Mix Tape
Hey all. It's been a while, huh?
A few days ago, I hauled a dusty cardboard box up out of the basement. It had been down there since we moved to Portland in 2007, full of cassette tapes that I no longer had the means to play but wasn’t ready to let go of all the same. Functionally useless items that lack even aesthetic charm but carry significant nostalgic weight live in boxes in the basement. That’s the rule. They wait patiently, dustfully, to be useful again.
I went seeking them out because I wanted to find one cassette in particular: En beneficio de todos by Siniestro Total.
I spent my junior year in college (1993-94) in Madrid, and immersed myself as best I could in Spanish music. Siniestro Total was, by far, my favorite contemporary Spanish band, and that cassette saw heavy rotation in my Walkman as I traveled around Europe. It was that album, Leonard Cohen’s Greatest Hits, and Nick Cave’s Let Love In over and over, plus the two mix tapes that my then-boyfriend, still back home in NYC, sent in care packages. I went looking for En beneficio de todos the other day so I could tweet a photo of it to Julian Hernandez—lead singer of Siniestro Total—because they’ve just released an EP that includes a remake of one of the songs off that album. Why tweet it to him? Because Julian and I are friends now, thanks to Twitter. When I was twenty I listened to his music and nurtured a little crush on him. When I was forty, we were introduced via Twitter by German Sierra, a Spanish author and literary critic. And now I’m about to turn forty-two and consider him a friend. I dig up old videos of him on YouTube. He sent me a copy of his novel and tweets cat pictures at me. The internet is deeply weird and occasionally wonderful.
But this is neither here nor there. The thing I wanted to say to you is that I went looking for Julian’s cassette and found with it a treasure trove of mix tapes. They are, by far, the most valuable things in that box. What incredible objects we used to make for each other. What wonderful artifacts they are now. I’m sure there will be something else to replace this, some other experience my kids will have that I can’t now even imagine... But how many of you remember crouching for hours over a dual-cassette deck, finger poised on the PLAY button on one and the RECORD button on the other, because you wanted to get the timing JUST RIGHT? Song order was key—you wanted to set a mood, then move to another, then lead to another, but without any jarring shifts. It all had to be smooth, right? Except when you wanted that jarring shift. Except when you wanted to lull the intended listener with, say, some Bauhaus into Cocteau Twins, then some slow jazzy number you got off another mix tape just to make you look clever, and then you slam them BAM straight into a screaming hardcore track...
And song choice! Song choice was so fraught. Especially if you were making the tape for someone you had a crush on, because mix tapes were a huge part of the courting process. You wanted to send a message with the songs, but it had to be subtle—you didn’t want to come off as desperate. And you had to listen closely to each song before including it, because there was always the risk of sending messages you didn’t intend.
A boyfriend once put X's "Poor Girl" on a mix for me, and I was devastated to think that was how he saw me, but when I asked him he said he just liked the song. Oh, but then he started singing it to himself and said, “Hey...yeah, it does kind of sound like you.” Motherfucker. I talked about him in my Tiny Letter of February 17th. We had a really fucked up power dynamic in that relationship, but I don’t think either of us recognized it at the time. I know I didn’t. I cried all the time, was struck shy to the point of being mute around his friends because I was so afraid of saying the wrong thing, and his then later—or even in front of them--teasing me about it... So it stung to hear that song on the mix tape.
He was, to his credit, generally a master of the form, unintended cruelties aside. He must have made me at least ten tapes in the three+ years we were together. I threw a couple away last year, imagining it would be cathartic, but it turned out to be rather unsatisfying and I kind of wish I had them back. I have four of his tapes sitting on my desk right now. His signature was making covers out of carefully chosen postcards.
None of them have their playlists written out—that was kind of a thing, as I recall, leaving the contents of a tape a mystery so the intended would have to sit and experience it, and be surprised, carried along by the wave you’d crafted for them. But now that I have no way to play the tapes, I really wish I knew what was on them. I do remember his mixes being quite good. They were always heavy on Prince and 80s and early 90s hip hop, with a smattering of Cheap Trick, Journey, Edith Piaf... He had good taste, and he was trying to educate me. (Yes, that was a huge part of our problem.)
My oldest childhood friend, Alicia, and I were always making each other tapes. My family had moved to New Jersey and hers still lived in NYC, and so we would only see each other once a month or so. We wrote many letters, we sent many tapes. Music was our way of staying connected, and still is. She was often good enough to include the playlists, so I still know exactly how great her tapes were. I discovered some favorite bands through her mixes.
For years I loved that “Half-Nite Blues” title, with Old Testament for the Blues on the A side, New Testament for hip hop on the B side, without having any idea what she meant by it. Then maybe ten years later she reminded me of a summer night in high school when she’d visited me in Jersey and we’d driven to the shore. We’d passed a sign on a motel that said Half-Nite Blues. It was an advertisement for deep-sea fishing for bluefish.
Half-nite blues. I’d thought it was beautiful. Magical. Blues that catch you as the sun sets, but then halfway through the night they’re gone, and you’re fine. You made it. Didn’t even have to wait til morning to be okay. But no. It was just about going out in a boat in the dark, wrestling with some dumb, muscular fish.
And check this beauty out. My friend Ashim made it for me sometime during our freshman year at Bard.
No playlist on this one either, but I do remember that it included a song that I loved called “I’m With You in Rockland,” and this gem.
(If you can find that “I’m With You in Rockland” song and send me the link I owe you forever.)
I showed the pictures of that tape to Ashim (via Facebook, because he’s hella far away now being a hotshot filmmaker in India) and he said, “I miss physical shit. Nobody would sit and make a Tina Turner hat like that anymore.” And that’s exactly right. Yes, in 2015 we can effortlessly chat even though I’m in Portland and he’s in Mumbai, but would either of us now spend hours making not just the mix tape itself, but also an intricate cover for it? Would anyone?
And then there were the mixes you made for yourself, soundtracks you made to carry you through the day in your car or on your walkman.
I listened to this tape all the time. I got into a car accident while that Marley track played. It was the day before I left for Bard, and I’d gone to the mall to buy banana conditioner from the Body Shop. I was distracted driving home, nervous and excited about leaving for college for the first time, and I tried to make a left turn from the right-most lane of a four-lane road, turning into the passenger door on a car coming up behind me on the left. No one was hurt, luckily. I felt like an idiot, though. And I never liked that Marley song again. But, honestly, that would have come to pass anyway. Who among us wasn’t totally burned out on Legend by 1993 at the latest? Never again, please. I’m full up, a lifetime’s allotment of Marley-listening crammed into a few short years.
Hey, you know what? I made you a mixtape. Okay...actually, I just recreated that mix I made for myself in 1990. It’s a good one, even if I couldn’t find “California Uber Alles.” I subbed in another Dead Kennedys song, so you’re all set. Go help yourself to it. Enjoy! And please, drive carefully.
Tiny Letter Mix Tape!
Yours ever true,
Cari
PS: Also in that box: the recording of my interview with Nick Cave in 1992, mentioned in my 2/24/2015 Tiny Letter.
Nick and I there together on tape. I think I’m mostly glad I can’t listen back to it now. Who wants to hear their 18-year-old self nervously interviewing their idol?