#0063 – Don’t Dance Near The Chemicals!

Alright. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. I have a few in the works, an alt-country mix, a show about great drumming performances, some others. But they are still unformed. Today I had an epiphany. I just want to rock your faces off, that’s all.

So I put together this mix. There are no clever audio clips and there’s not a lot of bullshit from me either. Just 15 tracks of rock and roll, from classic rock to indie bombast to power pop to punk rock. This is the kind of stuff that makes mice explode.

  1. The Hold Steady – Stevie Nix
  2. Lucero – What Else Would You Have Me Be
  3. The Rolling Stones – Bitch
  4. Led Zeppelin – Good Times Bad Times
  5. Styx – Born For Adventure
  6. Queen – One Vision
  7. AC/DC – Highway To Hell
  8. The Pursuit Of Happiness – I’m An Adult Now
  9. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists – Timorous Me
  10. Superchunk – Seed Toss
  11. Andrew Vincent and the Pirates – Ladies, Ladies, Ladies (Houseboat)
  12. The Replacements – Gary’s Got A Boner
  13. New York Dolls – Personality Crisis
  14. Cloak, Dagger – Bended Knee
  15. Death – Politicians in My Eyes
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#0058 – IRON DJ – Tabula Rasa

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Iron Deejay

The subject of this delinquent-but-still-special mix is John Locke. No, not that Limey philosopher who theorized that the mind is a tabula rasa (blank slate). I’m talking about the character on ABC’s wildly frustrating and popular TV series Lost. Season whatever just closed with some major revelations about my boy John. Like the show, this mix deals in flashbacks, semi-present island time, and, if you’re lucky, flash forwards. But mostly, it doesn’t make sense. Beware that this mix contains spoilers.

Get lost in the mix:

    1. Electric Light Orchestra – I’m Alive
    2. The Ramones – I Believe In Miracles
    3. Guns N’ Roses – Paradise City
    4. Eels – My Beloved Monster
    5. Neutral Milk Hotel – King of Carrot Flowers, Part 1
    6. Death Cab For Cutie – I Will Follow You Into The Dark
    7. Downset – Anger
    8. Jane’s Addiction – Had a Dad
    9. Lodger – I Love Death
    10. Men At Work – Down Under
    11. Soundgarden – Blow Up The Outside World
    12. Bad Company – Bad Company
    13. Queen – All Dead, All Dead

      #0057 – IRON DJ – This Mortal Coil

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      KevinKevin – This mix just pretty much goes after the theme of life and death head-on.  Kafwacko.

      Since I’m a technical rube, I cannot insert cool images into my post without bulbous blue borders or exploded text resulting.

      1. ELO – I’m Alive
      2. Missing Persons – Destination Unknown
      3. The Alarm – Strength
      4. Steve Martin (edit from Rambin’ Man)
      5. Jimmy Buffett – Cowboy in the Jungle
      6. Love & Rockets – No New Tale To Tell
      7. Bruce Springsteen – Candy’s Room
      8. Social Distortion – Story of my Life
      9. Gorilla Biscuits – Start Today
      10. Otep – Perfectly Flawed
      11. Neil Young – Dead Man, Round Stones Beneath the Earth/Guitar Solo # 5/Edit
      12. Morrissey – Margaret on the Guillotine
      13. Jaws of Life – The Way to Go Out
      14. Gary Numan – I Die: You Die
      15. The Fools – Life Sucks, Then You Die
      16. The Feelies – It’s Only Life
      17. Ralph Stanley — O Death
      18. Queen — Dead, All Dead

      #0056 – IRON DJ – Herbalism

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      Iron Deejay

      …in which I take you on a trip… through the mind, inner space and time itself.  In the past few weeks, I’ve had the good fortune of recovering some first blog entries going back to 2003 where Suzy and I took a long-delayed honeymoon to Amsterdam for two glorious weeks.  I could regale you with my writings forever, but instead, let us take the quest to enlightenment, self-discovery as we travel through giddiness, joy, peace, love, bemusement, reflection, questioning, anxiety, paranoia, panic, anger, badassery and ultimately resolution — the kind that generally leads to three grand slam breakfast skillets at Denny’s around 2am and about 13 boxes of Nerds.

