stack of vhs tapes photo

NOISE FROM A DISTANCE

Remember that one mixtape you received that changed everything for you? The one that introduced you to the record labels, bands, scenes, and songs that would expand your influences further than you could have dreamed? Okay, now imagine that mixtape coming to you in video form. And you receive a new one every Saturday night at midnight. A charismatic funny-man called “Host” tells you about the videos. You go to the mall to buy tapes of the music you love from the videos, and sometimes they are available, but usually not. This is before the Internet, so you think you are at a loss. Then “Host” extends another hand: now you can buy the music you loved directly from him. You’re set.

Jeff Moody, “Host,” feels like an old friend of the family, though I only met him last year. Every Saturday night of my high school tenure, my sister Alison and I would eagerly prepare a VHS tape in the VCR in the living room of our home and tape Noise Network, a music video show out of Kenosha, WI. “Host,” as he was identified, would introduce the songs with gregarious humor. He talked to us like we were already in on what was cool. He was like having a fun, unpretentious, well-read older brother who didn’t mind telling the kids about what they yearned to understand and didn’t know how to ask about.

My sister Alison and I taped every episode. We painstakingly created indexes with VHS tracking times noted for each video. We rewatched our favorites. When Alison moved away after high school, I made a vhs mix for her with her favorite Noise Network videos to remind her of home.

stack of vhs tapes photo

    stack of Noise Network/ Noise Bazaar VHS tapes

We had been jealous of our friends who had cable and let us watch their vhs tapes of 120 Minutes. But here I was, braces just off, contact lenses finally replacing the glasses I never wore, home from one of my first fumbling, exciting teenage romantic nights out, unwittingly stumbling upon the best underground music education I could ever hope for. Alison and I thought our prayers had been answered. They had.

When I met Jeff Moody for this interview, at PRF Thundersnow in Escanaba MI in 2019 https://www.prfbbq.com/category/event/prf-thundersnow-2019, he spent a large part of the time before, during, and after the event talking excitedly about other people’s bands, podcasts, and projects. He is an inveterate champion of others. Ironically, most of the people at PRF Thundersnow did not know that Jeff spent 7 years hosting an underground music video program and music home shopping program long before the Internet, a program that also produced a zine called NoisePaper that was shipped to viewers’ doors— a project that influenced scores of people in towns and cities dotting the U.S. and even sparked a local music scene in Trinidad.

Here is the story of Noise Network and Noise Bazaar. Take it away, Jeff!…

Sarah: What were you doing when the Noise idea came about? Where were you in life?

Jeff: We were in college. And Noise Bazaar actually came out of a thing called Video Whiplash. Video Whiplash went to community colleges. I was taking classes in a radio broadcast communications program. I was programming the student radio station there. Frank Booth was the Instructional Media Coordinator there at the community college. He was hearing what I was doing with the radio station. I had changed everything that was going on with the radio station. And he got excited about it. Part of his thing with being Instructional Media Coordinator was to prepare educational programming for people over cable television. It was like Internet courses, but before the Internet. It was on direct cable television. People subscribed to a class, and they’d take their class at home over television.

Sarah: For college credit? Really?

Jeff: Yeah, that was his thing. So he was like, “You guys are doing really cool things with the radio station. How would you like to do a video show, too? Could you do it? I’d be interested in helping to put that together.”

He had all the technical skill. I’m all about aesthetics and nonsense, and he can actually pull things together. So we’re a pretty good team.

So we were doing Video Whiplash with some of the other students who were friends. And then after doing Video Whiplash for a while, it was pretty popular in town, and we were pretty focused on, “Why don’t we try to do one outside of town? And one that’s not tied to the school so we can do what we want.” Some of the videos that we were showing on Video Whiplash– because we always liked to push the envelope in terms of content–they were kind of like, “We got some calls about this. We got some calls about that.” So we were like, “Let’s try to do something on our own outside of the school.” And that’s where the idea came from.

Sarah: Okay. What school was this?

Jeff: Gateway Technical College in Kenosha.

from kenoshacounty.org

Sarah: You were a student at that school?

Jeff: I was a student there, yeah. Not a very good student. Not very far through. See, here’s how the college radio station there used to work. They didn’t really broadcast. They had a cable channel that the school had for their educational programming. When the educational programming wasn’t running, they would run audio from the student radio station. The student radio station would have a bake sale or a book sale twice a year to raise money. And then they would send the Program Director to the local record store, and they would buy like the top 40 45s, and then that’s what they would play for the next six months.

And my idea was, “There’s College Music Journal out there. And I think I can get a free subscription to College Music Journal if I report back to them what I was playing on the station. And if I can do that, then I can get record companies to just send us records. And the money that you are using to buy records through your bake sales or book sales or whatever—we can use that to buy new equipment.” That was my idea, to be Program Director for the station.

So everybody was kind of like, “Okay that sounds like a good idea.”

So I got a hold of CMJ. CMJ was like, “Yeah sure. Send us a playlist.” I started calling up record companies. Said, “We’re in CMJ.” I started with the big labels because they obviously have the most discretionary money. They’ll just throw you any records. It was the smaller labels that were tough to get. A really good example of that is Gerard Cosloy. Does that name ring a bell?

Sarah: Yes, Matador?

Jeff: Yeah. So before he was with Matador, Cosloy was with Homestead Records. And he was basically doing everything there. And one of the greatest features of College Music Journal was the letters section. Cosloy ruled the letters section. Somebody should take all of his CMJ letters and put them in a compendium book because his writing was brilliant. He was super funny. Super dead on. Ferocious about independent music and keeping the corporate labels out of it. He was one of the first guys I had an eye on, because I really liked him. I really wanted to get Homestead Records because I wanted to work with him.Homestead Records logo And his first response was, “Well, you’re playing the Screaming Blue Messiahs and you’re playing all this crap from Elektra and WEA and all the majors. Why am I going to send you my records?”

“I can’t play them if I don’t have them. I’m playing what I have right now. I’m just starting this thing out. So I know how it looks to you probably. But the goal is to get you and every other indie label in here, too, so we can really start working that. But right now I’ve got the majors sending me stuff because they can.”

He was kind of like, “Whatever…” And I kept at him and I kept at him. After about four or five months, he started seeing the playlists from CMJ and then he called me up one time. He said, “I’m glad you stayed on me because it looks like you’ve got a pretty cool thing going there.” He also saw that we were doing Video Whiplash, which is an extra thing that most college stations don’t do. We were one of the few college radio stations that actually had a video show too that was doing well. So he ended up sending me videos, too. And it was cool.

And I ended up booking shows in our town. One of our classmates who’s still one of my best friends, he was renovating a theatre in Kenosha, The Orpheum Theatre, and he wanted to have live music there.

1922 kenosha orpheum photo

built in 1922, the kenosha orpheum. photo from kenoshaorpheum.com

We had an early version of Smashing Pumpkins. We had Royal Crescent Mob from Ohio. My Dad Is Dead, who were on Homestead.

Die Kreuzen flyer

flyer for a die kreuzen show at the orpheum that jeff organized. he found this image online a while back and said, “that looks familiar!”

So the whole thing with Cosloy and a lot of other people, too. It sort of just developed into doing other things, too, like actually bringing bands in town.

And we started doing Noise Network. At first, we were just a straight up music video show. And we knew we couldn’t get advertising in the traditional sense. So that’s when we started talking about how maybe we could supplement our advertising with selling records, because that seemed to be what people needed. That was the response we were getting from kids. The low power television network that we were talking about earlier, they were in towns like this! Escanaba would be a place for an LPTV station. Where are you going to go to the mall to a record shop to buy records up here—even back when there were record stores?! You’d have to go to Marquette, probably. That was the predicament a lot of kids were in. We filled that niche for selling records. But anyway, that’s how it started.

Noise Bazaar coupon

noise bazaar coupon – 75¢ off!

Sarah: So you had Video Whiplash. How did it progress from there to Noise?

Jeff: Video Whiplash was a college, noncommercial, nonprofit thing. We were trying to position Noise Bazaar as something that was going to make enough money to continue to fund itself instead of using school funds. Plus, we would have total creative control, too.

I think Revolting Cocks gave us problems just because of the name. We wanted to play Revolting Cocks all the time, everything that they had. Even if the song was clean and the video was clean, people would see the name and they’d call the school, “Hey! What’s this?” The school being a school, they were very smaller town, very reactionary. “Hey, you guys, what are you doing?” And they’d put some pressure on Frank, put some pressure on us. And that was when we started talking about, “Let’s try to do something on our own, just to see if we can do it!” And we ended up doing that for seven years.

Sarah: When you started it, did you have a sense of how long—did you have a vision of, “O gosh maybe this could expand outside of a certain area,” or?

Jeff: Of course, there was always the joke about how we’d eventually be able to just program shows from the beach. Just imagining. This was way before the Internet, way before wireless.

At the time, we had no idea what it was going to do, if anything. But the plan was to beat MTV. Or just be something cooler than MTV because you look at MTV now, over time, and it’s, “Yeah it was a cool thing that they were doing.” But the music programming that they were doing was pretty unadventurous. Even 120 Minutes, it was a lot of the stuff Cosloy was critical of, it was a lot of major label stuff. Homestead would never have anything on 120 Minutes. And Matt Pinfield might have been super stoked about something like Phantom Tollbooth that he might have seen on a small, small label, but for whatever reason, he was never able to get that stuff on. So that was our thing, to be something cooler than they were, just by virtue of playing stuff that no one would ever have a chance to hear.

We even took videos from bands that didn’t even have a record deal, but made a video themselves- or tried to. As long as it was weird and different, we would play it if we could. As long as it wasn’t nudity or violence that the FCC wouldn’t let us broadcast.

i loved this humidifier video. shot on super 8 = homemade necessarily? 

Sarah: So, you had Video Whiplash. It turned into Noise. Video Whiplash had this college support, and then when you segued it to Noise, how were you accessing distribution?

Jeff: Even before that, when we did Video Whiplash, we were able to use the school’s equipment, so production-wise, everything was done at the school. Once we were done with that, and we were doing Noise, we worked out of this place called Jones Intercable in Kenosha.

Sarah: O! Yeah! I remember that in the credits!

Jeff: Yeah, it was Jones Intercable. They were the local cable company. And they access television equipment. But we weren’t part of the whole access thing because we wanted to be a noncommercial thing. So they worked it out with us where – I don’t think they even charged us anything- maybe it was like 5 bucks a week- because the guy who was the station manager or the operations manager there, he liked us a lot. He wanted to see it happen. So he gave us kind of a sweet deal. At the time, it was me and Frank, and it was two other people, too, that were students. And then after [the first year] it was just Frank and me. Frank and I were pretty strident about what we wanted to do and the music that we wanted to play. At first, we were on a local cable channel in Kenosha, we had one in Racine, and we were on a local broadcast cable channel in Milwaukee. It was TV49 or something like that. They were like a weird UHF channel, and they picked up the show. I think that’s all we had until Channel America came along. And Channel America came along almost instantly, right at the right time.

Sarah: So what was Channel America?

Jeff: They were a television network that catered to low power television stations. Low power television stations were government-owned broadcast stations that were set up for the Emergency Broadcast system. This is all before the Internet. It really was broadcast, right? So whenever there would be a tornado warning or something like that, these tv stations would put out a warning and hope that people would be watching that tv channel at the time so they’d be warned. [laughter] Weird, I guess. When you think about technology NOW and how you get these alerts on your phone, it’s so much more efficient than what they were trying to do back then. But they were trying to do it with the technology that they had.

