Meet The Mixers

About a week ago, I posted my idea for this exchange and am totally floored by the response. We have exactly 32 people signed up, from all over the country, some I know, many I don't, which is amazing. Most of the mixes will go out the first week of October, but for now get to know the diverse group of people that will be contributing to this blog. 


Melissa Fossum
City: Phoenix, AZ
Favorite Band: "all time" would be The Lawrence Arms but it's been Brand New for the past year or so.
All Time Favorite Album:  Greatest Story Ever Told by The Lawrence Arms
All Time Favorite Concert: New Found Glory/Saves the Day at the House of Blues in Anaheim, CA


Ade Kassim
City: Tempe, AZ
Favorite Band: Radiohead
All Time Favorite Album: Crosby Stills and Nash (Self-Titled Debut)
All Time Favorite Concert: Thom Yorke (Atoms for Peace) @ Coachella


Michael Billy
City: Monessen, PA
Favorite Band: Brand New
All Time Favorite Album: Tough one, but I think I'm going to have to go with - and iTunes agrees - London Calling by The Clash.
All Time Favorite Concert: It's definitely a Pennywise concert I went to many moons ago. I was at the very front pushed up against the guard rail. There's is nothing like a Pennywise mosh pit to get the blood going. Especially when they play the song 'Bro Hymn Tribute.'


Ryan Breen
City: New York, NY
Favorite Band: Smashing Pumpkins
All Time Favorite Album:  Siamese Dream by The Smashing Pumpkins
All Time Favorite Concert: Underworld @ Coachella #2


Mike Fordham
City: West New York, NJ
Favorite Band: Either Wilco or My Morning Jacket
All Time Favorite Album: either The Clash "London Calling" or Bob Dylan "Highway 61 Revisited"
All Time Favorite Concert: MMJ @ MSG (New Year's Eve)


Haley Kish
City: Columbus, OH
Favorite Band: (I can't choose just one!) Ben Folds Five and Rilo Kiley (old)
All Time Favorite Album: Whatever and Ever Amen by Ben Folds Five
All Time Favorite Concert: The Killers (with Chairlift opening)


Caiti Stout
City: Chicago, IL
Favorite Band: The National
All Time Favorite Album: Transatlanticism by Death Cab For Cutie and Abbey Road by The Beatles
All Time Favorite Concert: Iron & Wine @ Schubas and Simon & Garfunkel @ Stadium in STL


Jason Miller
City: San Francisco, CA
Favorite Band: The Cult
All Time Favorite Album: LOVE by The Cult
All Time Favorite Concert: The Cult - 2006 in Dallas, TX (close runner up would be Mason Jennings from this weekend)


Mark Mueller
City: Brooklyn, NY
Favorite Band: Some days Radiohead, some days Sigur Ros, some days R.E.M., some days The National or Wilco too.
All Time Favorite Album: OK Computer by Radiohead
All Time Favorite Concert: Radiohead - august 7 - riviera theater chicago


Mara Beckman
City: Los Angeles, California
Favorite Band: The Replacements
All Time Favorite Album: (it's so tough to pick one, so I'll give you my favorite album for this month) Transformer by Lou Reed
All Time Favorite Concert: Belle and Sebastian at Hyde Park in London


Claudia Koerner
City: Seal Beach
Favorite Band: I never know how to answer this. The bands with the most play EVER on my iTunes are Green Day, Alphabeat and OK Go.
All Time Favorite Album: Clarity by Jimmy Eat World
All Time Favorite Concert: Swell Season, She & Him, the Bird and the Bee at the Hollywood Bowl.


Jacob Rader
City: Austin, TX
Favorite Band: Why?
All Time Favorite Album: London Calling by The Clash
All Time Favorite Concert: My first concert: Flogging Molly, The Bouncing Souls, One Man Army and Madcap; playing the main room of The Nile


Austin Rice
City: New York City
Favorite Band: Somewhere between Fleetwood Mac, The Smiths, Animal Collective, Talking Heads, and Neil Young.
All Time Favorite Album: Oy these are hard... Panda Bear "Person Pitch"
All Time Favorite Concert: Radiohead @ Bonnaroo


Jayme Kurland
City: Phoenix, AZ
Favorite Band: Vampire Weekend 
All Time Favorite Album: Chutes Too Narrow by The Shins 
All Time Favorite Concert: Sufjan Stevens at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, OR 10/13/2006.


