Yesterday's mixtape was made up by Alan Richmond from Aberdour. It was his family holiday compilation tape that inspired this feature on the show. Here's Alan's awesome list and his reasons for choosing.
In a galaxy far, far away, before the time of the160Gb iPod Classic, the humble
cassette tape offered the opportunity for the discerning record listener to compile
recordings of their favourite songs. No more did you have to put up with the duff
tracks on Side 2 of the LP or that one with the really annoying drum solo bit. Stick all your favourite songs back to back on a cassette and Bob was your mumâs brother. The mixtape was born.
Some music enthusiasts with the correct mix of anal retentiveness and control
freakery took to producing mixtapes with a vengeance. The opportunity to impose their choice of songs on others using a tape with a daft title was too great to miss.
Why? To impress girls; to be the first kid on the block; to show off that obscure B-side cover version â usually all of the above. Nick Hornbyâs novel Hi Fidelity was right on the money.
I was that soldier and this is the story of my life in tapes. It is not my ultimate, best ever 12 desert island discs â what a nightmare that would be to choose. Rather, it is 12 tracks from 12 mixtapes and CDs that were made at a certain time for a certain reason.
GET IT ON MIX - OPERATORâS MANUAL
The Cure â In Between Days
Flowers and Chocolates
The premise of the mixtape as a romantic ploy is illustrated perfectly with this
compilation. I met Lynn through a mutual friend in Edinburgh in the early summer of 1986 and I asked her out soon afterwards. Our somewhat unconventional first date was to see the Alan Bleasdale film âNo Surrenderâ at the Cameo Cinema - a cheery tale of religious bigotry in the seedy Liverpool underworld! Keeping the alternative approach going, the carnations and Milk Tray were abandoned for the provision of a carefully selected compilation tape, titled to recognise my failings in the romantic gift department. The Cure were the first band she had been to see so this cracking single from July 1985 was an easy selection. Two further tapes in this series were produced when Lynn worked abroad over the next year. âEidelweiss and Tobleroneâ was sent to Switzerland and âYellow Roses and Cotton Candyâ was air-mailed to the
USA. Thanks to (or despite of?) these tapes, weâve been together ever since!
Kate Bush â Running Up that Hill
Running Up That Hill â A Donkey Brae Run Compilation
As is obvious to those who know me, I certainly donât have the build of a runner.
However, these physical constraints donât stop me being part of the team of local volunteers in Aberdour who organise the annual Donkey Brae Run as part of the annual festival. Although it is part of a family fun day, the race is a Scottish Athletics registered 7 mile road race along the coast from Aberdour to Dalgety Bay. The last mile features the infamous Donkey Brae from the harbour up to the finishing field. I have the easy job of handling the PA, providing music and commentary on the finishers, always giving a big shout to the locals as they cross the line. The compilation CD of running songs that I have used for the event couldnât really be called anything else!
De La Soul - Say No Go
Geeza Break, Big Man! â A Hippity Hoppity Housey Housey Collection
As an amateur disk spinner during my university days, my first foray into the world of breaks and beats came through the mighty sound of Sugarhillâs Grandmaster Flash and his Adventures on the Wheels of Steel, a truly awesome 12â single from 1981 showing what it was possible to do with turntables and an ear for a sample. Rapping morphed into hip hop and by the end of the decade this was competing for space on the dance floor in the UK with the house music boom. This mixtape collection was put together at that time and, to be honest, little of it still resonates today with the major and honourable exception of the daisy filled sounds of De La Soul. Naming
their first LP 3 Feet High And Rising after a Johnny Cash sample showed their
musical credentials strayed well beyond the normal boundaries. This track shows their fun and inventiveness slamming Daryll Hall and John Oates together with samples from early Sugarhill stars, the Funky 4+1. After this, the guns and the misogyny moved into hip hop and I moved out.