      This extra-special mix includes:

      1. Electric Light Orchestra – I’m Alive
      2. Elmore James – Hawaiian Boogie
      3. Poi Dog Pondering – Living With the Dreaming Body
      4. VHS or Beta – Heaven
      5. Duran Duran – New Moon on Monday
      6. The Verve – Sonnet
      7. The High Llamas – Painters Paint
      8. The Clash – Lost in the Supermarket
      9. Gordon Lightfoot – If You Could Read My Mind
      10. Lou Reed – How Do You Think It Feels
      11. The Police – Does Everyone Stare?
      12. Soul Coughing – True Dreams of Witchita
      13. Super Furry Animals – Run! Christian, Run!
      14. Grandaddy – A.M. 180
      15. Godspeed You Black Emperor! – Kicking Horse on Broken Hill
      16. Shriekback – The Reptiles and I
      17. System of a Down – X
      18. Cypress Hill – Cock the Hammer
      19. Danger Mouse – What More Can I Say? (Jay Z / Beatles Mashup)
      20. The White Stripes – Your Southern Can Is Mine
      21. Queen – All Dead, All Dead

      #0055 – IRON DJ – No, let’s just be enemies

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      Iron Deejay

      gen1us profile image…in which I take you on a sonic adventure through the beginning, end, and aftermath of a trainwreck relationship. No one relationship in particular, I’ve been married so long I don’t remember any others, really. 🙂 But this is a mix that not only progresses through a series of moods but which also purports to tell a story. I hope you enjoy it.

      I’ll be out of town for the weekend with little or no internet access. Hopefully when I get back I will have a whole bunch of Iron DJ entries to listen to!

      1. ELO – I’m Alive
      2. Pulp – Disco 2000
      3. Matthew Sweet – I’ve Been Waiting
      4. Stevie Wonder – I Believe
      5. Iggy Pop – Some Weird Sin
      6. Bill Withers – Who Is He And What Is He To You?
      7. …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Relative Ways
      8. Beach Boys – God Only Knows
      9. The Slackers – So This Is The Night
      10. Ben Folds Five – Song For The Dumped
      11. The Police – So Lonely
      12. Aretha Franklin – Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)
      13. Unbunny – X
      14. David Bowie – Quicksand
      15. Queen – All Dead, All Dead

      #0054 – Last of the V8 Interceptors

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      Gen1us iconNow that the world has ended, what happens next? Thanks to the miracle of MTV, we now have some answers.

      I have been wanting to do an 80s mix for a while, and as I thought about those songs and that time in my life, I found that the music and the videos for the music were pretty much inseparable in my head. I don’t watch MTV anymore (and from what I hear they don’t play too many music videos anymore either) but in the 80s I did, nearly constantly. With current music, I don’t really have that video frame of reference and the music is simply music. With 80s music though, I could discuss the (sometimes questionable) merits of the music alone but it is difficult to have that discussion without the mental images associated with the music video.

      Well I got to thinking about all those great videos, and the ones that kept coming back to me were videos like Duran Duran’s Wild Boys, or The Police’s Synchronicity II, with their strange post-apocalyptic Mad Max type of aesthetic. So I’ve been watching a lot of those videos on youtube and I’ve collected some of the songs for you here.

      This is still only an audio podcast, but I discuss the video for each song I play and I’ll put youtube links below.

      1. Fishbone – Party at Ground Zero
      2. Duran Duran – Wild Boys
      3. Rick Springfield – Bop ‘Til You Drop
      4. The Hooters – All You Zombies
      5. Queen – Radio Gaga
      6. Styx – Mr. Roboto
      7. Art of Noise with Max Headroom – Paranoimia
      8. Billy Ocean – Loverboy
      9. King – Love and Pride
      10. Scandal featuring Patty Smyth – The Warrior
      11. Taco – Puttin’ on the Ritz
      12. The Police – Synchronicity II
      13. Peter Schilling – Major Tom
      14. Tina Turner – We Don’t Need Another Hero
      15. World Party – Ship of Fools

      PS Look for my Iron DJ entry later this week!

