(LJ entry lifted from September 29, 2007)

2004 rap-up
1. Altern8 - Move My Body
2. Apotheosis - The Volume Is Loud (Violent remix)
3. Kid 606 - Never Underestimate the Value of a Holler
   (remixing Missy Elliott, Black Sabbath, A-ha, et al.)
4. Chemical Brothers - Bass Test
5. Human Resource - Dominator
6. Del tha Funkee Homosapien - Virus
7. Aphex Twin - White Blur
8. Prodigy - Firestarter (Empirion remix)
9. Juvenile - Back That Ass up (techno remix)
10. Wildchild - Renegade Master (Fatboy Slim remix?)

I don't really like rap much. There, I said it. So, even the rappy stuff here was chosen for pleasing vocal qualities or interesting remixing more than lyrical meaning or poetic structure. I could and should have made 2 separate discs, one more strongly rap-themed with Sir-Mix-A-Lot, Body Count, Salt 'n Pepa, Rage Against the Machine and so on; and another fully techno-themed because obviously I wanted a techno mix when I picked most of these tracks.

As a young man, I loved the Jersey shore, especially the boardwalk towns like Seaside and Wildwood. Carnival delicacies, games of skill and chance, all manner of schlocky, tacky novelties, and barely legal teens prancing around in swimwear: what's not to love? I think it was the Seaside boardwalk at the age of 19 or 20 where I first encountered the gray-market mix tape vendors who got me hooked on techno. That's when Apotheosis and Human Resource became mainstays of my life's soundtrack. I listened to 3 or 4 of these tapes constantly, until bad tape decks inevitably chewed them up.

A little older and marginally more mature, working at the Doubleday bookstore at the Ridgewood, NJ Fashion Center mall in '92 or '93, one of the other assistant managers, Dave Wills (aka "Ghosty") had a techno show ("The Psychedelic Bonfire") on either the Montclair State or William Paterson college radio station. Their signal was so weak that sometimes you couldn't even tune them in on campus, but he kindly taped his shows along with his comedy sketch group's "Magnificent Glass Pelican" episodes for me. Damn, I wish I had some of those tapes immortalized in digital... He liked to spin "techno", but that was a wide range of stuff compared to today's genre proliferation. The Altern8 track that kicks off this mix was one of Ghosty's standards.

The Weekend Sound Track collection contributed the Chemical Brothers, Del and Wildchild tracks. The latter I found indescribably catchy, the other two... not so much. There are better Chem.Bros. representations but this one was short. Come to think, that's been a recurring problem with my disc mixing - short songs with poor replay value, thrown in to represent an artist but not living up to the quality of longer works. So like, I love Del's voice, hereand on the Gorillaz song "Clint Eastwood", but his rap is topically laughable.

Lisa turned me on to Kid 606 and Aphex Twin. Prodigy's "Firestarter" has so permeated our culture that I don't even know when it stuck to me; this remix was the ass-kickingest of a maxisingle CD I picked up in Portland in 2002. I am very much that asshat who rolls the windows down to inflict my taste in electronica on nearby idling drivers, and this tune seems especially suited. Like the Prodigy, I don't know where I picked up the Juvenile track; I'm pretty sure it was part of the collection before I moved here. It epitomizes the glorification of drugs and sociopathy that so nauseates me about a lot of rap, but the catchy instrumentation drowns out the vocals.

I've been poring over the more durable mix discs I put together here lately, because before I move I want to distill a last Florida mix disc, or possibly a 2-volume set. 6 years in 80 (or 160) minutes. The whole tone was set by panamaus's New Year soiree in Panama City Beach. Sometimes I think of myself as socially retarded, but a social retard doesn't capably and comfortably integrate into a horde of... what was it, some 40 total strangers? For 10 days? I had a road trip mix disc for that journey; I wonder what I did with it. I remember David Essex's "Rock On" was on it. I would bet a dollar there was some Front 242, and maybe Revolting Cocks in there too.

My nephew gave me a copy of System of a Down's "Toxicity" album, I think as a going-away present, kind of aged now but which restored my faith in the mainstreaming of "alternative" at the time. I remember a lot of evenings in the early months, cruising to my rented room in west Boca, serenely full of kava-kava and/or buzzed on Lisa's kind bud, caterwauling along with Tankian. Something SoaD needs to open the playlist. Lisa herself introduced me to a lot of noisy experimental electronica as well as lush Morcheeba, and defined the gabber genre for me. So something Merzbow-y or Aube-ish could go in there too; or I could memorialize that killer DJ Party we went to at Churchill's in Miami. One of my original housemates contributed Infectious Grooves.

Mr Oizo's "Analog Worms Attack" was a gift of my kava bar buddy Paul. I wish I'd stayed more in touch with some of that crowd. I mixed other trip-discs for Sparta, Portland, Boston, Brooklyn and Columbus parties. I'll probably fill out the middle tracks with a few picks from those, a little "best of travelling thousands of miles to party for days and make friends with overwhelming hordes of people I previously knew only from that stupid website" flavor.

Then there's people I'm positively glad I cut out of my life, notably S.- and Drunk Girl, and the music I associate with them - Radiohead in the former case, moldy oldies like Patsy Cline and James Taylor in the latter. For a 2-disc mix I might throw in a Patsy tune, otherwise, well, they didn't make the cut (so to speak) and their music doesn't either. "Failed" expedition or not, it was an adventure, and there are few tunes (Yes, "Heart of the Sunrise"; Front 242, "Motion") that resonate with that spirit.

Nurse Girl's musical associations are a puzzle yet. She can actually sing pretty well, but I can also picture future lady friends cringing very time I play that damn disc, and it mysteriously disappearing eventually.

Like the Firestarter remix, this DJ Radium gabber remix of Renegade Master cuts across multiple themes and matches the energy I'm picking up on my way out. That should make a great closing track.