Everything But The Girl â Come On Home (Piano and Vocal)
Despair & Desire (1982â1988) â An Everything But The Girl Compilation
Occasionally, I would focus one of my compilation tapes on one band, particularly where I had a lot of non-LP singles and b-sides that needed to be collected together in one place. A good example is this 4 year career retrospective of Ben Watt and Tracey Thorne which chronologically gathers a whole host of single-only songs, alternative takes and cover versions from their vinyl sources. This was BenânâTrace from the angst-ridden student bedsit days long before they felt the need to adapt to the world of drumânâbass remixes. This piano and vocal version of a track from their third country-tinged LP Baby the Stars Shine Bright will always remind me of Lynn working overseas in the months just after I met her. Brings a tear to a glass eye, so it
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Eels â Mr Eâs Beautiful Blues
Life Begins @ 40 Volume 1
I have no idea where the expression life begins at 40 comes from â a movie? â but as the new Millennium dawned, I hit this milestone. So, a few months after we partied like it was 1999, we partied again for my coming of that certain age. Mix CDs were prepared for both events, with the 40th party featuring two CDs of standingabout- drinking type music and three CDs of hip shaking, groove-tastic tunes from the last twenty years. Although I say so myself, the party rocked but the Eels track proposed here is taken from the standing-about-drinking CD although I would have happily danced to it. I love Eâs songwriting and sense of humour and who could argue with the sentiment for reaching 40: âGoddamn right, itâs a beautiful day!â
The Proclaimers â Letter From America
Methil No More â A Farewell to Scotland Compilation
In 2006 our friends, the Ross family, decided their future lay in Australia and plans were made to emigrate there. Their leaving present was a no-brainer. This
compilation CD is an unashamed nostalgic wallow in Scotland-related popular songs perfect for teary farewells and fond reminiscing. The title was easy â Alex was a policeman in Methil â and I understand that copies of the compilation are spreading out amongst the exiled Scots community down under. Alex and Clare are big fans of the Get It On using the ´óĎó´ŤĂ˝âs Listen Again feature and have had a mention on the show before. They are primed about this and looking forward to hearing a track from their own personal CD from 11,000 miles away should I be lucky enough to make the cut. With that in mind, there is only one track that exiles from Fife would want to hear. As first seen in such amazing circumstances 20 years ago(!) on The Tube, Auchtermuchtyâs finest larynxes combine to devastating effect on the ultimate emigration sing-a-long.
Elvis Costello â Youâve Got To Hide Your Love Away
Under The Covers â An Elvis Costello Compilation
I have been a huge fan of Costello ever since I saw first saw him at Satellite City (the nightclub on top of the Apollo) in April1978. A musician with an eclectic taste, his choice of cover versions has taken me on a wide musical journey, particularly into country music. I discovered Gram Parsons through the cover of Gramâs How Much I Lied and Hot Burrito #1 on Almost Blue. A compilation tape of EC covers was an easy task. His Liverpool roots often show through with his love of the Beatles and this track from Help was a stage favourite over the years, usually inserted into the middle of his own composition, New Amsterdam, which has a remarkably similar chord sequence. He finally recorded the full song for the soundtrack of the 1994 ´óĎó´ŤĂ˝ TV series âFamilyâ written by Roddy Doyle. See if you can sing the words to New
Amsterdam in the instrumental breakâŚ.
