It’s not the greatest photo, having been taken with my cell phone (although at least I managed to get it off the “postage stamp” setting–there was another photo from this weekend that would have been awesome but you don’t get to see it because it came out like 40 pixels wide), but I really wanted a shot of some of the oleander that is everywhere here, because it seemed perfect for a mix cover:
Yesterday, Jeremy posted about his qualified love for “Rush” by Big Audio Dynamite. The circumstances under which he rediscovered the song are similar to those surrounding my download of Men Without Hats’ “Pop Goes the World” a couple of months ago, with the fortunate difference that “Pop Goes the World” does not contain an unbearable minute right smack in the middle of the song. Also I may be a little more embarrassed about “Pop Goes the World,” although I still think it has a slightly lower cheese factor than “Safety Dance.”
Anyway, I haven’t been listening to “Pop Goes the World” so much in the past few weeks, but I was inspired by Jeremy’s post to create a mix of songs that are a) relatively old and b) relatively well-known. The second criterion should make the resulting disc a radical departure from the mixes I usually do, I know. Or maybe I’m deluding myself about what constitutes “relatively well-known,” but I’ll have you know that I did not include Belinda Carlisle’s “Summer Rain,” although I love it madly, because no one ever knows what the hell I’m talking about when I mention it (also, if I recall correctly, I think Matt told me it actually came out in 1990 and I was trying for a true 80s mix). And I originally included “Buffy Come Back” by Angel & the Reruns, but pulled it because no one but my mother has ever recognized it, and really the whole point of a mix like this is how cool I’m not.*
Boy, there sure were a lot of bands called [Blank] and the [blanks] in the 80s, huh? Or just The [blanks]. Personally, I think there should be more bands with names that are sentences, like Ethan Hawke’s fictional Reality Bites band, Hey! That’s my bike! or my friend Karen’s imaginary nerd!emo band, Gondor Calls For Aid. I can’t think of any actual examples.
Anyway. The mix. The cover image is a slightly altered photo of me in my Lion-O Thunder Cats pajamas, circa 1985: