A stack of mixtapes

8 hours of music for pure and impure moods

Every month, I take a pre-recorded cassette I got for 99 cents or less from the record store and I tape over it: first I tape over the recording protection tabs, then I tape over the music, then I tape over the tape covers.

Here are playlists for all the mixtapes I’ve made so far this year:

Nurturing your inner child
January 2025

Spotify | Apple Music | Youtube

This one I wanted to have a wintry, childlike feel to it, because that’s the way I wanted to feel while finishing the first draft of the book I’m working on, Don’t Call It Art, which is all about what I learned about being creative from my kids.

SIDE ONE

– Paul McCartney, “Every Night”
– Grizzly Bear, “Ready, Able”
– The Beach Boys, “All I Wanna Do”
– Robert Wyatt, “Heaps Of Sheeps”
– Here We Go Magic, “Collector”
– William Onyeabor, “Atomic Bomb”
– Chino Yoshio, “193193 (For Marimba)”

SIDE TWO

– Francis Bebey, “Pygmy Love Song”
– Herman’s Hermits, Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter
– Harry Nilsson, Listen, The Snow Is Falling
– Timmy Thomas, Why Can’t We Live Together
– Broadcast, Echo’s Answer
– Radiohead, “Kid A”
– Norma Fraser, “First Cut Is The Deepest”
– Buddy Emmons, “Singing Strings Of Steel”

Love is not a gadget
February 2025

Spotify | Apple Music | Youtube

This is the first mixtape I’ve made with my brand-new Tascam deck, which was not cheap, but is pretty wonderful after a year’s worth of mixtapes on a somewhat shoddy deck whose record function was quickly deteriorating. (I made the January mix on my old Sony boombox.)

I’ve started really playing with Side 1/Side 2 constraint of tapes. Some of my favorite records sort of front load all the pop stuff on the first side and the second side is all the weird stuff that I really love and never get tired of. (See: Pixies’ Doolittle, for example.) Other records split a sound in two, like Dylan’s Bringin’ It All Back Home, whose first side is more electric, and the second side is all acoustic. (And side two was recorded in a single day?!? And the whole record was recorded in 3?!?)

Anyways, you’ll get the picture here:

SIDE ONE (LONELY)

• Lou Reed & John Cale, “Nobody But You”

• Purple Mountains, “Darkness and Cold”

• Brooks & Dunn, “Neon Moon”

• Little Anthony & The Imperials, “Tears on my Pillow”

• Bobby Womack, “If You Think You’re Lonely Now”

• Serge Gainsbourg, “Je suis venu te dire que je m’en vais”

• (Bill Murray reciting French nonsense poetry from Groundhog Day)

SIDE B (LOVERS)

• Sade, “The Sweetest Taboo”

• Prince & The Revolution, “New Position”

• Ginuwine, “Pony”

• Michael McDonald, “I Keep Forgettin (Every Time You’re Near)”

• East of Underground, “I Love You”

• Frank Ocean, “Pilot Jones”

• Georgettes, ”Would You Rather”

• Zadie Smith reading Frank O’Hara’s “Animals” to an answering machine

A Satisfied Mind
April 2025

Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube.

I wrote about the mix’s origins and shared some of my custom “dub” tracks in a previous newsletter:

It began when I read novelist Elizabeth McCracken’s latest dispatch from Barton Springs pool here in Austin. She titled it “One Rich Man in Ten,” which is a line from the country song, “A Satisfied Mind”:

How many times have you heard someone say
‘If I had his money I’d do things my way’
But little they know
It’s so hard to find
One rich man in ten
with a satisfied mind…

Side A

– Porter Wagoner, “A Satisfied Mind” (dub)
– Hiroshi Yoshimura, “Over The Clover” (dub)
– Mac DeMarco, “Chamber of Reflection”
– Augustus Pablo, “King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown”
– Unknown Mortal Orchestra, “That Life”
– The Congos, “Congoman”
– Sly and the Family Stone, “If You Want Me To Stay”
– Frankie Knuckles, “The Whistle Song”
– Chet Atkins and Dolly Parton, “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind?”

Side B

– Arthur Russell, “That’s Us / Wild Combination”
– Yellow Magic Orchestra, “Gradated Grey”
– Mekons, “Last Night on Earth”
– Upsetters, “Three in One”
– Branko Mataja, “Tesko Mi Je Zaboravit Tebe”
– Little Joy, “No One’s Better Sake”
– Radiohead, “Weird Fishes”
– Kim Deal, “Are You Mine?”
– Carlton Haney monologue about Pythagoras and bluegrass

April Showers
April 2025

Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube

This is another “sad dad bad had” mix for spring with a bunch of country weepers and other stuff I like. It was originally going to be more tropical, starting with Michael Hurley’s “Polynesia.” (I listened to a bunch of his stuff after he died because so many people I know posted playlists and radio tributes to him.)