Emergency Broadcast System screen

People that owned these low powered tv stations were typically like, dentists or whatever. That was always the joke. It was someone who did good on their tax return and wanted to do a little something with their money, put it in something, so they’d buy a tv station. What are you going to put on your tv station? That’s where they came up with the idea of Channel America. You can provide really rock bottom, cheap programming. That was us!

It was funny because we would watch the satellite feed sometimes. So we would see what was on before us. And there was a tv show called “Only the Rich Cry” and it was one of those telenova things. It was hilarious! It was so terrible! It was like the worst soap opera! It was so bad it was hilarious. So we would try to tune into that before our show. We came on right after that.

That’s what Channel America was. The guy who was their program director was a guy who was a promotion person, a rep at a label. And he left that job to become program director. He called us up and said, “Your show’s perfect for this weird new network that I’m going to be working on. Do you want in?” And we were like, “Yeah definitely! We’ve got nothing else.” It was really good timing. And that got us on about 150 stations around the U.S. and Canada and then Trinidad, too.

Trinidad turned out to be a really huge thing for us because nobody in Trinidad had heard this music before. They had never heard the Cows or any of the Am Rep stuff. By all accounts, from all the mail we got from them- and years later I heard from a bunch of the people down there, too- I’m still in touch with some of them over social media—we really changed a lot of people’s lives down there. They heard this stuff and went nuts and started bands and started new music nights at clubs. They started a record store in Port-Au-Prince that catered to “alternative” music.

List of stations carrying Noise Bazaar

That’s how Channel America got going and pulled us in.

Sarah: Was that a business deal where you had a contract with Channel America?

Jeff: I don’t even think we signed anything. This guy loved the show. He must have been with a label that we liked a lot, a smaller label, an indie label. We must have liked him a lot because we did play a bunch of his stuff, and that’s how that relationship kind of went. He dug what we were doing, and they were our vehicle for a long time.

They even ran re-runs for a few years. I think they just went back to the first season and kept running it. I kept hearing from people- why are there re-runs? Well, because we quit. We’re not doing it anymore. “O that sucks.” Yep.

Sarah: So were you getting a lot of mail from the beginning?

Jeff: Ummmm, no. It just sort of progressed. In the beginning, we weren’t on too many stations. But once we got on Channel America, we started getting letters from all over the place. It was weird how many prisoners we got mail from. [laughter] Like in California, I remember specifically, there were a lot of guys who would write us, like “Yeah, I’m in for this amount of time. I always liked punk rock. You guys are cool. Thank god, it’s something weird and different in my life. I really look forward to your show every Saturday.” Yeah, a lot of prisoners in California for some reason. There must have been a couple of different prisons that let the guys watch the show. [laughter]

And then I remember the big places were Havasu City in Arizona. A weird little town. Got a lot of mail from Pittsburgh on a regular basis for a long time. Different cities in Ohio, Georgia, Texas—Plano, Texas, we had a station down there. When Trinidad hit, that’s when the letters doubled. For quite a while, half the mail was from everywhere else and then half the mail was coming from people in Trinidad who were like, “What is this?!”

Sarah: Would you answer the mail, at the time?

Jeff: We would pick a letter every week: “And now a letter from a viewer!”

There was this mystery for a while. Somebody was watching us on satellite. And they’d send us a postcard every month or so. And it would be from a different place. And it was always some kind of weird cryptic—Easter Island, or – it was all these really weird places. And they’d send a postcard that just had a pagan thing on it or something. And we were like, “Who’s this mystery person? This is so weird.” And we were never able to figure out who it was or where they actually lived or anything. But we always knew it was the same person because it had the same handwriting and it would always come from some strange place like the North Pole or somewhere way up in Canada that barely has a postal code. Very strange.

Yeah, the mail was really weird. And again, it was all before the Internet, so it was all snail mail. The Internet started coming around with email in like ‘94 or ‘95, so Frank had compuserv. So we had an email address but nobody knew how to use email at the time so we didn’t really get any email. We tried to set up an ordering service for records on the email. But again it was just too early for people to think about. It’s funny now! Everything’s done on the Internet. At the time, you couldn’t even get people to use fucking email. [laughter] It’s just weird.

Sarah: Tell me about getting content for the show.

Sarah in 1991 in Pylon t-shirt

noise bazaar is what made it possible for a 15-year old in a small town to wear a pylon t-shirt to school. and perpetuate this ‘tude.

Jeff: It’s kind of like when I was telling you about Cosloy. He was an early guy. A lot of what we were getting for Noise just was a natural progression from what I was doing at the college station. People knew me by then and so it was just really easy—and the more we worked at it, the easier it became. People started just sending us stuff. We didn’t even have to call and people were sending us stuff we didn’t even want. And it was all FedEx and UPS. Now everything is EPK [Electronic Press Kit] and you can send it electronically. But at the time, the amount of money that they were spending on overnighting videos! I would get 40-50 FedExes a week. My basement was just full of content. And they were sending them on ¾ inch tapes. So that’s huge. The difference now between all the physical stuff we had. You could fill a landfill with it. Versus EPKs, and just sending everything electronically. It’s totally different.

3/4" tape

3/4″ tape. photo from currentpixel.com

But we just had such a reputation from the school days that it all carried over into Noise that it just got bigger and pretty soon everyone was sending us stuff.

One of the funniest stories—you know the song that’s on every football game- “Whoomp there it is! Whoomp there it is!” I can’t remember what the name of the group was but they were one of these Miami outfits. Luther Campbell was sending us stuff for a while. We got that video, and we were like, “This is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” You know? “We’re not going to play this.” I think we did play it once at the end of a show with the end credits, because it was kind of fun but we were like, “This is so dumb.” Six months later, every football stadium, every place in the country is: “Whoomp there it is!” And we were like, “Yeah, we’re really good at picking what people want to hear, right? What are we doing, even?”

Sarah: What was that curation process like? You’re getting all this stuff.

Jeff: Every week, we would sit—when we first started, like I said, there were four of us, and I guess Frank and I got real nazi about things because there was stuff we definitely did want to play and there was stuff we definitely weren’t going to play. The other people involved- I think eventually we just wore them down. Then it just became him and me. Our vision- the two of us- was completely congruent. We both liked the same stuff, so it was really easy. A little different. I would turn Frank on to things, and he would open my mind to things: “Give it another try and think about this.” We both did that for years with each other.

Sarah: What was his aesthetic versus your aesthetic do you think?

Jeff: He got me into Nick Cave. He got me into Birthday Party. I think I got him into stuff he never really thought about like things that were newer coming up that he didn’t really hear.

I was always looking for – who haven’t I heard of yet that’s going to be great? Who’s going to be new? Guided By Voices was one that I hooked onto first and was like “How can you not love these guys?” I would slide him something. ‘Yeah! It’s great!”

We’re both Public Enemy fans from the beginning. We were insane about Public Enemy. That period of time between ’88 and ’92, rap music was the only important music being made. De La Soul. Public Enemy. There was so much good stuff coming out through that time period. We were both congruent on that.

I think he’s always definitely been into the darker stuff. I like it, But I think I’m a bigger fan of pop music than he is. So that would kind of lighten him up a little bit. It worked. We were a really good partnership, just in every way. We both really liked each other a lot and we were influenced by some of the same things.

Sarah: And you knew each other before college?

Jeff: No, I didn’t even – I was like the last person in the program to meet him. He kind of came to me last because I was never around. I was always doing stuff. But he was hearing all the results because he was listening to the station. I remember meeting him for the first time and he was like, ‘How did you think of all this? To go at CMJ and all that?” “I just talked to people. I just researched it and started calling people.” Back then, before cell phones, I racked up some pretty big phone bills at the school and they were a little alarmed by that. But I got a pass on it because of the results. All these records that were coming in that we were getting. And press that we were getting that drew some attention to the school. It’s funny how – well, it makes sense–there’s some attention that they liked and some attention that they didn’t like. They really liked the positive chatter that they would get in the newspaper because of what we were doing with the show and the things that people would say. But, play the ‘Thrill Kill Kult and Kooler than Jesus and there are all of a sudden one or two people that can throw the whole train off. “That’s blasphemy!” people would freak out.

Sarah: What happened with the Kooler Than Jesus video?

Jeff: I’ll tell you about that. We got kicked off of several stations in Georgia when we played Kooler Than Jesus. All it took was one time. They contacted Channel America and said “We want to get off of that show.” And luckily, like I said, we were friends with the program director. He was just like, “They really don’t like Kooler Than Jesus. This is down in the bible belt, so they’re really kind of freaking out about it. And they don’t want to run the show anymore.” “O that’s too bad. But whatever Because we’re going to do more of it.” We joked about it: “Hey, if you’re in Dublin, Georgia, see if you can pick up a signal in Athens.” We were still trying to communicate to them. It was a drag, too, because the stations that we lost in Georgia—we got mail from those places. The kids really dug it. But that was just a video too far for a lot of people. They complained. I’d think those folks would be in bed getting ready for church instead of being up so late on a Saturday night.

Sarah: They were busy getting offended.

Jeff: Yeah, that was funny. I interviewed Groovy Man a year after that or something and I don’t know if I told him about that or not. I’m pretty sure I did and I’m pretty sure he found it hilarious. He was a cool guy. One of the more interesting interviews to do. But that’s how that went. We were just on the air one week [snap] and off the next. All because of the Thrill Kill Kult.

Sarah: So when you were going through the videos, did you watch everything that you received?

Jeff: Yeah, we would. All that stuff came to my house.

Sarah: It was your personal residence?

Jeff: Yeah, and my basement would fill up. And I’d take all of the videos to Frank. They were usually on ¾”s. I think he had a ¾” machine at his place. And he would edit it all down to one VHS so that we could just run and watch the whole VHS tape and watch them all in succession. So, maybe 30-40 clips a week. And then we would take what we liked out of the new stuff, figure out how much time it would take. Can we fit it in? Do we play it now or push it off to next week? Is there something that we want to bring back from a couple weeks ago because we really like that track? We could shoot a clip out there, just play it one time, but you really gotta get it out there a few times if you really want it to sink in. There were some clips that were that good or that we liked that much. We would play a couple times. So it was kind of a mix of what’s new, and what do we want to really drill into people’s heads. Kind of make it work that way so that it’s fresh and strong. A fresh, strong playlist each week.

Your peak seasons are- I think releases probably still work the same- where, in the spring, you have a big flood of records come out. Toward the end of summer, when kids go back to school, there’s a big flood of records. And then around Christmastime, there’s usually a big last push of either new music or compilations coming out. So when it was a slower time of year, we would try to rework older things in, or go back to an artist that we really liked, something old, and try to pad the list out. Because we didn’t have new things. Depending upon what time of the year, we always tried to make it as new as possible, as fresh as possible. And then through repetition, work the things that we thought deserved to be pushed a little bit harder.

There was also, and this is one of the things that contributed to us not being interested in doing it after years and years of doing it was- labels were spending more and more money with us, and then, in turn you’d play the clips once or twice.

Sarah: What does spending more and more money with you mean?

Jeff: They would either buy straight-up a spot, or-

Sarah: O, you were playing for pay?

Jeff: We didn’t call it that, but that’s what it was. Basically. And we were increasingly uncomfortable as we did more and more of it.

Sarah: When did that start?