Gram Parsons â California Cotton Fields
California Here We Come â Holiday Mix 06
This mix CD was created for the 2006 family holiday to the West Coast of the USA and titled after the timely hit single of the same name that summer. It was to be the soundtrack to us âdriving down the 101â from LA to San Diego and so it turned out. The qualification for inclusion was to have the state name in the title of the song so it offered up some great opportunities â the Eagles for my wife, the Chilli Peppers for my son and Phantom Planetâs title track for my daughter. Me? Well whilst the Dead Kennedys provided some entertainment, it was this Merle Haggard cover by Gram Parsons recorded just before his death in 1973 that provides the real memories for me. For whilst all the usual places were visited (Disneyland, Hollywood, Sea World, Venice Beach etc) and the kids went to surf camp for a week, Dadâs treat for the holiday was more unusual. Dreamed up by my wife, the four of us drove out of LA
one evening and up into the heat of the high desert. Turning inland on the 29 Palms Highway just before Palm Springs, we drove up higher and, just as the searing hot sun was setting, we arrived in Joshua Tree. Lynn had checked us into the Joshua Tree Inn where, some thirty odd years earlier, Gram Parsons had checked out for good. Nothing seemed to have changed much since then, both at the Inn and in the town itself. After a dip in the âcharming courtyard poolâ, we grabbed some gloriously greasy dollar-fifty tacos in the only diner in town. Joshua Tree was the only place we went where corporate America had been kept at bay â I suspect the crazies and freaks we saw in the diner had something to do with that! At breakfast the next morning, we discovered that we had slept in the room next to Gramâs last room and were offered a look and the chance to put a word in the guestbook. Sounds a bit cheesy but it wasnât really. Actually, it was a truly unforgettable experience.
Nina Simone â Feeling Good
Ardtornish Ambience â Music for the Morven Penisula Volume 1
Group holidays offer the opportunity of creating bespoke playlists for a captive
audience. Just like overseas car journeys with the family, a winter week in an old
estate house on the west coast of Scotland with a group of friends and a several
cases of wine provides a perfect mixtape opportunity. So it was with trips to
Ardtornish, a sprawling baronial pile at the head of Loch Aline which looks directly across to Mull. The mood is subdued with late breakfasts, short walks in the rain, log fires, cups of tea, good books and a nice glass of red or two. So the ambience of the soundtrack has to be laid back but with added quality. Nina Simoneâs 1965 version of Anthony Newleyâs Feeling Good made the cut no problem.
Trash Can Sinatras â Obscurity Knocks
thirtysomething - a birthday compilation
Titled in lower case in keeping with the HBO TV series it was named after, this tape was created in 1990 for my friend Alisonâs 30th birthday weekend away. As it is now 17 years ago, I have no memory of where we went and what we did but it did involve quite a number of wee shandies. The chosen track from Ayrshireâs finest is stunning piece of jangly guitar pop from February that year which deals with aging from a slightly younger but no less poignant viewpoint: âTo know what it's like to sigh at the sight of the first quarter of lifeâ. A song I never get tired of hearing, it always amazed me that this never troubled the sales charts back then.
Johnny Cash â Personal Jesus
Homage to Catalonia â Holiday Mix 05
Our normal family holiday since the kids were very young was to budget airline to the south of France or north of Spain, hire a car and head for a camp site. As the kids became more adult music friendly [the Singing Kettle years were grim] I would produce a compilation CD for the car sticking on some of everyoneâs favourite tunes.
I had just caught up with American IV that year and Cashâs reading of my favourite Depeche Mode tune was a certainty for the CD. Amazingly, it was a hit with the kids too, particularly my son who was eight at the time. Made a change from Green Day!
The Clash â Complete Control
It Ticked and Exploded â A Punk Rock Compilation
The title of this compilation tape was nicked from the title of a fanzine that I used to buy in Listen Records in the High Street in Paisley. The tape was put together in the mid 90s using CD source material but many of the tracks are sitting on my shelf in 7â vinyl complete with picture sleeves. I was 17 years old in 1977 and, although it has become one of the biggest clichĂŠs in music, punk did change my world as it did for many other people at the time. The explosion of styles and forms that followed in the wake of this time can be seen throughout the arts and the media today. And talking of clichĂŠs, The Clash were at the front of the line when these were being handed out.
However, no matter how much their self eulogising mythology is debunked over the years, for those of us that were in the Glasgow Apollo in Dec 1977 it is impossible to hear the opening chords to this song without the image of Strummerâs pumping left leg below the neck of his green telecaster. Truly awesome.
Now, what am I going to do with this playlist? I know. Iâll stick it on a CD and call itâŚâŚ.. Get It On â A Mixtape Compilation!
