Mixtape Mondays: Jangly Bits

Good Morning, Folks! If you have not been around this blog for long, one of the things that you have to know is that mixtapes are really important to me. I have spent large swaths of my life creating carefully curated lists of songs for the purpose of creating an experience greater than the parts. I used to do this for individual friends and paramores while growing up, and now I release my madness out into the greater internet. I am truly uncertain if anyone appreciates this nonsense, but it makes me happy, and I legitimately listen to my own Mixtapes on the regular. So I guess at the end of the day I am doing it for myself as much as I am doing it for you all. If this is your first outing, you can find the other 31 Mixtapes that I have created to date over on the archive.

32 – Jangly Bits

This particular brand of madness dominated my mind one night and would not let me sleep until I had assembled what you see before me. Essentially, it started with Toad the Wet Sprocket and Jars of Clay, and then attempting to craft something that thematically matched that level of melancholy. The only regret that I have with this mix is the fact that there is a whole-assed Cracker album that none of the streaming services have. So I had to choose an alternate song, but in truth, it worked out well because it became the perfect last track. I spent a lot of time listening to this music, especially in late high school, and as a result, I am sharing yet another fragment of my soul with you all. Jars of Clay is a Christian band, which is a thing you are not likely to see often among my mixes, but Flood broke into the mainstream. I once went to a Jars of Clay concert expecting it to be normal, but there were folks in the aisles doing the “celestial benchpress” as a friend calls it, raising their hands to the sky with eyes closed. Side note… I am agnostic. I appreciate the role faith has in people’s lives, but I chose to remain unaligned.

Track List

  • 01 – Flood – Jars of Clay
  • 02 – Promises Broken – Soul Asylum
  • 03 – Come Back Down – Toad the Wet Sprocket
  • 04 – Mr. Jones – Counting Crows
  • 05 – Bittersweet – Big Head Todd and the Monsters
  • 06 – My Sister – The Juliana Hatfield Trio
  • 07 – Allison Road – Gin Blossoms
  • 08 – Selling the Drama – Live
  • 09 – Man On The Moon – R.E.M.
  • 10 – Noah’s Dove – 10,000 Maniacs
  • 11 – Wonderful – Everclear
  • 12 – Somewhere Out There – Our Lady Peace
  • 13 – Best I Ever Had – Vertical Horizon
  • 14 – The Old Apartment – Barenaked Ladies
  • 15 – Sick of Goodbyes – Cracker

Listen to it yourself

Well, folks, that is another mixtape added to the archive. I did not honestly expect to keep doing this thing, as my brain aligns with new mixes, I post them. This one in particular means quite a bit to me, because the music is deeply personal. Trivia… not sure if you have realized, but I specifically never use the same song twice. Often during the process, I add a bunch of tracks and then weed them out, and my brain attempted to reuse three songs while creating this mix. I just hope there is someone out there who appreciates this nonsense.

The post Mixtape Mondays: Jangly Bits appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.

Mixtape Mondays: Mired Moody Mindset

Good Morning Folks. I hope you had a most excellent weekend. Things are a bit weird here because things have taken a turn towards the cold. While I did not get any, my folks who are a bit further north got some snow yesterday. I am still in a holding pattern, but rapidly running out of time. This coming Thursday, I am scheduled to get a chemo port installed, and as a result, I am losing hope that there is a “surgery only” path forward. As a result, I have been in a fairly dour and sedate mood, and this week’s mixtape fits that pattern. I continue to confront the concept of my own death because the thought of being severely immunocompromised, on top of my normally malfunctioning immune system, is some scary shit. I know I can make it through this, and I have started making plans for some things I am going to do when I am on the far side of this. For example, I have a group of friends in the Chicago area, and I want to make a pilgrimage up to see them. I also really want to make the trek down to see “Erasure” in the Houston area, but that was already on the table since that trip got cancelled due to all of this bullshit happening. I figure so long as I can keep some good plans in my mind, I can focus on those while I deal with whatever awful crap I have to deal with in the coming weeks.

28 – Mired Moody Mindset

This mix largely exists because of an anchor song, like these mixtapes often start. I was sitting in the car listening to the radio before going to a doctor’s appointment, and “Sultans of Swing” came on, and I stalled long enough to listen to the entire song. I’ve always liked Dire Straits and specifically that song, and it made me realize that I had not really dived into a lot of the more moody and almost wistful in a melancholic manner style of music that I really seem to love. For example, up until this point, there was not a single list that I felt I could really place Big Dipper by Cracker on, or the song that always brings me to tears… Jimi & Stan by Strand of Oaks. These mixes show you a piece of my soul each time, and this one… drills straight through the core of me. It is through these mixes that I have also found a lot of community with people who have listened to them and struck up conversations about songs that they have not thought about in decades. If I am going to get through this, I am going to need a lot more of that community, which is a challenge given how fucking awkward and introverted I am. Thanks for being here throughout the years, and if you regularly listen to these mixtapes… thanks for sharing in my nonsense. I guess I will stop stalling and get to the track list.

Track List

  • 01 – (Don’t Fear) The Reaper – Blue Öyster Cult
  • 02 – The Chain – Fleetwood Mac
  • 03 – Heroes – David Bowie
  • 04 – Sultans of Swing – Dire Straits
  • 05 – Message in A Bottle – The Police
  • 06 – Who’ll Stop The Rain – Creedence Clearwater Revival
  • 07 – Gimme Shelter – The Rolling Stones
  • 08 – Little Wing – Jimi Hendrix
  • 09 – Big Dipper – Cracker
  • 10 – The Night We Met – Lord Huron
  • 11 – Red Hill Mining Town – U2
  • 12 – Here Comes Your Man – The Pixies
  • 13 – Cherry Bomb – John Mellencamp
  • 14 – Jimi & Stan – Strand of Oaks
  • 15 – The Waiting – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Listen To It Yourself

It feels like I am working through the stages of grief in mixtape form recently. I just might not be going through them in exactly the same order as normal. I might be in a bit of the bargaining phase because I have been doing a bunch of things in the hopes of improving my success through chemo. I know the Tirzepatide that I am on causes muscle loss, so I have started doing a bit of light weight training, and on some level, I am hoping the universe notices that I am trying and gives me a fucking break. It is weird how fast this mix came together, honestly, because some of the songs are ones that I have not really thought about in years, but suddenly popped into my mind as I was assembling this. For example, Red Hill Mining Town is phenomenal, but I had not thought about that since the album it came out on was on regular rotation for me. Similarly, Cherry Bomb by John Mellencamp is a phenomenal track, but it had not popped into my head in decades. I have decided that I will be disowning “The Librarian” though because he referred to this as “Yacht Rock”, and I present that there is not a single Christopher Cross or Michael McDonald track on this list. This is way more thoughtful than that particularly vapid movement of music. I have a few more posts that I know I want to make this week, including talking about a book that is sort of awful but at the same time thought-provoking enough that I want to talk about it. As always you can see the full list of my mixes over on the archives. Mixtape Mondays Archive The post Mixtape Mondays: Mired Moody Mindset appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.