Jeff: It kind of always sort of went on but it became more and more blatant as time went on, I think. And that’s when we got less and less interested in it. The last straw for me was when No Doubt’s first record came out, the Tragic Kingdom. They bought the back page of the NoisePaper. I think they dropped like a grand. Which is ridiculous because we would print, maybe, 1,000 of those things, you know? It’s crazy. And then we would play the video. We didn’t push it that hard. One of the things was, we knew what they were doing. But what we would do is, we would stick Tragic Kingdom between Cows and Alien Sex Fiend or whatever. [laughter] And we wouldn’t even back-sell it. I think we back-sold No Doubt once.

In retrospect, it’s stupid because I actually like that band a lot now. At the time, it was kind of like, “What’s this ska/pop goofy music?” Not really recognizing that they were really a great pop band. I have a greater appreciation now for pop music than I did. I guess I did back then but I was fighting with myself all the time about it. But now I don’t care. If I like a song I don’t say, “It’s not punk enough” or whatever.

We were faced with that increasingly. Some labels were cool about it, too. Warner Brothers were very soft sell with, “We just want to but some advertising. Columbia, on the other hand, had a guy who was just a sledgehammer all the time: “Okay, so if I do this, what am I gonna get?” I used to hate that guy! I hated talking to him! I can’t remember his name. He ended up being like a VP somewhere, of course, because he was good! He was just a dick. He would never stop, you know? He was rewarded for all that. We just got increasingly uncomfortable with it. Yeah, it kinda was pay for play in a lot of cases.

Or they would spend some money on advertising in conjunction with a special promotion. We did a sausage party before there was such a thing as sausage party. That was Les Claypool’s side band, [Sausage]. We just picked a bar in town. I think their promotion person at Interscope got a hold of Johnsonville Brats. Johnsonville Brats put up like 10 lbs of bratwurst or something like that for the party. And then someone could win a case of bratwurst. And then this cool Johnsonville/Weber grill cooler combination thing–we had some kind of crazy thing that we were able to give away for this party. They would put all these things together, and they would throw us some money for it. Consequently, some advertising would come out of that, too. There were a million different ways you could work that. Sometimes it translated into straight pay-for-play basically. We tried to avoid that.

Flyer for Sausage promo

“the wurst party of the summer”

Another one would be the Ministry Drive-By Vacation

Sarah: Yeah, tell me about that!

Jeff: I have a hard time remembering. I forgot a lot of that. I remember the sausage party one because it was a big all-day thing. But the Drive-By Vacation one was one that we did strictly on the show. We didn’t do anything off-site, and not a special show or anything. I just remember that one came through for the Jesus Built My Hotrod- it was kind of built around that.

Sarah: Who made those t-shirts?

Jeff: Uh, the label did. Warner Brothers.

Sarah: Really? It definitely looks like someone’s bedroom silkscreen project.

Jeff: I’m pretty sure that the label did that, and they paid for everything. As I remember they did a really good job of making it really—

Sarah: D.I.Y-looking. Yeah.

Jeff: Which was pretty cool.

Sarah: Do you think the label was like, “O we should make this a writing contest?”

Jeff: No, that was our idea. Yeah. We had a really good relationship with Warner Brothers. Wendy Griffiths, she was the person that we dealt with almost exclusively with video. And she was awesome. Always encouraging. Loved the show. Big fan of it. Most of the time they would just ask us. You want to do a contest? What do you want to do? Think about it and call me back. So we’d think about it.

The guy at Columbia always had a very definite idea: “Here’s what I want you to do.” But most people were different. They just let us come up with something. Or we would just collaborate together on something. I think Frank came up with that idea. Let’s do a drive-by vacation story. That was a good one. When you did a promotion, you either really wanted to do it. Or it was like, “O god, it’s No Doubt again. Okay.” But Ministry. Spend your money with us on that. That’s perfect.

Sarah wearing drive-by vacation t-shirt

proud second-place winner, about 30 years later and still beaming. photo by val moody

Sarah: There was Noise Network. Deciding to sell the music seems like a big step.

Jeff: Yeah.

Sarah: So what was that about?

Jeff: The Noise Network, the original idea was to be like an MTV if we could eventually grow it into a 24/7 channel. And I guess it was kind of the idea with Noise Bazaar, too. We’ll be on just an hour a week and do this whole constant thing where people want to buy records from us. They’ll get exposed to stuff and want to buy it from us and then buy it. So it was Noise Network before we came up with the idea of actually selling the records. And then we were like- what are we going to call it now? If we’re going to sell records, then what are we going to call it? And somehow we agreed on Bazaar. We liked the way it sounded. Is it bizarre? Of course it’s bizarre! No, it’s bazaar, like an outdoor bazaar. But that’s how that happened.

Sarah: How many years in was that?

Jeff: I want to say that it was within a year or two. I believe. The way I could really check it is to look at the old NoisePapers because really all the information from the show—I haven’t even watched an episode in, 20 years maybe. It’s been that long. At my birthday party, there was a clip from one of the shows. But that was the last time I’ve seen ANYTHING related to the show at all. That was six years ago. Before that, I hadn’t watched an episode in ages.

Sarah: One thing about the Noise Bazaar business model that I’m curious about is that when I looked back at the catalog that was in the Noise Paper, it seemed like you had just a handful of titles from a lot of different labels. So how did that work? Wouldn’t it have been more beneficial for the labels if you were like, “I’ll take fifteen of your titles or I’ll take all of your titles” or whatever. I mean, were they still happy to be selling you several copies of one title sometimes?

Cassette tape purchases influenced by Noise

some cassette tapes purchased specifically because of a video on noise. notably missing here is galaxie 500, mazzy star, and snakefinger, among others

Jeff: Yeah. They knew that what we were doing was highly experimental. No one else was doing it. So, that got us a lot of—not clout—that’s the wrong word to use. But it’s the only one I can think of in this case. But it gave them a reason to say, “Let’s cooperate with this because if it takes off, there may be real potential here.” So everybody was really happy to accommodate us. What we tried to do is we tried to focus the catalog on the stuff that we were playing. Keeping it there. On most rosters, that was a small percentage of what they actually offered. Just to ballpark a number, 25 percent would actually get the budget to also make a music video. Because the label believes in them that much. And the rest, just put out a record and that’s it. We would focus our effort on whomever had the video we were playing.

If I remember correctly, maybe every biannually, we would put out a supplemental catalog that was more open to—it wasn’t on the show necessarily. But in the Noise Paper, we would offer more titles. More titles than we actually stocked but we knew we’d be able to turn around within a reasonable amount of time. 4-6 weeks, we’d try to turn these things around. We’d get an order from the person. Then we’d have to order from the label. And everything was done by pony express.

Sarah: Mm-hm. Who was doing that?

Jeff: Frank. Frank did the mail order.

Sarah: So you didn’t have extra help when you decided to become an entire retail operation?

Jeff: No, that was pretty much Frank. I’d get the orders. I’d give them to him. I did have some records stocked at my house, too, so I could fill some of them. But I mostly handled the videos coming in and dealing with the labels. And Frank pretty much handled the retail. I would handle the label promotion stuff and advertising. He would handle a lot of that, too. And organizing the interviews. I hated the interviews. I didn’t like to interview bands. I just didn’t enjoy it. There were very few that I enjoyed. But he liked doing it. And Frank was a really good interviewer. One of the best I’ve seen. You met J.J. last night, too. J.J. was a really good interviewer. Me, I’m too self-interested. I don’t care what these people think. [laughter] I just don’t. With the exception of David Yow. David Yow was the greatest interview ever. He’s the greatest guy.

Sarah: Did the Noise Paper come right when Noise Bazaar happened?

Jeff: It did coincide with Noise Bazaar because we had this idea that it could be a fanzine and a catalog. Besides what people see on the television, we could bolster that with the purchase codes and stuff inside a magazine. Make a catalog. So yeah they did kind of coincide with each other. It was also nice, too, because we were kind of like, “Well, we’re going to sell records. Let’s write reviews. Let’s do interviews with the artists.” The interviews that we do on the show, a lot of times we could only show 5 percent of what we actually talked about. But when you write it all down, you can expand that format. You can’t put a 30 minute conversation on a video show because you’re not going to have enough time to show the videos. But you can put it all in writing, and people can go back and read it over and over. The two would work together in that way. That was the idea.

We wanted to write, too. I liked writing record reviews.  It was just another exercise that was kind of fun. Frank was a really good writer. He was interested in doing that, too. We had friends that were like, “I’ll write a review! I’ll write a review!” J.J. wrote reviews for us. He did a great job. We had some writers who were good friends. I wrote under eight different aliases. Frank did, too. It was fun to make up names for all of that. It was definitely an offshoot of Noise Bazaar.

J.J. at Thundersnow 2019

Noisepaper writer J.J., also at Thundersnow 2019!

Sarah: How successful was the mail order aspect of what you were doing?

Jeff: In terms of being a money-making venture, not successful at all. In terms of getting records to select kids who followed through and would order, and probably would have never gotten that record if they hadn’t gotten it from us- very successful. There were very happy people. So yeah.

Financially, no. But in terms of turning kids on to stuff and getting it into their hands, it worked for some people.

We made enough money to plough it back into the thing and keep making the show, keep making the fanzine. The show didn’t cost us that much to do because we had that relationship with Jones where they just kind of let us come in and do stuff. We used their studio for a few years and then we stopped using their studio, but we used to do it out of Frank’s apartment.

I don’t know if you remember, but we used to give things away every week, and we had the ghostly margarine prize bucket. Were you still watching during those days? We had the ghostly margarine prize bucket? I think it was later. The story behind that was that when they were in Frank’s apartment, Frank’s son was maybe seven or eight at the time, and there used to be around Halloween-time at McDonald’s this white pumpkin bucket that they would put a happy meal in. It was stuffed under the couch when Frank’s son was done playing with it.  And one day, I was like, “We need to have something to put all the names in so I can draw a name.” So I reached under the couch and pulled out the thing. And we just called it the ghostly margarine prize bucket. It stuck and got really popular. We wanted to give it its own theme song.

There were a lot of things we did on that show. Do you remember Woody? The famous international playboy? It was just a mannequin head. And we did, like, clutch cargo lifts on him.

We started getting really fancy with cgi effects and clutch cargo lifts. 1960s technology in a 1990s video. Thirty years late.

Woody would read letters from viewers sometimes. Or he would give something away.

Sarah: Were you writing all the segues yourself and then reading them off cue cards?

Jeff: When we first started, I had this idea that it was going to really regimented and really scripted. But I wanted to write my own stuff. But after a while, it just got so easy and conversational that I would just ad lib everything. It was probably after like two years that I was like, “Ah, forget the cue cards, man.” Unless it was something really specific, like rules to a contest or something like that, then I would script it out. But it was much easier and much more fun to just ad lib it. So yeah, I would do it that way. It was fun.

That part was really fun. I was never uncomfortable for a minute.

Sarah: That’s a real skill.

Jeff: It’s not really a skill for me. It’s just like walking. I don’t know why, but I get on camera, and I don’t care. It’s just fine. It’s kind of turned out that way with bands, too. My stage banter is A plus. I can wing it with anyone, and I’ll be fine. It’s lucky that way. I get lucky.

Sarah: Tell me about when you felt it winding down. What were some of the early warning signs that this thing was gonna wind down?

