Memorex dbs 2 (Fall 1996)

Side A

Devo-Whip It
Sneaker Pimps-6 Underground
Queen-We Will Rock You
Queen-We Are The Champions
Fiona Apple-Sleep To Dream
The Prodigy-Breathe
Smash Mouth-Walkin' On The Sun
2Pac-I Ain't Mad At Cha
Space-Female Of The Species
snippet of Oasis' "Champagne Supernova"
311-All Mixed Up
snippet of Collective Soul's "The World I Know"

Side B

ZZ Top-Legs
Garbage-Stupid Girl
Lauryn Hill-Sweetest Thing
snippet of Local H's "Bound For The Floor"
Metallica-Hero Of The Day
Peggy Scott Adams-Bill
Tori Amos-Silent All These Years
Ginuwine-Pony
Very very short snippet of Scarface's "Never Seen A Man Cry"

As I mentioned before in the previous entry, I also received this tape from my brother, who had previously used it when I was younger. That fact is most evident by a brief clip of him singing at the beginning of Side A that I never bothered to record over. He also included ZZ Top's "Legs," which I decided to keep also since I already liked the song. If I recall correctly, that might not have been the only ZZ Top song originally on here, but "Legs" was the only one I recognized.

Memorex dbs 1 (Summer/Fall 1996)

Sorry for the long wait. I was very busy with my Lollapalooza post on Hectic But Eclectic, which usually takes a long time to work on.







Side A

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Give It Away
snippet of The Trammps' "Disco Inferno"
BLACKstreet-No Diggity
Red Hot Chili Peppers-Love Rollercoaster
Spice Girls-2 Become 1
snippet of Blues Traveler's "Hook"
Warren G-What's Love Got To Do With It?
slight snippet of OMC's "How Bizarre"
Boyzone-Words
En Vogue-Don't Let Go (Love)
Everclear-Santa Monica
New Edition-I'm Still In Love

Side B

New Edition-I'm Still In Love With You (continued)
snippet of Smashing Pumpkins' "Zero"
Joan Osbourne-One Of Us
Bush-Swallowed
Merril Bainbridge-Mouth
Spice Girls-Say You'll Be There
Jamiroquai-Virtual Insanity
snippet of 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up?"
Gloria Gaynor-I Will Survive
Smashing Pumpkins-Eye
snippet of Soundgarden's "Blow Up The Outside World"
snippet of Pearl Jam's "Black"


I actually have two of these tapes, which I both received from my brother who had used them back when he was a teenager in the 80s. This was another step towards going into the world of cassettes that were strictly for recording. These two tapes were a blessing for a kid with hardly any allowance and no job. The only way you can tell the difference between the two is that I replaced the pressure pad on this one with a piece of cardboard, which you can spot if you look closely at the second picture above. It wasn't the only time I had to play MacGyver with my tape collection, but I certainly can't remember having have to do that with this one. It was slightly puzzling to see that little piece of cardboard there when I dug this one up.

On second thought...

So perhaps I was bit presumptive when I said that there would be a post this week. The birthday celebration was prolonged and it looks like I might be going to Lollapalooza this year, something that was not certain even up until today. For those who read my other blog, Hectic But Eclectic, you know that it's a pretty big deal for me to go to this fest and it will take up all of my weekend. In short, there won't be a new post until Tuesday. Thank you for your patience.

New post coming later this week.

Since I'll be celebrating my birthday this Tuesday, this week's post will be delayed slightly, but only by a day or two hopefully. Stay tuned.

Sunday Morning (Summer 1996)

Side B

Red Hot Chili Peppers-My Friends
snippet of Larry Mullen & Adam Clayton's "Mission: Impossible Theme"
Butthole Surfers-Pepper
Los Del Rio-Macarena
Dave Matthews Band-Ants Marching
some Chicago Bulls/Mission: Impossible mash-up that B96 played for their playoff run
Red Hot Chili Peppers-Under The Bridge
snippet of Spacehog's "In The Meantime"
Foo Fighters-Big Me
Tracy Chapman-Give Me One Reason
snippet of Seal's "Prayer For The Dying"
Beastie Boys-Sabotage
snippet of Blues Traveler's "Hook"
snippet of Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'"


