accordions, lace & petite chablis

One of my favorite mix tapes from high school was when my brother had his stereo hooked up to the VCR and I had Han Solo responding to the anonymous rebel fighter's suggestion that "Your taun-taun will freeze before the first marker!" with "Then I'll see you in Hell!" I believe that I followed that with "Time Warp" from from Rocky Horror Picture Show which I had not yet seen but my brother had the LP and all my theater friends quoted it all the time. Actually, I had the chance to watch it on the tour bus for our choir spring break trip but I averted my eyes because it felt dirty and I didn't want to sully myself.

It's weird to think about who I used to be.

However, I still like making mixes.

So, when A. asked which of her readers wanted to do a mix CD swap, for nostalgia's sake, I jumped on the chance, even though my life is totally overwhelmed right now. I've made it as part of my sabbath rest day and it has given back my life force to be a compilation artist again for a few hours.



My mix recipient blogs at petitechablis.wordpress.com and gave me a blank slate upon which to download, writing, "I'm pretty omnivorous, and I love being exposed to new artists/genres that I don't usually listen to. My own collection runs heavily towards folk and indie rock (Dar Williams-ish)." Investigation on her blog let me know that she was a little sassy but the high frequency of references to computer gaming left me without much poetic inspiration, although I cheered when she wrote about how much she liked Snow Crash, one of my favorite books.

So, since her blog is named after a type of wine grape, I typed, "Wine" into my iTunes library and began the mix with a Tom T. Hall song called, "Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine." Then, I used the technique I used in high school listening to one song (as it recorded onto the tape) and using that as inspiration while I search for the next. That guarantees that each song is related to the last but that the overall mix stays varied. I tried to throw in a few other songs about drinking, just to set a theme and used lots of strange covers and slightly obscure artists or recordings, like I always try to do when making mixes as gifts. No sense handing someone songs they already have, right? I also included a Vance Gilbert song since he is my favorite folks/indie rock artist and I love introducing people to him.

If you're interested in hearing snippets of these songs or purchasing any of them, I made an iMix and it is available by clicking on the tite of the mix below below. It's accordions, lace and petite chablis.