Jeff: I had to work my regular job. I was taking on more and more responsibilities there. Same thing with Frank. And honestly he was doing way more work than I was. I was already overwhelmed by ’97. That was part of it. We were just burned out and tired.

A big part of it was that music was changing, too. When we started it, the whole alternative phenomenon happened. At the start of that, what the radio was calling alternative had a different meaning than college alternative, college rock, that was our thing. College rock was all-encompassing, everything from reggae to punk rock to black metal, whatever. The industry took that term and turned it into any band that sounds like Nirvana. Grunge. That’s alternative radio. Then, after ’97 or so, alternative started to mean Limp Bizkit, too. It started getting really kind of aggro. And I hate that stuff. I hated that stuff. And so did Frank. We saw that that’s where the money was being spent. Linkin Park. A lot of people liked Linkin Park, but it was passed me. I didn’t care for it. So, music was changing.

One thing we didn’t like as the whole thing was going on was that music labels were swallowing up the smaller bands from the indie labels; they were draining the indie rosters. When Capitol signed the Jesus Lizard, it was like, ‘What’s going to happen there?” At first, it was like, “Oh that’s cool, they’re going to make some money.” But you never make money with the labels because all they’re doing is they’re making an upfront investment, and then they’re going to expect a return on that investment. And maybe you’ll get your house paid for, if you’re lucky. But they’re going to own your songs. They’re going to own you.

What I didn’t understand about Capitol was, they grabbed the Jesus Lizard, recorded two or three albums, but never promoted them. They didn’t drop a penny on promotion. Touch and Go spent more money promoting them than Capitol did. Capitol has 80,000 times the resources. So, we didn’t like any of that stuff. My joke early on was, “I’ll believe this alternacrap thing is real when the Cows get signed to Columbia or something.”

We were tired. Things were changing. And we were getting increasingly uncomfortable with the pay per play situation, too, because it was getting more and more blatant. “We’re going to spend this much money. How many times are you going to play the video?” And it wasn’t just Columbia anymore asking the question. More and more people changed at different labels. That whole combination of things. We were just like, “That’s enough. Let’s stop. Let’s stop and take a break.” I was burned out.

But that was pretty much it. That was the end. I think it was pretty unceremonious, too. I think it was the end of 1997. We didn’t even do a “last show” thing. We just stopped. That was it. We gave Channel America a heads up so that they would know. The same guy was programming, and I think he told us, “We’ll just run reruns for a while, and if you guys change your mind, let me know.” But we were pretty solid on that. We were really done.

Sarah: And you both came to that at about the same time, you and Frank?

Jeff: Yeah! Into ’97, the beginning of the new year, we had said, “So, how much longer are we going to do this, really? How much longer can we go at this pace?” Because we were doing the show every week.  We were doing the Noisepaper every quarter. For a while, we were doing a radio show, too. We were nuts. That lasted about two years. I think that was ’95, ’96.

Sarah: What was it called?

Jeff: Noise Bazaar Radio. That gave us a chance to [play music with] no video attached. Or, here’s an album and the cuts on the album. So it gave us a chance to do a little more. Or a band that we liked that didn’t have a video.

There was some guy with a satellite radio network thing that we found. Or he found us.

Yeah, after all that, by ’97, we were asking each other, “How long can we really keep doing this?” I knew Frank was really burning out. He was doing a lot. I was taking on more responsibilities at my real job. I became the trainer where I was at. Pharmaceutical industry training is nuts. It’s all paperwork-intensive. It was before all the electronic cataloging that you do now. Back then, it all had to be done by hand. It was a lot. It was super labor intensive. And I had more kids coming, too. I felt like I didn’t have enough time with the kids. A lot of different reasons. Frank’s son was getting into middle school/high school age, so requiring more attention. There was a lot. It was the right time. Seven years is enough, I think. That was the end.

Sarah: Do you have anything that you think about sometimes about Noise?

Jeff: Yeah, I often wonder. We were just ahead of the technology. I used to wonder, man, if the Internet would have come along just a little earlier, or if we would have been just a little bit later.

But it doesn’t really matter because Shawn Fanning in ‘99 did Napster. And that was the beginning of the end of physical product.

I used to wonder, “Should I have worked in the music industry instead of just working the regular jobs that I worked?” But I’m glad I didn’t because it would have been actual work, and I always wanted this to be fun. And not work. And now there’s no physical—there’s no record industry anyway. So who cares? And I never really cared much about that part of it anyway outside of- yes- getting this record into the hands of this kid in Kansas or someplace. That part was cool. But I never really thought of it as a real career option. But sometimes I do wonder.

I had a buddy. This was in ’99 I think. After we were done with Noise. He was a year ahead of me in high school. Or two years. He was an engineer. He was a brilliant guy, and he took a job at Bell Labs while he was going to college. And he’s still with Lucent Technologies. I saw him in ’99 on the 4th of July, and we were walking around. We were in this big field where there were going to be fireworks pretty soon. “Think about what you want to do with music in terms of delivering it to people,” he said. “because, I’m going to tell you, pretty soon everyone’s going to be able to walk around and access the Internet right where we are now.”

“What are you talking about?”

He said, “There’s no name for it yet. But it’s wireless technology, so you’re not going to have to be hooked up to anything to access the Internet like you do now.” Because it was dial-up at the time. He said, “you’ll just be able to walk around anywhere with it.” And there really wasn’t the smart phones that we have now.

I thought, “We’re not doing the show anymore. I don’t even know how I would do anything.” Spotify wasn’t even an idea.

That’s why I like Spotify so much, because if you had told me that I could carry the entire history of music in my pocket and access it, if you had told me that 25 years ago, I would have laughed at you. But you can actually do that now. I think it’s a miracle. I love my Spotify. Like last night- who’s this band? ESG! Boom, I’ve got it, and all night I’m going to be listening to that song cause it’s awesome. I love that kind of thing.

We had visions. All these things in order for something to be successful. All these things have to line up just right in order for it to work on any level at all. And it’s a miracle when it all does.

Jeff Moody was a co-producer and the host (known as HOST) of the nationally televised music video show and TV record shop Noise Bazaar from 1990 to 1997. In 2000, he began publishing Stripwax, the world’s only comic strip record review, which was published in dozens of alt-weekly newspapers around the US and Canada until 2013. Moody is the father of six children, works as a microbial environmental control specialist, sings in the rock band Fowlmouth, and occasionally hosts The PRF Radio Hour at www.radionope.com. He lives with his wife Valerie and their four dogs in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Jeff Moody

jeff


 

Friendship Books and Pen Pal Mix Tapes

Before the internet, the search for cultural guideposts required patience and ingenuity. Once your friends’ cultural knowledge had been exhausted, you were back to mining thank you credits in album liner notes or ads in the back of ‘zines for the next major influence in your life.

For my sister and me, growing up in small-town Pennsylvania, scoring pen pals who shared similar interests became a critical outlet to learn about music. When we traded mix tapes with our pen pals, the particular treasures of one small community would be spread to a new community. For snail mail, pen pal mix tapes were pretty darned efficient for sharing ideas and culture. And even more efficiently, we had our own tool to find pen pals—friendship books.

Friendship books were small handmade books that could fit in an envelope. Each person in receipt of an “f.b.” as they were nicknamed, advertised herself or himself as a potential pen pal. She listed her favorite bands, sometimes other hobbies and interests. A name, often a pseudonym, and address were provided. Implicit to participation was the message, “Please write me a letter.”

Check out each page of one friendship book below:

The friendship books were a form of mail art and a classified ad all at the same time. The f.b.s would be slowly passed from recipient to recipient along with letter correspondence, in a chain. It was like looking at information about your friend’s friend’s friend on facebook before facebook existed. Once all the pages in the book were filled, the person who completed the last page was duty-bound to send the friendship book back to the person who made it.

In 2017, my sister Alison got together with her old friendship book pen pal, Kelly, in Baltimore. We met up to talk about a long lost tape that Kelly had made her. Alison and I grew up in southern Pennsylvania, and Kelly grew up in New Jersey, but the tape she made for my sister shaped decades of music listening for both of us.

Kelly and Alison

Kelly and Alison meet up in Baltimore, 2017

Sarah: I’m going to start by asking how you met. I know you met through pen-palling, but—

Kelly: So, was it Other Voices?

Image of Other Voices zine

1990 cover of Other Voices zine (from pinterest)

Alison: No, I think it must have been a friendship book. You wrote to me. Your friend Marg wrote to me. I don’t know if you got my address from her or from a friendship book. But I’m pretty sure that you wrote to me because you were the first of my next set of pen pals. I had two initial pen pals. And then you were in the set of my next pen pals.

Kelly: I was trying to remember this today, right. I don’t remember. That’s how I first found out about friendship books was Other Voices. But what was that [other] magazine? A British music magazine that would have pen pal ads in the back of it.

Alison: Smash Hits.

Kelly: Was that it?

Smash Hits

Image of the issue of Smash Hits that led Alison to Kelly

RSVP page of Smash Hits

RSVP page of Smash Hits. Alison wrote to “…a nice person…” Images from the extensive Smash Hits Remembered archive

Alison: Yeah, and that’s how I got my first two pen pals. So maybe it came somewhere via that.

Kelly: Yeah, I can’t remember exactly. Because probably I thought, “Oh, Pennsylvania seems close to New Jersey. And Azzi seems like a cool name. [laughter]”

[Editor’s note: “Azzi” was the name that Alison used for friendship books because it was what I called her when I was first learning to talk, and it was a nickname that stuck through our school years.]

 

Sarah: What was Other Voices?

Alison: The Cure zine. A Cure pen pal zine.

Sarah: That was its sole focus, Cure pen pals?

Kelly: Well, it was a Cure fan club. And then they always had, in the back, pen pals. And then there were Cure articles in the inside of it, I guess. Were you in it?

Alison: No, I was never in it, but I’ve seen it. Two people named Charlotte Sometimes competing against someone named The Caterpillar Girl.

Kelly: I did used to write to someone named M, too, I think. [laughter] I wish I still had some of THOSE, the actual zines.

Sarah: How long had you been doing pen pal/ friendship book stuff before the two of you started writing [to one another]?

Alison: I started writing to my first two pen pals when I was 14, and I think Kelly was the next one, when I was 15.

Kelly: Sounds like about right because that would be like 9th grade? 10th grade? Yeah. Probably the same for me. I was trying to remember, too, when we started writing.

Alison: Probably like 10th grade.

Kelly: Yeah, I think so.

Kelly 10th grade

Photo that Kelly sent to Alison when they were pen pals

Alison: I remember that I had been doing friendship books with a pen pal. But they would just go back to her because I didn’t have anyone to send them to. So I guess eventually they got around to other people before I started doing them constantly.

friendship book example

friendship book examples…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wikipedia has a page about friendship books. It even includes a glossary of common friendship book abbreviations, such as ICR for I Can Return and AA for Answers All.

Kelly: I know. I think initially I would only write to a couple people. It was probably just people nearby because I thought, “Oh, I could probably meet them!” And then it was like, “Oh wow, this person lives in California. That seems pretty cool.” But I think it was more that I must have liked something you wrote on your friendship book page and I was like, “Oh, I like that, too.”

Alison: I had this hierarchy of people that I liked who I wrote to. Because after a while I wrote to so many people that there were definitely different tiers. And I always liked writing to you because you were hilarious. You would talk about school, and it was really funny.