David McTiernan
City: New York, NY
Favorite band: The Dears, Fountains of Wayne
Favorite all-time album: The Dears "Missles", The Beatles "Revolver"
Favorite concert: Better than Ezra at India Point Park, Providence, RI


Michael Kosak
City: Sunnyside, New York
Favorite Band(s)???:  Hank Williams Sr., The Beatles, Johnny Cash, CCR, Elliot Smith, Andrew Bird, Animal Collective
Favorite Album:  Dookie by Green Day...i think it's our generation's white album...had it on tape, vinyl (and subsequently traded it), a copy on minidisc, cd, and mp3
Favorite Concert: This requires a story... Summer of 1998, in Toronto, Ontario my sister and her friend wanted to see Counting Crows and the Wallflowers. We went to the show but Counting Crows canceled about two hours before the show and refunded the tickets to everybody with free tickets to Live the next night. We got there late in the drizzle, and there were just a few people milling around when the Wallflowers announced that they would still play. So about 300 people sat in a 4000 person auditorium and listened to Jakob Dylan and company play for three hours of their stuff and his dad's stuff. All in all I was impressed despite not being a fan of the Wallflowers.


Susan “sooz” Kamenar
City: Brooklyn , NY
Favorite Band: Brand New
All Time Favorite Album: of the past year – Constant Hitmaker by Kurt Vile
All Time Favorite Concert: Band of Horses – Village Tavern ( Charleston , SC ) or Flaming Lips at Echo Project ( Atlanta , GA )


Matt Klomparens
City: Los Angeles, CA
Favorite Band: The Velvet Underground
Favorite Album: Clarity by Jimmy Eat World
Favorite Concert: Pixies at Aragon Ballroom


Luis Chavez
City: Litchfield Park, AZ
Favorite Band: Phantom Planet
All Time Favorite Album: Post-War by M. Ward
All Time Favorite Concert: Brand New, Thrice, Manchester Orchestra, Glassjaw, and Kevin Devine.


Sam Gavin
City: Seal Beach, CA
Favorite Band: Depeche Mode
All Time Favorite Album: Before the Dawn Heals Us by M83
All Time Favorite Concert: Daft Punk, L.A. Sports Arena, 7/21/07


Jake Rand
City: Phoenix, AZ
Favorite Band: Brand New
All Time Favorite Album: Kid A by Radiohead
All Time Favorite Concert: Why? at The Modified Center for the Arts (When they still booked music)


Matthew Ray

City:  Chicago, IL

Favorite Band: Modest Mouse

All Time Favorite Album: undecided

All Time Favorite Concert: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Kings of Leon

Chris Harris

City: Los Angeles, CA

Favorite Band: The Replacements

All Time Favorite Album: Either/Or by Elliott Smith

All Time Favorite Concert: Paul Westerberg @ Marquee Theatre 2005

Kathleen Quinn
City: San Francisco, CA
Favorite Band: Coheed and Cambria
All Time Favorite Album: For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver
All Time Favorite Concert: Muse at Coachella


Cody M.
City: Los Angeles, CA
[Ok, now the not-as-simple-as-they-seem music things that I'm definitely going to spend more time than necessary fretting over:]
Favorite Band: My safety on this one is Sly and the Family Stone. Not a safety as in I just say it to project a certain image of myself or whatever, but safety because I honestly don't think I can or do have a single favorite. But then again, that's a safe answer as well. I am also ridiculously fond of Harry Nilsson, Tom Waits, Beck, Grand Buffet, and anything fronted by or featuring Spencer Krug.
All Time Favorite Album: Again, seriously? I will refer to my first favorite album, which remains one of my current favorite albums, which is Harry Nilsson's The Point! (the exclamation point was added by Mr. Nilsson, although I support its use.) Also: Now Here is Nowhere by The Secret Machines, Six Demon Bag by Man Man, Dusty in Memphis by Dusty Springfield, Wonderful Rainbow by Lightning Bolt, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) by, uh, Wu-Tang. And, of course, everything by the aforementioned groups.
All Time Favorite Concert: Secret Machines did this "theater in the round" tour where they set up a stage in the middle of each venue to allow the audience to surround the band, and delivered one of the loudest, awesomeist, rockinist shows ever, aided by the biggest and best lighting setup I've ever seen. Also, I saw Beck at a really small club a couple years ago, which was incredible.


Pete Avelis
City: Burbank, CA (via Chicago, IL)
Favorite Band: Arcade Fire, The Strokes, Beach House
All Time Favorite Album: Clarity by Jimmy Eat World? That's a tough question
All Time Favorite Concert: Arcade Fire opening for The Killers @ Lollapalooza 2005


Jordan Jacobson
City: Chicago, IL
Favorite Band: Pearl Jam
All Time Favorite Album: Ten by Pearl Jam (I know CLICHÉ)
All Time Favorite Concert: Eddie Vedder Solo @ The Spreckles Theatre In San Diego


Aaron Ford    
City: Orlando, FL
Favorite Band: XTC (If you said songwriter, it would be Brian Wilson)
All Time Favorite Album: Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys
All Time Favorite Concert: of Montreal at House of Blues Orlando 12/04/2008 or Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE, Royal Festival Hall, London UK


