Hippified bliss…
Listen/Download 51MB Mixed MP3 – MP3
Playlist
Spirit – Girl in your eye (Epic)
Buffalo Springfield – Expecting To Fly (Atco)
The Association – Everything That Touches You (WB)
Beach Boys – I Know There’s An Answer (Capitol)
Rolling Stones – She Smiled Sweetly (Abcko)
Grateful Dead – Dark Star (45 Edit) (WB)
Pearls Before Swine – I Saw the World (ESP Disk)
Simon & Garfunkel – Fakin’ It (Columbia)
Steve Miller Band – Quicksilver Girl (Capitol)
Zombies – Beechwood Park (Date)
Fleetwood Mac – My Dream (Reprise)
Richie Havens – Strawberry Fields Forever (Verve)
The Who – Rael (Decca)
Greetings all.
It’s been a busy – but fun – weekend here in NJ, despite the fact that Spring has once again gone into temporary hiding. Thursday afternoon it’s 75 degrees, Sunday morning it’s back in the 40s….WHAT THE HELL?!?
It’s not like I’m not used to it. I’ve lived in New Jersey for almost my entire life and I can assure that it has always been thus. Of course by the end of the first week in June I’ll be back here carping about the heat, but that’s just the way things are.
Anyway…it was nice enough on Saturday to take the kids to the Cape May Zoo (a very nice zoo and the admission is free!) and then jet on over to a blissfully pre-summer Wildwood (a real mob scene after Memorial Day) for some gourmet hot dogs.
Last week I snagged some very cool vinyl (some for here and some for Funky16Corners) which I am in the process of digi-ma-tizing, and I’ve also managed to record the tunes for the first two parts of what I intend to make an ongoing series about the 1980s garage/mod revival (part one to drop in a few weeks).
The mix I bring you this fine day – no less than the TENTH edition of the Iron Leg Digital Trip – is a testament to the fact that I’m putting these podcasts together as much for myself as for the folks who stop by here to download the ones and zeros.
I have been, since I first had the mechanical wherewithal, a compulsive maker of mixes. First, back in the late 70’s (and for many years afterward) on cassette, then on CD and for the last few years in the digital realm, stored and played back frequently on my iPod. The most frequently accessed playlist on said MP3 delivery system is the one composed of Funky16Corners Radio and Iron Leg Digital Trip podcasts, which – according to iTunes – now lasts almost two full days.
Though I’m certainly far from the only person with this particular affliction, some might say that I take it to a kind of extreme in that all of the mixes I make these days end up on the interwebs for public consumption. Could it be that I’ve become some kind of Global Village version of that jerk that comes to your party and monopolizes the stereo?
I hope not.
No matter, the making of the mixes is rooted in a need – which I’m sure anyone with a serious interest in music has – to string together just the right songs to create, or in some instances recapture a specific mood, and either maintain it, or manipulate in one direction or another.
To any regular reader of either of my blogs it should come as no surprise that I lead a somewhat hectic life. I have two small children, a job that brings with it a certain amount of psychological wear and tear and two ongoing blogs. The only part of that equation I could do without is the job (though couldn’t we all?), because I love my wife and kids more than life itself and the blogging is (aside from intermittent returns to drawing) my sole creative outlet.
That said, this past week was a particularly hectic one at my job (in addition to the current onslaught of pollen) and by the time Friday arrived my head was spinning and I felt like going down to the basement, turning off the lights and curling up on the couch for a 48 hour nap. Since that was unlikely to happen, I applied a little musical therapy to my throbbing brain, and the result is the mix you see before you.
I’ll spare you the song-by-song details*, but I will say that what I’ve put together is many of my favorite cool-down tunes, all guaranteed to put the weary portions of your mind to rest, invigorate the parts that need a boost and take you on a pleasant 40 minute excursion.
The mix contains a number of approaches to, and levels of psychedelia** with tangents to the baroque, sunshine pop, folk rock and even a dash of roots rock.
As always, I hope you dig it, and maybe put it aside for a time when you need something to help un-knot your own weary brain.
Peace
Larry
PS Head over to Funky16Corners for a great bit of soul
*There’s nothing too obscure here, but if anyone has any questions you need only ask.
**If one was to split hairs, there are songs here that bear only a passing resemblance to “true” psychedelia, but I refuse to subscribe to a purist agenda and as a result the definition of the genre that I offer you here is mine and mine alone. I hope you dig it but I certainly wouldn’t be offended if you didn’t.