Kelly: I was funny talking about school? [laughter]

Alison: Well it was probably good commiseration. And I never felt like you had a separate persona, nor did I have a separate persona. But there were some people who I felt like they were living out some sort of persona, and then all the letters were super serious or within that vein. And ours were just sort of regular life and regular issues.

Kelly: Yeah, I can’t remember anybody specifically. But there were definitely people that were like—

Alison: I’d use them to pass along other friendship books. “I’ve got to get these out of the house!”

Sarah: Would one of you want to explain what a friendship book is? I tried to explain this to a friend recently, and I realized that I did a terrible job at doing it.

Alison: it sounds like something from 150 years ago. It’s not that different from an old-time autograph book. But imagine it where you would write something that you were interested in and then you would write your address. And then you would send it to somebody else. It’s hard to wrap your head around how someone would see that and know to write to someone else. That’s where I think it all falls apart in my explanation.

Kelly: I think it’s weird now to think that—my whole thing with it was, “I’m in this little teeny tiny town, and I have my three or four friends here. And we all like the same music. But to find out that there’s other people somewhere else?” Now there’s the Internet and you can go on to Facebook and you can just google something. Then it was like, “Oh my gosh, I just got something in the mail that says that there’s somebody in another town, in another state that I’ve never been to before, on this little piece of paper, and they wrote all the same bands that I’m totally in to right now. And I can’t even believe this person exists because there’s only three of us here in this town. That would be so cool to write to them!”

I was always super in to pen pals, even as a kid. So it was cool to be like, “I still like having pen pals in high school.”

Alison: [Friendship books were] kind of like an exaggerated address book of people you don’t know that you pass around.

 

 

 

friendship sheet (f.s.)


In addition to friendship books, this pen pal community also circulated “slam books.” Slam books followed the tradition of confession albums of the late 1800s, which asked questions for which participants would craft pithy answers. In Questionnaire, Evan Kindley chronicles notable participants in confession albums:

“Despite the mixed reputation of this ‘new inquisition’ among genetlemen, many prominent nineteenth-century intellectuals submitted to it. Among them were Karl Marx (who considered his chief characteristic ‘singleness of purpose’ and whose favorite occupation was ‘bookworming’), Friederich Engels (whose idea of misery was ‘to go to a dentist’), Oscar Wilde (who wrote that his distinguishing characteristic was ‘inordinate self-esteem’ and that his bête noire was ‘a thorough Irish Protestant’), and Arthur Conan Doyle (who refused to answer several questions and described his present state of mind as ‘jaded’).”

Kindley also discusses the history of The Proust Questionnaire, the result of confession album entries by Marcel Proust which invited attention, admiration, and which renewed interest in the questionnaire format repeatedly throughout time.


Sarah: And then there was this culture around it, too. I think it’s kind of interesting that we all ended up getting these address mailing labels from one weird little mom and pop operation called Penguin Productions. Clearly, their ad campaign was not the most budgeted.

Examples of labels manufactured by Penguin Productions that Sarah and Alison ordered for use in friendship books.

Alison: I think they started because of the Penguins- the hockey team. I think it was started for people who did sports-themed things. I don’t know who the first person who decided to put Roz Williams on one of them was. [laughter]

Kelly: Genius!

Alison: Can you imagine the weirdness of printing all those up and not knowing, just to look at those, what they would have been about?

Kelly: Then it would just be a lyric. The most obscure lyric printed on there.

Sarah: Yeah, and we all had aliases. And I’m not sure WHY, necessarily. It just made us sound cooler, I guess?

Alison: We shouldn’t use our real name because then somebody will look us up and come to our house—even though they HAD our ADDRESS.

Kelly: Yeah! Right, that part of it was a little weird!

Alison: But if you were really professional, you had a post office box.

Kelly: Yes. I think Marg and I got a post office box because we had these grand ideas to do a ‘zine and then we never did.

I don’t think I ever had any labels though. I wanted to.

Alison: I had to ask one of my other pen pals to send me the form for it. I had to wait until somebody else who had an extra form [for Penguin Productions] could make a Xerox copy of it to send to me so I could order the labels.

Sarah: Right, ‘cause you couldn’t go online.

Alison: Right, the only thing you could do was write to someone: “Please send me your goth-making kit. What examples do you have for Siouxsie & the Banshees?” [laughter]

Sarah: So do you remember what would make you write to one person versus not writing to someone? If you got a friendship book in the mail and you looked at it, what would make you say, “Oh, I’m actually going to write to that person.”

Alison

Photo that Alison sent to Kelly when they were pen pals

Alison: The bands, I think, probably.

Kelly: Yeah, the bands. I would probably look at, “How did they decorate it?” If they just wrote it with a marker, I would be like, “Eh it’s not a lot of effort put in there.”

Alison: If you got out the clear packing tape and the glitter, that was probably good.

Kelly: Some people were really—they were really elaborate.

Alison: I love the clear packing tape. Ones that are covered in the clear packing tape are my favorites.

Kelly: Yeah. I remember having so many art supplies just for f.b.s and envelopes.

Alison: Glue sticks everywhere.

Kelly: And pieces of books.

Alison: It gave us an excuse to never throw away a scrap of a magazine or lace. “I can use that! Even though there’s only two inches of it!”

For more photos of friendship books, see this excellent image archive from Christchurch, New Zealand: http://www.fluidr.com/photos/testpatern/sets/72157625189224987

Kelly: Yeah. I think some people seemed more accessible than others. Like you were saying that some people had a persona. If some people had too much of a persona, I would be like, maybe they were out of my league. Like they wouldn’t even write to me. I was kind of nervous about that.

Alison: Yeah! “They seem to have a lot of friends even on THIS level—[the level of] people who don’t have friends!” [laughter]

Kelly: “They’re probably busy.” [laughter]

Alison: In my mind, everybody else who was doing [pen palling and friendship books] only did that in their spare time because they had such fabulous lives. Where they lived, they were going to goth clubs every night and they were dressed up.

Sarah: So do you remember exchanging tapes? How many pen pals did you have? And of those, how many did you exchange tapes with?

Kelly: I don’t remember how many pen pals I had. The ones I can remember now—I wonder sometimes where these people are now.

Alison: They’re all on the internet, Kelly. [laughter]

Kelly: They’re somewhere on Facebook. Or somewhere on LinkedIn now, probably.

I feel like I wrote to a lot, but I don’t know if I wrote to ten people. Maybe definitely five. I know I would write to more people than that.

Alison: Yeah and some of them just didn’t last. It was very fluid. I had a core group of people that I kind of stayed with, but there were a lot of people who came in and out. I don’t know if they got sick of ME or I got sick of THEM or if it was that I ran out of time and then they assumed I was sick of them or vice versa.

Kelly: I don’t know who else I sent tapes to, though.

Alison: Yeah, just a few people. Just the top tier of my pen pals. [laughter]

I remember sending tapes to you and my other pen pal, Kelley. I can’t remember too many others. But we were constantly making tapes. That’s all we did.

Kelly: I know, right? Yeah, I must have sent tapes to other people, but I don’t remember anybody else’s except at least one that I had that you sent. There was probably more than one.

Alison: Yeah, probably. I only remember one specifically that you made but I feel like with enough time passed, one seems like a substantial amount.

Sarah: So what do you remember about that tape?

Alison: I remember that it started with X-Ray Spex, “O Bondage Up Yours,” which is a great song to start off with.

Handwritten track list from mix tape

Though we can no longer find the tape, Alison reconstructed most of the track list from memory

Kelly: Thanks.

Alison: I mean this was right around just pre-riot grrl. So I feel like you were on the cusp.

Kelly: Yeah. I had a vision. [laughter]

Sarah: What else was on there?

Alison: Well, there was a band that apparently was only popular with pen pals and like five people in California called London After Midnight, who I feel like owed a LOT of their success to—

Kelly: –to all of us!

Alison: –to pen pals.

Sarah: Yeah, were you already a fan of that band before you got that tape?

Alison: Somebody else had taped me a couple of their songs. I think they only had an ep with a couple songs, and everybody would just tape off those.

Sarah: I remember our dad writing an angry letter to them because they did not fulfill a mail order.

Kelly: Alison was telling me about that. And that’s so opposite of my experience with any of this because my dad hated everything about everything, and he hated that I dyed my hair black. He came into my room one day and was so angry, and he grabbed my Christian Death record and broke it into a million pieces. And that was supposed to be some sort of I-don’t-know-what. “That’s how I feel about this!”

Alison: I bet you wrote a letter about that.

Kelly: [laughter] I probably did! “Azzi! Can you believe what just happened?!”

Alison: “Wait, my green ink is running out. Hold on a second.”

Kelly: What else was on the tape? Anything else?

Alison: The Pixies. And odd things. Oh! And this was the first time I remember hearing the song by The Animals, “When I Was Young.”

Sarah: Oo! Good song!

Kelly: O my god The Animals? That was probably from the 1969 soundtrack. I was obsessed with that soundtrack! I was just talking to someone else about that the other day.

1969 soundtrack cover

I might have to look it up on Spotify later.

Sarah: What did the tape look like?

Alison: I don’t remember it being overly decorated. I believe there was green magic marker involved. I think you had named it. Because we would name tapes

Kelly: I remember naming tapes. I don’t remember what I named that one, though

Sarah: Was it something about paisley

Kelly: That was my pseudonym.

Sarah: So you would have gotten that in 10th or 11th grade?

Alison: Yeah probably like 10th or 11th grade.

Sarah: Do you remember anything about making that tape- like definitely wanting to put certain songs on?

Kelly: All those songs that you mention—I remember LOVING those songs. Like the X-Ray Spex. I can remember who I heard that song from first. I think that’s this other weird thing—how I would even find out about these bands. Either people would send you a tape or talk about something. Or I would see a band on an f.b. and think “What’s that?” and maybe next time I went out, try to find a record by them.

Alison: Mm-hm. And The Dickie’s version of the Banana Splits song.

Kelly: O yeah, because I loved the Banana Splits.

Sarah: I think I might remember – was this the tape that had “Warm Leatherette” by The Normal?

Alison: Yes, it did!

Sarah: How would you have heard that song? That seems pretty random.

Kelly: O my god, I forgot about that song. So I will say—there might have been stuff on that tape from this—someone, a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend—somebody made some tape that was passed around between me and my friends that had everything to do with angel dust. Beastie Boys were on it. There was some song about smoking on the angel dust. There was Dust in the Wind. And I don’t even think I knew what angel dust was. But somehow we kept passing this tape around. We thought it was the greatest thing. And we would make copies of it. I would take songs from that to put on tapes. I don’t think “Warm Leatherette” was on there, though. I don’t know where I heard that song.

I’m so impressed now with my 16-year old self!

Kelly

Photo that Kelly sent to Alison when they were pen pals

Sarah: Yes! A friend and I were just talking about this. How in the world did Kelly find The Normal? Who listens to The Normal ever? Or in high school?

Alison: If it’s not on the Pump Up the Volume soundtrack, I don’t know how we would have heard it!

Kelly: Right, was that on 120 Minutes one night or something?

I’ll have to find all those songs on Spotify now.

Sarah: Do you remember when your pen palling days were starting to wane?

Alison: I think when people went off to college or when high school ended.

Sarah and Alison during pen pal visit

Sarah and Alison in Kelly’s room during rare pen pal visit

Kelly in room during visit

Kelly in her bedroom during pen pal visit

Kelly: Probably like my senior year. I was probably writing only to you and my friend Katie. I can’t really remember anybody else that year that I’d be writing to. And then after I graduated, I think the only person I sporadically kept in touch with was you.