Greg Taylor
City: Tempe, AZ
Favorite Band: The Replacements
All Time Favorite Album: Abbey Road by The Beatles
All Time Favorite Concert: Paul Westerberg 2005 marquee theater


James Cross
City: Brooklyn, NY
All Time Favorite Album: Let It Die by Feist or Hissing Fauna,Are You The Destroyer? by Of Montreal
All Time Favorite Concert: Broken Social Scene/Feist/Grizzly Bear at the Mccarren Park Pool in 07


Kyle Dilla
City: Tempe, AZ
Favorite Band: The Fall/Sparks/Guided by Voices
All Time Favorite Album: Funhouse ("greatest") by The Stooges/Rid of Me ("favorite") by PJ Harvey
All Time Favorite Concert: Boris performing Feedbacker at ATPNY 2009 or Robert Pollard and the Ascended Masters at the Knitting Factory LA, 2005


Ashley Harris
City: New York, NY
Favorite Band: Jimmy Eat World
All Time Favorite Album: "Clarity" by Jimmy Eat World
All Time Favorite Concert: Ryan Adams @ The Rialto Theatre - January 2008

The Challenge!

This weekend I was out at a bar in Brooklyn, and as sometimes happens on a Saturday night in a hip town, there was a hip DJ playing semi-ironic music. As the night progressed, she put on a song by the incomparable group The Specials, a song called, "A Message to You Rudy". As a former ska kid with a "checkered past" (I swear I coined that term first), I immediately perked up. I flashed back to high school and the old "AZ Ska" crew the ranged from your a-typical "third-wave" kid (who loved Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake, The Hippos), to a handful of two-tone rude girls and boys, who listened almost exclusively to vinyl and artists like Desmond Dekker and Prince Buster.


It occurred to me that I first heard the song because of my friend Jacob who made me a "Ska Mix" around senior year. There were only a handful of us "music kids" at my high school, and we all immediately gravitated towards each other. Back then I was legitimately walking around with a walkman and a lot of these friends and I would exchange actual cassette tapes, including this one (although I can't remember what I gave him) He organized the songs chronologically, documenting the highlights of the history of ska.


I'm sure there's a whole breakdown of the history somewhere on the internet, but I feel like I learned more from that recorded music lesson than any words can try to explain. Not only do you learn a lot about music, but you learn a lot about the people who make these kinds of mixes. A lyric that kept ringing through my head as I was working through this idea is from Jimmy Eat World's "Night Drive", where he sings:


"Now's the right time for a good song. Get something to say what I can't." 


So here's the challenge! Inspired by this memory and in need of a breath of fresh air in my currently stale music world - I want to find a group of about 20 - 30 people, in NYC or otherwise, to exchange mixes each month and document them. I want the mix maker to write about why they chose the music, and the mix receiver to write what they think. This can be a random collection of songs, or maybe something with a theme (ie - "Fall Mix") I chose this blog title because of the ever so poignant Wikipedia description of "multitrack recording", which is:


"Multitrack recording (also known as multitracking) is a method of sound recording that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources to create a cohesive whole."
It's sort of emo, it's sort of literal and sort of a metaphor. Perfect!

So now that all that is out of the way, here are the rules: 

• Each participant will need to create ONE mix consisting of TWELVE songs each month starting in October 2010, arriving the first week of the month.
• Although ideally a cassette is more fun, realistically no one has cassette players anymore. For that reason, despite all the "tape" references, it will need to be burned on a regular ol' CD-R.
• You MUST put in the regular mail - NO digital exchanges. Remember how fun it is to get something in the mail? And hold a mix CD in your hand? Exactly. 
• Each member must post something between the 1st and the 15th about what the mix is about or why the tracks were chosen. 
• Each member then needs to write a post between the 15th - 30th (or 31st) about the mix they received. 
• An e-mail with the recipient's address will be sent by the 25th of each month. 
• You must be okay with a possible stranger having your mailing address. I will be keeping a data base and sending out to the exchangees as needed when it's your turn to send. Think of it as a pen pal! 
• You have to be serious about this  and  be able to commit to the time/resources to do this. This will only be fun if everyone participates and no one is left out. If you make a mix for someone that doesn't send you something back, that's a super bummer. 

So there's that. Obviously as things go along, a few rules might be changed or added based on how things play out. 

Alright! If you're interested, please send me an e-mail to ashleyeharris@yahoo.com with the following info:

Name:
City:

Mailing Address:

Favorite Band:

All Time Favorite Album:

All Time Favorite Concert:

Make sure you're sending from an e-mail you use often, because I'll use wherever you send from as the main contact. I'm going to try and turn this all around for October, so I will contact all participants by the last week of September. Start compiling the songs! 

Anyway, this could be a Diet Coke induced dose of crazy, but I think it might work. I'm excited to see what people send out and why and discover some great new music in the process. That's what it's all about , right?

Exactly.