capp & Ken Parker "Sugar Panty" - c'mon girl, move that thing; Devendra something (photocopier deficiency again); Blossom Dearie "Down With Love", send it back to the Viennese.

Things I didn't like - pretty much the whole first half of the mix, especially the first two tunes.

Have heard this 1 and 1/2 times and am really enjoying it! Maybe my favorite mix so far. I don't like all songs equally and I'll try and list my favorites more definitively soon when I get to know them better. The only thing that is disappointing is that my mix gets stuck on track 8 ( at least in my car it does ) and thus track 8 is about 45 minutes long, but if I want to record these tunes for someone else I can overcome that and create track separation so not that big of a deal. Thanks Mongmaster very much.