Alison: Yeah I found that letter that I didn’t know existed where you wrote to me and I lived out in New Mexico. And I didn’t really remember ever receiving any letters from anybody out there. I think because I started to have friends! And I started being social! And I hadn’t really had that experience in huge measure before. So it was like, “O this is what it’s like in real life.” [laughter]

But for the record, I did marry my pen pal.

Kelly: That’s pretty cool.

Alison: I think some of those goth ‘zines were part and parcel with that whole culture. I think they only existed to pass around to other people we were friends with.

Sarah: You think that the network of people reading that ‘zine was not much larger than the pen pal network?

Alison:  No, maybe less!

Kelly: Cause I think [the pen pal] groups would probably cycle through, too, and then people would go off to college and be like “What else is there in life?”

My friend Jeff, he wasn’t a pen pal, he was someone I was just friends with back then. But that’s still his life. He’s still in to the scene.

And I’m still in to the music. And aspects of it. But when I try to explain things to my husband he looks at me like, “Who is this?” He doesn’t get it. I’m still me.

Sarah: Do you remember getting back in touch more recently? Was that a few years ago?

Alison: Really recently. But there was another time before that. I was on Facebook for a brief period of time. I had this compulsion. I wanted to see how people turned out—see if they were okay, in a way. I wanted to find everybody I wrote to, to see if they were okay. And then for the most part, that was enough for me. But I wanted to stay in touch with Kelly, and when I got back on social media, I specifically looked for her.

Kelly: A month or so ago, two of my friends from high school were at my house. I don’t see them all the time, maybe once a year. And they still have friendship books. My friend Kristen said she has a whole bunch in a shoe box. I was like, “I want to see them!”

Sarah: Yeah, I have a small shoe box’s worth.

Mostly they were ones that Alison had made for me. Because remember how you had to make them FOR someone else and then put them out into circulation as a gift? They were ones made that never quite got circulated. But there are some that I was supposed to return to somebody that I didn’t.

Alison: Yeah, I found one recently, and it said it was made in either November 1988 or 89. And the thing is that by the time I got it and filled in the last page, it was probably 2-3 years later I bet. Things moved so slowly.

Sarah: Do you find that you have nostalgia for this period of time?

Alison: I think we’ve fallen back into writing each other naturally. Like, oh yeah, that’s what we used to do!

Alison and Kelly

Kelly: Yeah, I think I have nostalgia for writing letters. I always have this thing about keeping in touch with people. I love either staying in touch with people or catching back up with somebody from a long time ago. I think everybody probably does stuff like that. I don’t know that I have nostalgia for that period of my life.

Alison: No because when I think of that, it was really not a good time.

Kelly: I was always grounded all the time.

Alison: I was always in my room! I was always in my room listening to music and being upset.

Kelly: I have journals that I kept all through high school, too, and they’re awful. When I read them, I just cringe. My God, were these the kind of letters I was writing?

Sarah: Awful in what way?

Kelly: It just sounds like a little kid. And there’s the awful, “I’m so in to so-and-so.” It just brings me back. And reading it brings me too close to the feeling of being 16, stuck in my room, grounded again. That’s kind of why it’s awful, too.

Alison: I’m kind of nostalgic in the way other people are nostalgic for real high school. I kind of felt like that was my real high school, my real education, and where I really found myself. And so I’m much more nostalgic for the people that I wrote to. It was like my alternate reality high school. And in our alternate reality high school, everything was perfect. And we all liked the same things. And no one made fun of us.

And you would have had the best record collection ever, because I’d never seen it, so of course it would have been awesome. You would have spent three hours every morning back-combing your hair and crimping it because you would have looked perfect and cool and not the way I would have been able to pull off, going to my stupid school. There’s a lot you can fill in when you don’t know someone very well.

Sarah: Isn’t that true, though, of Internet-based relationships of today?

Alison: Yeah, it was a good precursor. I feel like we had good planning for the Internet that other people didn’t. Like saying that you’re friends with someone and having never met them. Or having a friendship with someone that you’ve never met or may never meet. And being very close to someone.

Sarah: So you have spent time together since getting back in touch?

Alison: This is the second time.

Sarah: This is the second time?!

Kelly: If we had gotten back in touch sooner, we could have gone to the Cure show last summer.

Alison: Yeah, we were there at the same time and we didn’t know it. We’re doing our oldies review. We saw The Cure but didn’t know we were both there. Then we saw The Damned together. And tonight, we’re going to go see Poptone.

We could potentially be real-life friends now, which is probably what I would have loved when I was 15. Someday we’re all gonna be real-life friends.

Sarah: What about sharing music at this point?

Kelly: Making tapes for each other?

Alison: I feel like I’d put the same songs on now that I did then. And I’m not that creative anymore.

Kelly: I’ve been saying, “I’m going to look that up on Spotify” because in the last six months I discovered Spotify. I don’t know if that makes me a loser because it took me so long to discover it. I lost a bunch of cds. So when I think, “Oh, right! Warm Leatherette! I’ve got to look that up because I haven’t heard that song since I was 17!” I’ll go back and listen to that song. And that’s what all these playlists on Spotify end up being—all these songs from when I was 16.

Alison: Yeah, within the past couple of years, I’ve really regressed. Because I think when I was in my twenties and thirties, I was much more thinking that I’m not going to listen to what I listened to in high school. “I’m more worldly than that.” But it turns out, I’m not. [laughter]

Kelly: I just can’t keep up with current music. I listen to a lot of Father John Misty but other than that, current music escapes me. So if I made you a mixtape now, it would probably be Father John Misty and Billie Holiday and stuff like that that I listen to all the time. Hawaiian music. It would still be eclectic.

Alison is a letter writer, antique photography collector and purveyor, and researcher of sideshow photography in America’s first capital, York, PA.

Kelly lives in Catonsville, MD with her son, husband, dog and two cats. If someone were to send her a friendship book today, she’d decorate her page with watercolor paints and use a fountain pen to list her interests: cooking, collecting old cookbooks, throwing theme parties, reading, Neko Case, John Waters, My Favorite Murder.

Alison and Kelly

Alison and Kelly, 2017

 

 

You Got Your Good Thing And I’ve Got Mine

Elke K.W. is one of the most intrinsically creative people I have ever met. She has a magical way with words, spinning wordplay into every few sentences of conversation. And she perceives all of life’s tasks big and small to be an opportunity for beauty and inventiveness. Nothing need be conventional in her world. That is what allures people to Elke. With tattooing, she brings sly humor to her tattoo designs, with visual puns and clever thematic twists. When drumming, she fills every beat and half beat and quarter beat with constant surprises; she does not waste the space, and the drums thump forward like lead guitar riffs instead of predictable old rhythms. I have had the pleasure of being Elke’s friend for nearly 20 years. We met in Baltimore and instantly bonded over record collecting and show-going and thrift store shopping. We lived together for several years and constantly shared music. These were good days.

In June, I had the privilege of visiting her at her home in Berlin. I was particularly interested to revisit my memory of the recipe box she kept full of index cards, each with a mixtape playlist that she had made for someone else documented and filed away. This interview picks up en media res, with Elke explaining why she has habitually kept documents of each mixtape made.

sarah and elke in berlin june 2017

Elke:   Sometimes it comes about because I make a thing just so I can proofread it, proof-listen to it, and hear if it works. And then sometimes you discover flaws. Or with CDs nowadays too, sometimes what I want won’t fit on a single disc and then I’ll have to do some rearranging. Or I’ll decide at the last minute that I want something other than what I had, and then I’ll save my initial rough draft copy.

Sarah:   For what?

Elke:   For my own listening pleasure because obviously I like what I put on there. [laughter] And also–I know definitely in your case– I like to listen at the same time to something that I think that the other person could be listening to, especially when distance is involved. I remember driving down to wherever you were living to deliver “Something Awesome Really Already Happened” [laughter] –the original copy. And I remember then also listening to it later myself back in Baltimore.

And, it’s cool to think that the person could be experiencing these songs that you know intimately, that they could be discovering them for the first time on your mix and then you’re listening to the mix. Because it’s like a whole experience, the sequence. I mean, plus for practical reasons you wanna check and make sure that the flow is right and that it’s a winner.

Sarah:   I remember every time you made a mix for somebody, you would write down the song titles and put them in a recipe box.

Elke:   I think it’s in the other room.

Sarah:   Yes, so what was that for?

Elke:   Well, for one, for just purely practical reasons so that I would have a record and wouldn’t repeat songs. Because I was desperate not to repeat songs because that would be very uncool, I think. And it would prove that your skills were lacking in mix tape making. So it was supposed to prevent that. That was the chief reason.

And we had no computers, so everything had to be written down. I still don’t have a database of these things other than my lil’ box.

Sarah:   So how much have you consulted the recipe box of index cards of mix tape listings?

Elke:   Let me get this here box. Hold on. Wait, how much have I consulted it in future mixes? I used to consult them every time. You know, like you definitely don’t wanna repeat songs, and if you’re making frequent mix tapes, then it’s possible, because you’re into the same stuff. And if you’re making them for multiple people you don’t want to get confused because you’re probably gonna put your fave hits from that time period on multiple tapes, of course. That’s normal.

And also then I would consult other people’s mixes. Especially like this. [The Pixies play in the background.] This was a classic closer, you know, the cover of the Lady in the Radiator Song from The Pixies. This was always perfect for a closer because it sounds like the end of all time or something. [laughter] And also it’s short and so it’s a good thing to tack on to the end and leave them with a quick lil’ jolt. But because I, during this period, was doing that a lot, I had to make sure I didn’t do it on two tapes for one person.

elke holds some examples of documents of mix tape playlists

It was good to consult, because I kept a running library of these little, tiny songs that I liked to put at the end of things in the minute or two that you would have left on the end, so you wouldn’t waste tape. I would often forget my library of tunes and have to consult. And then you always have a record of what works at the end. I probably used In Heaven by The Pixies more than maybe I should have. I should have come up with something else. But there’s that Sinking Body track I believe winds up on the end of quite a few.

Sarah:   What is Sinking Body?

Elke:   Sinking Body was that – somehow they’re Men’s Recovery Project-adjacent. I think that’s how I learned about them was because Men’s Recovery Project had a record that was a split with Sinking Body and they were on Vermiform. But I think it was just one dude. I don’t know much about them, their history at all, but they had this beautiful track that was on a 10 inch, and I can picture it. I think here I acquired maybe a YouTube, an MP3 version of it because I didn’t otherwise have it anymore because I have no means to play vinyl here sadly. But I do have it again and I’ve returned it to its mix-making glory. [laughter] And I think it’s quite short and quite repetitive, but it’s awesome. It’s one of my favorite tunes of all time.

But I would always put it at the end either of one side or the other – because you could even break it down to songs that were good for the end of side A, you weren’t ready to say goodbye, but it was like a good closure to the first half of something.

Should I put on Something Awesome Really Already Happened?

Sarah:   Yes.

Elke:   It’s not a tape, but I have this one.

Sarah:   But it – was it a tape at some point? It was a mix CD.

Elke:   No, it was always a mix CD because this was into the era – we can look at when it was. Check it out, it’s the most recent. I think it might be the most recent one that I made for you. Which is 7-7-07, this is ten years ago. Have I not made you a mix in ten years?

Sarah:   I think that sounds right.

Elke:   That’s fucked up.

