Five fabulous things for this wonderful Friday (yes, the return of sunshine seriously affects my pleasure centers):
- When all was still in rainy-day gloom and doom mode yesterday the boy and I went to see The Secret of Kells. Stylistically it was strangely like Miyazaki meets Craig McCracken and absolutely lovely in all its 2D hand-animated detail.
- The best music of 1981 you never knew existed by some bands you may have heard of. This is genius and musicophilia is my new favorite music blog.
- Tonight I’ll be on a boat! In addition to Art-A-Whirl and MCBA’s SpringCon there’s even more madness around town this weekend with massive garage sales and shopping events and the Lyn-Lake Street Fest on Sunday, to boot.
- Things that made me giggle: I know you are but what am I? and Call me juvenile, but I laughed. Hard.
- On the dark side but happy-making…True Blood season three is coming next month and here are some teasers from HBO. And True Blood Velvet Paintings of the Damned by the somewhat disturbed Jack Donovan.
So much goodness is on the horizon. Impending day trips to pizza farm and taco farm. A little getaway to see Interpol. A potential trip to take the kiddo to hang with relatives in LA/Pasadena. And being flown out to the Pacific Northwest to shoot a fabulous couple’s wedding. Today I am all smiles.
3 Comments
So glad you like the ‘1981′ set, and my blog! You’re very kind, and I hope you find more music to love there. ‘1981′ has been a gift that keeps on giving–the music never gets old, and it’s always new to someone, so I keep getting to “meet” cool people, now more than half a decade after I first put it together. It’s become very sunny here in Portland this week, too, so I share your smiles.
Nice to “meet” you too! But seriously, what you’ve done is more than just make mere mixes. You’ve been part research librarian/music historian/documentarian with these amazing collections. I look forward to exploring your blog more, for sure.
Haha all it took was obsession and time (and having a decent salary, at that time!). It started as a single mix (the “Feet” mix, I believe) and then became three, five, and eventually 9 (plus the “Briefcase” disc, which collected another 400 or so bands/tracks). It was a ton of fun, except for maybe when I was physically making the box sets, which took about 30 minutes a piece of manual labor x450 or so copies, sent out at cost of materials!
The crazy thing is I could probably make another 3-4 discs of the same caliber with stuff I’ve discovered (without trying) in the years since, like the “How Do You Say 1981 in German” mix. The fecundity of that period, and especially that year, is just mind-blowing. If I added mixes oriented around Disco, Italo, electro, hip-hop, etc.–oh man, it would never end.
I’ll probably never have the chance to tackle something on that scale again, so I’m glad I did it. Now I’m lucky if I can make just one mix for the blog (hence the major slowdown over the last year).
You’re very kind, and I admit it’s nice that the effort is appreciated. Obviously, the musicians did the real work! Thanks, and feel free to link to anything else you find you like–taken as a whole, the fake-label “Musique du Monde” mixes are nearing the scope of the ‘81 set–if you can get down with the 70s, my real favorite musical period!
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