Side A

Bruce Springsteen-Streets of Philadelphia
No Doubt-Don't Speak
snippet of Gloria Estefan's "Reach"
Celine Dion-It's All Coming Back To Me Now
snippet of Soundgarden's "Pretty Noose"
Primitive Radio Gods-Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand
Stone Temple Pilots-Plush
The Braids-Bohemian Rhapsody
Quad City DJs-C'mon 'N Ride It (The Train)
snippet of Jay-Z's "Ain't No"

When I moved back with my mother over the summer, the only cassettes I had were my mixtapes and my copy of Jagged Little Pill that my best friend dubbed for me. I would also listen to the few tapes that she had in her possession, mainly TLC's Crazysexycool, which I played heavily during this time. Seeing that I was enthusiastic about music and recording songs off the radio, my mother gave me one of her tapes that had an old church sermon on it with the words "Sunday Morning" written on the cover. It had been recorded on a 60 minute Sentry tape and it was the first time I had ever used an actual cassette that was created for the purpose of recording. Although I could tell the tape itself had some years on it based on the dated design of its cover, it didn't matter much to me since I now had an extra hour to record more music.

Sox Park Mob 3: A Gangstaz Gift (Spring/Summer 1996)

Side 1

Eels-Novocaine For The Soul
Celine Dion-All By Myself
snippet of Donna Lewis' "I Love You Always Forever"
snippet of Candlebox's "Far Behind"
Smashing Pumpkins-1979
snippet of Spin Doctors' "Two Princes"
Jewel-Who Will Save Your Soul?
Nirvana-Lithium
snippet of Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing"
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony-Shoot 'Em Up
snippet of Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories' "Do You Sleep?"

Side 2
Presidents of the United States of America-Peaches
snippet of Pharcyde's "Drop"
Seal-Kiss From A Rose
Live-Freaks
snippet of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
A Chorus Line-Dance: Ten; Looks: Three
Tom Petty-You Don't Know How It Feels
AC/DC-Big Balls
No Doubt-Spiderwebs
snippet of Jay-Z's "Ain't No"
snippet of Adam Clayton & Larry Mullen's "Mission: Impossible Theme"



The Sox Park Mob 3 mixtape was another hand-me-down that didn't get played until I recorded over it. Part of me wishes I had kept some of it intact since it was originally a juke mix and growing up on the West Side of Chicago naturally made me a fan of the genre. I also don't have any juke cassettes of my own so it would have been cool in retrospect to still have something by a master of the genre like DJ Deeon. I can't remember if my neighbor gave this to me or if I simply took it as my own after my cousin moved out of the house, but both have an equal chance of probability. I'm also not sure why I scribbled over the title in marker. It might have been because I didn't want my parents to think that there was anything dirty on it or something ridiculous like that.

America's Hit Parade (Spring/Summer 1996)

Side 1

Weird Al Yankovic-Gump
Spice Girls-Wannabe
LL Cool J-Doin' It (last verse and chorus)
Smashing Pumpkins-Tonight, Tomight
snippet of Fugees' "Family Business"
R. Kelly-Down Low
Live-Lightning Crashes
Jamiroquai-Cosmic Girl
snippet of Smashing Pumpkins' "Mayonnaise"

Side 2

Issac Hayes-Theme From Shaft
Sheryl Crow-All I Wanna Do (picks up after 1st verse)
Cake-The Distance
snippet of Pearl Jam's "Corduroy"
Green Day-Brain Stew
Nirvana-In Bloom
Rage Against The Machine-Bulls On Parade
Green Day-Basket Case
snippet of Seven Mary Three's "Cumbersome"
snippet of Nirvana's "Heart Shaped Box"

After completely pillaging my sister's childhood cassette collection (which was very small and I couldn't dare to record over any of the Disney storybook stuff which I still fondly adored), I had to start looking to other sources to continue my adventures in radio. By this time the school year was getting ready to wind down and I was about to graduate from the 8th grade, but in typical behavior of me, I still held on to stuff you would think I'd have no use for. Even to this day, I still believe that random junk will come in handy, such as a broken umbrella, two pairs of 3-D glasses and a green lei I got from a party. My hoarding proved to be fruitful for once as I was able to use an America's Hit Parade cassette for the year 1932. I had it since the 4th grade. One time in class we were playing games and our teacher, Sister Charlene, gave away prizes for whoever won. I walked away with a miniature card set and this tape. I popped it in once in its original state for a few seconds and all I could recall was a jaunty sounding tune. To this day, I have no idea what songs used to be on it.

"Snow White" (Spring 1996)

Side 1

Dionne Farris-I Know
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony-Tha Crossroads
The Simpsons-Do The Bartman (Bad Bart House Mix)

Side 2
The Verve-Bittersweet Symphony
snippets of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's "Days of Our Livez" and Stone Temple Pilots' "Big Empty"
Goodie Mob-Soul Food
snippet of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's "Flow Motion"


While listening to this tape for the first time in years, I had no idea that Bone had figured so much into it, but they were the biggest thing in rap at the time so it makes sense. I knew to expect "Tha Crossroads," but at one point I had recorded "Days of Our Livez" at the beginning of Side 2 and placed "Flow Motion," the leadoff track from their first release before they signed to Ruthless, at the end. There was only enough space left on the tape for the first verse, which featured Layzie Bone, and for years this was all I had known. Since I dubbed it from my neighbor's copy, I didn't have the luxury of listening to the entire song at my own convenience and hadn't heard it in full until today.

"It's Okay To Say No!" (Spring 1996)

Side 1

Seal-Fly Like An Eagle
Crucial Conflict-Hay
Pearl Jam-Jeremy
snippets of Tool's "Stinkfist" and Counting Crows-"...A Long December"

Side 2

Collective Soul-December
Tracy Bonham-Mother Mother
Aerosmith-Jamie's Got A Gun
Foo Fighters-This Is A Call
Sublime-Doin' Time

The picture above is indeed of the very first mixtape that I ever made in its current shape today. I was in 8th grade at the time and had long stopped receiving an allowance, due to a lackluster effort of my chores a few times the year before. Despite an improvement in my work ethic since, the topic of me getting money on a weekly basis somehow never came up again. This left me without many funds of my own, which I was content with at the time. I was properly cared for and I usually felt guilty about asking for anything unless it was my birthday or Christmas, but the fact still remained that I had no music that I owned for myself, except for a copy of Alanis Morrissette's Jagged Little Pill that my best friend at school dubbed for me.

Introduction

Just about anyone who has ever met me can vouch for how passionate I am about music. It's often one of the things I'm most commonly associated with whenever folks describe or mention me. I have another blog, Hectic But Eclectic, which delves into that passion along with other media, but this blog will serve an entirely different purpose. While I will still run Hectic But Eclectic and focus on more current developments, Mixed Reaction will take a look back.

Music video channels such as MTV, BET and The Box deserve a lot of credit for opening me up to different genres as a child and furthering a growing passion, but it wasn't until I got my own cassette radio that things were taken to a new level. The beauty of radio was not only the bounty of stations that I could switch between; it was also the exposure to songs that couldn't afford Spike Jonze as a video director or didn't even have a video, a world I had been ignorant to previously on the rock side of things. Since my parents enforced a strict bedtime curfew, my music addiction would end promptly at 9:00 PM, but now as I went to sIeep, I could let the radio softly fill my room with music at a volume just low enough to not disturb my family through the night. I had an alarm clock radio before my cassette player, but the fact that I could use my new device to play entire albums instilled a sense of independence and pride that I never had with my previous radio. I was no longer at the mercy of anyone's taste and I was well on my way to paving my own musical path.

Out of all the ways that my cassette player made life wonderful, there was nothing more magnificent than recording songs from the radio. My passion for music was already incredibly strong at this point. I had spent entire summer days watching nothing but MTV and BET and most moments home alone were spent with me rifling through my stepsister and stepmother's CD collections or sometimes staring at my father's vinyl library. I could only gaze at the album covers since I didn't know how to work the stereo to the record player and was much too afraid to tinker with something I didn't know how to operate. Recording songs off the radio allowed me to become more intimate with music in a way I wasn't able to before. No longer did I have to wait for my favorite song to come on: I could just pop in a tape and press play.

For Mixed Reaction, I'll start by returning to the makeshift mixtapes of my youth and follow the progress through the years as my methods became more sophisticated. I've managed to hold on to all of them and thought that such dedication would be a good insight into the origins of a passion. Expect weekly posts every Tuesday and feel free to share this with anyone who you'd think might find this interesting. Hope you'll enjoy!