Sarah:   Yeah, it is. [laughter]

Elke:   I think I lost – to be honest I think I lost my –

Sarah:   Joie de mix-making?

Elke:   Oh, yeah. Maybe a little bit of that, but also in relation specifically to you I might have thought that I wasn’t gonna be showing you anything you didn’t already know.

Sarah:   Oh, well that wouldn’t have mattered to me, even if true, which wouldn’t be true.

[Elke and I start looking at the tape case for the mix tape she made me around 1999.]

Elke:   This is interesting paper.

Sarah:   So this case reminds me that when I mentioned this project to you, you said something about the artwork on tapes. And this is quite elaborate artwork because you cut out images from the instruction manual that came with this lamp that you called “the testicle.”

Elke:   On there it looks like a hairy potato, but it could be a hairy testicle. It looks like if a testicle was mounted in a museum exhibit to remind us what testicles looked like. [laughter] Just sit it on a little platform: “Behold, the testicle. Once necessary.”

Sarah:   [laughter] Well, in any case, it illuminated my evenings in Baltimore. And you turned it into a tape case.

Elke:   But I don’t know what else is going on there. And there’s no title and there’s no track listing, for which both things I apologize because they’re signs of – probably not laziness but – well, maybe a little bit of laziness. That happens to be something that I have noticed winds up being the first thing to be absent even in the ages of making mix CDs, maybe especially then– because you don’t have to keep track, yourself, while you’re making it.

That was the thing. I think these were the final – like I think I would first do it by–I’d have like a worksheet, just a scrap of paper, because you would make mistakes. You’d have to work it out. And the most painful thing is that you got to the end of the 45 minutes and things hadn’t worked out the way you wanted them to. And I had to always write down times and add times up.

Sarah:   Were you ever making mix tapes from tapes?

Elke:   Very occasionally. Yeah, and also vinyl and other people’s mix tapes. That’s like what we were talking about earlier. I remember –I definitely took single, individual tracks that I really liked from other people’s mix tapes– I wasn’t into the overall musician or band enough to invest in a whole record of theirs, but I just liked particular tracks and would then subsequently pass them onto other people.

I remember [an ex-boyfriend] made me this mix tape with Roxy Music mostly – which was great – but then it started with this mysterious track that I couldn’t identify. I was obsessed with the song. It starts out too fast and then slows down. And I’ve since realized – well I’ve figured out, this was before I knew the Magnetic Fields actually – or maybe I knew the Magnetic Fields only when Susan Anway was singing.

And then this was Stephen Merritt singing a Magnetic Fields song called I Don’t Believe You and I was obsessed with this song. And plus it was appropriate for the relationship that I had with the boyfriend anyway. It was ironic that he had given me this song. But then I figured out eventually who it was, and it was on this 7 inch, which I think I did eventually acquire, but it also proved elusive somehow, the 7 inch, by the time I worked out what it was.

I’m not sure if I ever really got the record, but because I didn’t have the record for a long time, I don’t know if I even could credit it on mixes when I would put it on mixes. And I’ve recently acquired it again in digital form from the Internet and put it on new mixes.

Sarah:   Wow, it persists.

Elke:   But I realized that the 7-inch that it’s from really has this flaw, or whatever you want to call it. The version of it on YouTube also has this little, not hiccup, but it’s a second where his voice sounds chipmunk-y because it’s playing too fast. But it’s not just because the person on YouTube played the record at the wrong speed initially. I think it is recorded that way; it’s a recording thing.

Sarah:   On purpose you think?

Elke:   I don’t know. We would have to consult with Stephen Merritt. [laughter] But –yeah, I don’t know. But I really liked that song. And I discovered recently I still really like that song. He had made me this mix tape and at the time – because he lived in D.C. and I had the old [Dodge] Dart and the “Take-a-long” [tape player] and I would listen to that tape on the Take-a-long while driving, either going to or coming back from DC. I just remember it being summertime and at night and I associate those with the Roxy Music.

And it all sounded like it was from 100 years ago because it was on a tape, on a cassette tape. It was recorded from, in his case most definitely vinyl, because he was pretty devoted, I think, to having things in their original form. But it was somehow the perfect, I don’t know, scenario for that music, the Take-a-long. But, you know, wait, what question were we addressing?

an image of the same type of “take-a-long” that elke played in her car in 1990s

dodge swinger dart much like elke’s old car

Sarah:   Artwork.

Elke:   But you did also ask about taking tunes from other tapes. Oh, yeah. I never had a lot of tapes. Like you had an extensive – you had the most admirable collection of like Dischord and other punk rock stuff on cassette, which I thought was amazing. Whereas I – the first music I ever acquired was on cassette, but it was Sinead O’Connor, The Lion and the Cobra.

Sarah:    There’s no shame in that.

Elke:   And also a couple of early, early mind you, U2 records on tape because my sister was obsessed with U2. And I stand by those, like October, for one.

Sarah:   I think actually, if you would consult your recipe box, you would find that you put a lot of U2, October-era U2, on tapes for me.

Elke:   Did I really?

Sarah:   I’m pretty sure.

Elke:   And I also had this single that was super cool, Stories for Boys.

Sarah:   Like around ’99, I think. There was a lot of U2 listening.

Elke:   But I don’t have the right dates for these then. I wonder if I missed a few. It’s possible I did – which would pain me. But I know I’ve missed some mix CDs that I’ve made for people because then it got much easier. You could make them much faster and if you weren’t being diligent about writing down what you’re doing–  the thing with tapes, there was no readout of what was happening anywhere unless you wrote it down. Which is something I’ve forgotten about, but that’s pretty crucial and that’s really why things started to get written down.

And when I was making them, I would be inspired by one song to put another song on and it’d be like, “Oh, I have to write that down,” or I would forget. So I’d have this jumbled list of things– like of ingredients that should be on there. But then they’d have to be sorted and organized according to time. And also, you don’t wanna put like a block of really long songs that would get somehow exhausting for the listener. You gotta break it up, but then you gotta save your little bits and pieces to tack onto the end. And you gotta always have the right intro tunes, also.

Sarah:   Oh, first song is critical. You have to hook them.

Elke:   Yeah, the first song’s critical, but also side B’s first song, almost, like in a secondary position of criticalness.

Sarah:   Yeah, you have to say, “Stay with me.” [laughter]

Elke:   Yeah, exactly. “Like here we go again. How’s this gonna end?” [laughter] We don’t know.

Sarah:   So how many different people do you have mix tape listings for in here?

Elke:   Okay, this is – well, let’s see what I don’t have. Nobody starts with B, never made  a mix for anybody whose name starts with B.

Sarah:   We need to work on that. I have some friends with B’s.

Elke:   Really?

Sarah:   Yeah.

Elke:   But do I? [laughter] Not very many. Okay, no D’s, surprising. Lots of E’s it seems. I think that’s because of certain Eriks. Yeah, it’s mostly Erik. And there’s one for Ezio, poor Ezio. And one for Enno. One for F.

You, by the way, take up the vast majority of S.

Sarah:   I should.

Elke:   Yeah, you really do. There’s only a few more in here. I made mix tapes for myself as well. And some of those are in here as well.

Sarah:   Do tell…  Under E?

Elke:   I don’t know where I found them. I think they might be under like M for myself. [laughter] Oh, I think they’re at the very beginning here. Sometimes I think I got a winner and I like to listen to it myself.

[Elke continues to look at the mix tape lists and talk about the people for whom she made tapes. She finds a playlist for a tape for an old high school friend.]

Elke:   This one I remember, I actually had a mix tape label for myself called More Nakeder Records and this is one of those. I remember because I made elaborate cases for those. But then I think that’s why it petered out. And this one is called Guided by Couscous and I think that’s because I put a lot of Guided by Voices on it and –it was during a time when we would always get the Fantastic Foods couscous box mix, as if couscous is a challenging thing to make. But I think we didn’t realize that you could just buy the couscous by itself and do the same thing. We were eating a lot of couscous at the time because it’s a pleasing thing to eat and easy to make.

Let’s see what else we got here. And I know this was another More Nakeder Records release called the Darjeeling Feeling. But I remember the case to that had a carefully reconstructed, but miniature, teacup stain on it. It couldn’t be a full-size teacup stain because it wouldn’t fit appropriately on the tape case. But I remember staining the paper that I was using somehow – using some object that had a smaller circular bottom on it. There was somehow a small spoon involved too, but I think it was just like  – I found an image of a spoon and cut it out and put that next to the stain. And that one has a date. I guess I actually wrote the day that I made these things, which in this case was 15 of August 1995.

Sarah:   What grade would you have been in starting fall of ’95?

Elke:   Actually I graduated in ’95 so I guess this was right after high school.

Sarah:   Maybe that period of time was making you wanna make a lot of mix tapes.

Elke:   Yeah, well definitely. Because I feel like that was the time when one has confidence in their music taste. And I know I was constantly discovering stuff that I thought was the awesomest. It was like a period of much discovery.

Sarah:   How does that compare to now?

Elke:   Oh, I have much less, I guess, confidence in what I like. Or there’s much less discovery. But I mean, that, I think, is a natural course. But there’s more rediscovery of stuff– like looking at these things made me realize how awesome this music is. And I guess that’s helpful because I have this problem with not liking very much stuff, I feel like.

[Elke pulls out another index card.]

I remember this had elaborate packaging too. It was called Main Course. I’m missing the other pieces because it was a three CD set and there was a main course and that was the only one that I saved for myself I guess.

I only have a vague recollection of maybe there was some napkin involved. But there was a main course and a dessert definitely, and an appetizer. But I only have the main course now.

Sarah:   So what do you think, predominantly, your motivations have been most of the time for making mixes for people?

Elke:   Well, this is not the predominant reason. I have to admit that definitely sometimes it’s to communicate stuff.

elke checks telephone

Sarah:   Like what?

Elke:   That is, something you’re having difficulty otherwise communicating. This has happened maybe even recently. I know it wasn’t a mix tape, it was a mix CD where there was no response to the message. [laughter]

Sarah:   So you gave someone a mix CD that you felt was communicating something very specific and the person –

Elke:   Didn’t really react almost at all. I mean, I think they said thank you [laughter], but I didn’t get acknowledgement until later. Then they, of their own accord, remarked on [the mix]– and then I knew that they had actually listened to it. But, yeah. I think sometimes you’re trying to say it with songs. –Do you think I made those when you were still living in the house?

Sarah:   Well, these tapes are from when I moved.

Elke:   Because we probably wouldn’t have really made each other tapes while we were living together.

Sarah:   Yeah, I don’t think so.

Elke:   Because we spent so much time together not only in the house, but also in the car listening to music. And mix tapes were really good for being in the car. That’s probably where I listened mostly to mix tapes. Although I probably received my first mix tapes before I could drive, I think. But then I definitely started driving in cars that had tape players and that was the way that I listened to music, including people’s mixes.

I have this one mix that I also have a copy for myself because I was really in to all the tracks that I put on it and it was also good to run to, I think. But I made it specifically for More Dogs when they were gonna go on tour. So it was for all those dudes, and I made it specifically for them to listen to while on tour in a van. And it was just called…[Elke consults the index cards]… Boyfriend’s Road Mixture, here we go. But so, I remember doing that. But I would often think – I think for other just general use mix tapes that I think I thought of them being played predominantly in cars somehow.

cover of first album by baltimore band more dogs

Sarah:   When you were making them, you were thinking about how this would be played in a car?