SIDE A

- Michael Hurley, “Polynesia”
- Bob Dylan, “if not for you”
- silver jews, “honk if you’re lonely”
- bill callahan, “honeymoon child”
- durutti column, “belgian friends”
- al green, “I’m so lonesome I could cry”
- cass mccombs, “that’s that”
- the byrds, “you don’t miss your water”
- magnetic fields, “born on a train”
- hank williams, “cold, cold, heart”
- buffalo Springfield, “a child’s claim to fame”
- Roger miller, “Whistle Stop” 

SIDE B

- Arthur Russell, “come to life”
- panda bear, “50mg”
- yo la tengo, “can’t forget”
- buddy holly, “take your time”
- the kinks, “everybodys gonna be happy”
- them, “it’s all over now, baby blue”
- the stranglers, “golden brown”
- beach boys, “the night was so young”
- palace brothers, “new partner”
- Donovan, “Lay of the last tinker”

Maybe The Future’s Void But That Hasn’t Stopped Us
May 2025

Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube

Here is a mopey, gloomy, gothy, synthy mixtape for a heating earth. A cousin to Dancing in the Ruins.

SIDE ONE

- future islands, “the great fire”
- new order, “the perfect kiss”
- the knife, “silent shout”
- Eurythmics, “sweet dreams”
- grimes, “oblivion”
- david byrne, “light bath”

SIDE TWO

- kavinsky, “nightcall”
- bronski beat, “smalltown boy”
- the cure, “lullaby”
- the smiths, “there is a light and it never goes
out”
- billy idol, “eyes without a face”

Solar Return
June 2025

Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube.

I celebrated my 42nd trip around the sun by working on my book, but I took a tiny break to make a new monthly mixtape to play by the pool. (Similar vibes to last June’s mixtape.)

SIDE ONE

- fela kuti, “water get no enemy”
- james brown, “I got the feelin’”
- little Anthony & the imperials, “shimmy, shimmy, ko-ko-bop”
- the silhouettes, “get a job”
- tenor saw, “ring the alarm”

SIDE TWO

- billy stewart, “strange feeling”
- war, “all day music”
- cocteau twins, “my truth”
- sister Nancy, “bam bam”
- leonard Cohen, “tower of song”
- blond redhead, “girl boy”

Chlorine
July 2025

Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube

A mix to play by the pool. I made several changes as I went. I swapped the sides (originally side A started with Barbara Mason and B started with Tommy James) and I changed the ending, swapping Mac Demarco’s “Salad Days” and Chuck Berry’s “Havana Moon” with a reggae cover of “Summer Breeze” and Doris Troy’s brilliant demo released as a single, “Just One Look.”

SIDE ONE

- Tommy James & The Shondells, “Crystal Blue Persuasion”
- Four Tops, ”It’s the Same Old Song”
- Bobby Darin, “Dream Lover”
- ? and The Mysterians, “Do Something to Me”
- The Shirelles, “Baby It’s You”
- The Champs, “Tequila”

SIDE TWO

- Barbara Mason, “Yes, I’m Ready”
- Brenton Wood, “Gimme Little Sign”
- The Young Rascals, “Groovin’”
- The Beach Boys, “Help Me, Rhonda”
- Jackie Mittoo, “Summer Breeze”
- Doris Troy, “Just One Look”

This one is a sequel to my Oahu mixtape from last summer. (Like many sequels, it’s probably not as good as the original.)

SIDE A: SUNRISE

- Granville Williams and His Orchestra, “Hi Life”
- UB40, “Red Red Wine”
- Jeff Majors, “Chant”
- Senor Coconut, “Neon Lights”
- Molly Lewis, “Island Spell”
- Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps, “Peg O’ My Heart”
- Webley Edwards, “Alika”

SIDE B: SUNSET

- King Tubby, “Roots of Dub”
- Yasuaki Shimizu, “Umi No Ue Kara Kakashi”
- Art Wilson, “Rebecca’s Theme (Water)Overworld”
- Masahiro Takahashi, “Silky Lake”
- Duke Kamoku & His Islanders, “Harbor Lights”
- Suicide, “Dreams”

Shooting Pool in Dad’s Basement
September 2025

Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube

This one gave me some technical difficulties. I actually destroyed two cassettes trying to record it, so I wound up with a cassette that was longer than I thought it’d be, so I had a little Side A / Side B fun and made Side A (mostly) songs that my dad likes and Side B songs from my dad’s era that I like.

Dad was born in 1954, so his peak nostalgia zone — the music he heard as a tween/teen in the mid to late 60s — just happens to be some of the best music ever recorded. (A few of his favorites didn’t make it here: The Byrds’ “Tambourine Man,” Creedence’s “Suzie Q,” Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale,” etc.)

I’d had the idea for the tape for a while, but Walter Martin’s organ episode gave me the final push to make it. Putting it together made me realize how much I really genuinely love Boomer music — I can’t help it!

SIDE ONE

- Tommy James & The Shondells, “Hanky Panky”
- The Animals, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”
- The Jimi Hendrix Experience, “Hey Joe”
- Paul Revere & The Raiders, “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone”
- THEM, “Gloria”
- Steppenwolf, “The Pusher”
- The Lovin’ Spoonful, “Daydream”

SIDE TWO

- The Doors, “Break On Through (To the Other Side)”
- The Troggs, “With A Girl Like You”
- Donovan, “Sunshine Superman”
- ? and The Mysterians, “96 Tears”
- The Rolling Stones, “Under My Thumb”
- The Knickerbockers, “Lies”
- The Everly Brothers, “When Will I Be Loved”
- Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs, “Wooly Bully”

No fun!
October 2025

You can read about this mixtape here.