      #0045 – File under: remash

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      UPDATE: I neglected to give you a bunch of links where you can download the mashups here and others I found. Those links are now included so you can give the artists, DJs and the geeks who support them some love.

      This is an hour-long mashup of mashups. What is a mashup? Direct from Wikipedia…

      is a song or composition created from the combination of the music from one song with the a cappella from another (also mash up and mash-up). These songs may be considered part of the bastard pop musical genre. “A mash-up is a song created out of pieces of two or more songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the music track of another…Mash-ups are incredible fun and a fascinating way to reexperience some of your favorite tunes.” [2]

      In full swing at the start of the 21st century, mash ups have been described positively are “ultimate post-modern pop song[s]” or “‘culture jamming in its purest form'”[3] and “display an analytical impulse…we actually hear how these songs resonate with one another, comment upon and affect one another…in a way, the music speaks for itself” [4]. They have also been described negatively as “the logical extension of the sampling fever of the ’80s taken to its dumbest extreme”. Due to the questionable legal status of mash ups and little chance of profits “there’s a real punk rock attitude attached to the movement” [3].

      So there you have it 🙂

      1. Battle Funktastic – Hotei vs. Rip Slyme (you’ll have to search for it, because it took me forever to find it after hearing it in 2006 when I was in Tokyo, which is the only place I’ve ever heard it other than my iPod)
      2. Funky Kommissar
      3. In Da Black (AC/DC vs. 50 Cent vs. Scissor Sisters)
      4. Thunder Busters (AC/DC vs. Ray Parker Jr.)
      5. Say No Go – De La Soul (using a sample off of “I Can’t Go For That” by Hall & Oates)
      6. Missin Kittin (Rolling Stones vs. Miss Kittin)
      7. The Way It Is – Prodigy (using the riff from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”)
      8. Britney – Dead or Alive? (Britney Spears vs. Dead or Alive vs. Daft Punk)
      9. Every Car You Chase (The Snow Police (The Police vs. Snow Patrol)
      10. The Way to Dirty Fame (David Bowie vs. Queen vs. Don Henley vs. Sly Fox)
      11. Warning, Rush Where It’s At (Big Audio Dynamite II vs. Beck vs. Green Day)
      12. Break Through Love (The Doors vs. Led Zeppelin)
      13. Cry Little Sister (I Need You Now) – The Lost Brothers
      14. Daft Prayer (Bon Jovi vs. Daft Punk)

      #0025 – File under: Songs I Keep in the Closet

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      These are the songs I’ve been locking away so society won’t judge me, but I can’t deny my love for them any longer.  The shame is eating away at me like a cancer, and it has to breathe free.  I give you Hall and Oates, Wang Chung, Tom Jones, Falco, ABC, Erasure, Nu Shooz, Jermaine Jackson, Gerardo, Snap!, Janet Jackson, Olivia Newton-John, New Edition, Queen, Kansas, ELO, A-Ha, Rod Steward, Chicago, Night Ranger and Michael McDonald.

      #0022 – File under Supremo Awesome Excelsior!

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      This supremely over-the-top mix brings you The Hives, E.L.O., Yes, Queen, Dio, Iron Maiden, Tenacious D, Dethklok, Led Zeppelin, Electric Six, Journey, Muse, Dream Theater, Radiohead and Saul Williams.

      Featured Tracks:

      #0017 – File under: Serenity Now

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      We chill out after last week’s fit of rage and hate with a not-all-unexpected eclectic mix featuring the likes of Darryl Hall, Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, Coldplay, Crowded House, Groove Armada, Sumsonic, The Chemical Brothers, The Whitest Boy Alive, Ladytron, The Ramones, Queen, Three Dog Night, Alice Cooper, Sugar, The Beatles and Oasis.  Trust me: the mix is alright.