Elke:   Maybe. That probably wasn’t super conscious I guess, but now that I think about it, that was probably because that’s how I listened to them most, I think.

I think that’s what I would think about if I thought about how you would use a mix tape. I would imagine it would be in a car, in your station wagon. Because I think that’s how I’d experienced – even like driving around with other people, playing tapes. And that, I think, has happened before, maybe with us, where you’ve played a tape that I made you in a car while I was sitting there– and that always makes me nervous – because it is like a communication thing and you’re like, “How are they gonna react?” [laughter] Even when it’s not communicating a specific thing other than, “You’re my pal” and “Check this out.”

sarah and elke in station wagon 1998

Because it’s basically saying check out this stuff that I feel speaks for me and this music that is obviously stuff I like so it has something to do with me. So it is a bit of a risk of rejection, because if they reject the music you like then they’re rejecting a little part of you! [laughter] Even though it’s super silly to think that someone’s gonna like every single thing. And you wouldn’t want them to like every single thing because then there would be less room for other stuff that they could turn you on to that they like.

And of course you want them to like the mixes that you made them more than other people’s mixes. [laughter]

We were talking about purposes of making them, right? I don’t know how conscious this is either, but it’s like a snapshot of yourself and what you’re listening to at that time, and you wanna get that down for this other person too that your life is being shared with– especially if they’re away. That’s the thing. Like I find that it’s usually people that are either going away or are already at a distance, so it’s good to have snapshots of different periods.

Sarah:   So one thing I definitely wanted to hit on in this interview was the artwork piece because I think I’ve gotten the most elaborate tape case covers from you.

Elke:   Really?

Sarah:   Yeah.

Elke:   That’s cool. Although I’m sure I dropped the ball a few times. But that was a point of pride, I guess.

Sarah:   How so?

Elke:   Well, because I think the packaging maybe is not half the thing, but it’s still a big percentage of the potential value. And I guess I also like to make things. And usually a tape, I think, has sort of a conceptual thing. I mean, some of the earlier ones obviously have more to do with things going on between the person I’m making it for and me – like the couscous, things that were being eaten or consumed otherwise.

But definitely already with the tapes, I started this thing where it was very important that I have a title, and the title would be a lyric, a key lyric from one of the tracks. And choosing the title sort of set the tone for the visuals also, sometimes. Although in the case of these things, it was obviously like a phase where I wanted to take elements that I knew you would recognize– the little guy here, is from a Hanahreum package, something we would have gotten at the Hanahreum [Asian supermarket].

Sarah:   Awww. To eat together. Aww.

Elke:   Yeah, I’m pretty damn sure. And then I guess just – I mean, I guess I’ve always liked to make things from [other materials]– and that’s how I make CD cases now. But if I think about it, it’s from like cheap advertising paraphernalia collaged together. And I think I had those Rotex things. I love those Rotex labels.

Sarah:   Rotex?

Elke:   Remember that tape? I call it that, but it’s not the generic name. It’s just that the first one I ever had, I’d borrowed permanently from my father. And it was called a Rotex, the thing where you feed tape into it.

Sarah:   Oh, the traditional label makers.

 

 

 

 

 

Elke:   Yes. And when I worked at the Ross Dress for Less, I acquired two that had an interchangeable disk– maybe this was originally meant to do that, too– where you can pop in this other disk and one of them does cursive and one of them does vertical writing.

Sarah:   Whoa.

Elke:   And now I have some German ones that have the little umlaut letters.

Sarah:   Neat.

Elke:   Yeah. I kind of collected these.

We belong to the generation of people who had objects relating to music and collected these objects. And they were obviously a part of the music that they would also have sort of their own value and worth. And I think I just transferred that to making tapes.

Because it’s also your product, you know? The mix is your product even if it’s made out of other people’s music. So then you want there to be a visual product that reflects the “you” part of the whole thing. And I think that was the idea. But then it can get out of hand. And I think that’s why I started to slip a little bit in the visual thing because if you have set such high expectations of the packaging, and it’s for somebody’s birthday or something, you’re not able to produce in time– or if it winds up holding up your production of the mix itself, which I’ve had happen, then it gets pretty ridiculous. The person never gets the mix.

Sarah:   [laughter] Because you were laboring.

Elke:   Because you still didn’t make the packaging. It’s been a long time where my packaging pride had to significantly be diminished because I was just failing. [chuckles] And I’ve even given people mixes with no track listings and no information whatsoever. Which I also think can be interesting because then they really are going in blind. And maybe they recognize a few old friends or they’re completely bewildered [laughter] by new things. But it always pains me a little bit if I don’t have time to produce. It seems cheap to just hand over just the music I guess is what I’m saying.

Some of the first mix tapes I ever got were from a friend when he worked at Art Things and he also worked at Toad Music in Severna Park, MD, which is probably the first cool record store that I ever had any contact with or exposure to. And I started collecting records from specific labels that the people that were there turned me on to, including this friend. He also worked at Art Things, which was this art supply store in Annapolis. So he had a lot of access to various visual crap that could be assembled to make cool packaging.

And he made pretty professional, but specific to him and his tastes, looking tape cases. They were elaborate and admirable. I think that sort of set a standard as to what defined a proper packaging for a mix tape. And I think somewhere I definitely still have his mixes, but maybe not with me here. They were pretty elaborate and so that set the benchmark that you had to reach. But it can get ridiculous. And if it gets ridiculous enough that you fail to make the mix at all because you’re hung up on the packaging, then you have failed overall. [laughter]

But, it’s also fun. It’s very fun. And I think that’s one of the things that–when I have ideas that come as a complete notion—or the times that I feel the best about something I’m making, I can remember, is when it’s like I got a complete packaging idea, and it all came together.

Sarah:   Do you have another outlet now to use that same kind of creativity?

Elke:   Oh, sure. Yeah, I mean my job has to be. I don’t always get that same sense. There’s only a

shark pin-up person: recent tattoo drawn and tattooed by elke

few times that I can think of where the whole package comes together. I just remember making mixes late at night and being giddily excited and working on the package at the same time as I was making the tape, too, because you had to wait. That was the other thing about tapes that’s pretty crucial. So you had to wait for the song to play and you had to listen to every song to its completion.

That’s a really big difference between the CD era because sometimes – nowadays when I do the CD thing I’ll just listen to bits. I’ll listen to the beginning and the end of songs to make sure that there’s an acceptable flow, according to me. [chuckles] But yeah, the tape making was really a much more potentially grueling process. You could be working on the packaging while songs were playing out, especially if you included longer-winded jams, you had more time. But then there was a lot of running back and forth.

And then you also had to chronicle what you were doing and that’s how these guys came about. [Elke points to the index cards.] Yeah, that is another interesting facet that I’d forgotten about. It’s kind of amazing that we did that as much as we did, that we made so many tapes. I wonder how many hours are involved- because it’s way more of a time investment. And if you screw it up you’d have to go back over it.

But it’s weird that this one doesn’t have the things punched out because I remember there was also a satisfaction when you did have it done. Then you would remove the ability to tape over it unless the person was really determined and put tape over it, but that would be sad.

Sarah:   I forgot about that ‘til this morning for some reason, that it was like you’re controlling what the recipient will be able to do with this thing you’re giving them. “I have made this permanent.”

Elke:   Yeah, but I know I did that and I used to even save them. For a while I saved those things.

Sarah:   The little –

Elke:   The little tabs.

Sarah:   –punch out tabs?

Elke:   Yeah. I just remembered that. I don’t think I still have them, that would be really weird. But I didn’t punch them out of [this tape I made for you]. Maybe I thought you’d wanna use it to tape over.

Sarah:   Oh, yeah, they’re there.

Elke:   Yeah, I didn’t do it.

Sarah:   Maybe you trusted me.

Elke:   Either that or I thought maybe she’ll hate it so much she wants to use it as a blank tape. Yeah, I think that was a short-lived –

Sarah:   Collection?

Elke:   And admittedly pretty stupid thing to be collecting. [laughter] But you can see that I saved all of the blank [tape label] stickers in case I needed some more. Just a few more.

Sarah:   So this whole lunch box is mix tape materials?

Elke:   This used to be my “technology tin.” I don’t know. These are supposed to clean your cassette heads. A couple different varieties.

What else is in here? Instructions– I had a little voice recorder that was digital which was such a pain in the ass. Here’s a record player needle. Weird. It says “OLD.” I guess it’s an old record player needle. [laughter] You’re making a really funny face. I have an old, used record player needle in case anybody wants one. [laughter] Next flea market I’ll have to put that one out there so someone can pick that up. 99 cents.

Then I have – there could be some little secrets in here. Oh, yeah, look. I don’t know what this was for but I must have had some high hopes of making some packaging, elaborately cut out. But, yeah, weird stuff in here. This was the More Nakeder – look see, it’s the More Nakeder official–-

Sarah:   Oh, this is your record label box. [laughter]

Elke:   Yes, my mix tape label box. [laughter] Yeah, it does consist mostly of unused labels for cassettes.

Elke K.W. is a multi-media artist who is currently focused on making tattoos and illustrations in Berlin, where she lives and works. http://secretsurfacetattoo.tumblr.com/

elke


 

 

 

Wouldn’t Want to Turn Around and Fake It

Jeff McGrath and Eric Hatch have been friends since the mid-1990s when both were wide-eyed youngsters in the Baltimore music scene—Jeff as a zine-maker and emerging musician, Eric as a music reviewer for Baltimore City Paper, both as obsessive record-shoppers and show-goers. In the mid-2000s, their friendship took on a new dimension as they exchanged a series of mix tapes as a way to get further inside each other’s minds and ears. Some twenty years after first meeting, the two are still good friends, still music-obsessed, and still active in Baltimore culture—Jeff as a member of such influential bands as Practice Finger, Thank You, and current outfit Permanent Waves; Eric as the director of programming for both Maryland Film Festival and the festival’s soon-to-open year-round Parkway Theatre. One March night, Eric sat down in Jeff’s home in Baltimore’s Ednor Gardens neighborhood to talk about life, music, friendship, Baltimore, and beyond, with one of the tapes Jeff made Eric as the conversational core. While the tape’s cover and track listing are lost, the tape itself is still in Eric’s collection and back in heavy rotation on his stereo.

Eric talks about using Shazam to recreate the mix tape tracklist:

The first piece on both sides I couldn’t place myself and Shazam struggled to identify. And one time it came up with something that obviously wasn’t it…I could identify John Fahey but wouldn’t have ever been able to pull this song title. [Shazam] brought up “Serious Chicago Basketball Rockers.” [laughter]…which I opted not to purchase on iTunes.

Eric: As a way in, I just wanted you to reflect upon tapes in general. Even commercially produced tapes. Was there a moment in childhood where tapes were your primary format for consuming music? And if so, like what age would we be talking about?

Jeff:    I remember my very first memorable gift was a 12-inch record. And it was from a woman named Elvira who was a student. She was living with us for a brief time and babysitting us and stuff. And she and her sister were from Africa. And we were living in Omaha.

Eric:    What age do you think we’re talking here?

Jeff:    Yeah. I think I was like 5, and I was given a copy of Thriller on vinyl as a gift from Elvira and the other lady whose name I forget. I guess they were African – either exchange students or study abroad, international students, maybe. But they were only there for a semester. Anyway, they were really nice. But I remember thinking this thing is great, and I love Michael Jackson. And this is exciting because it’s so big. But it wasn’t contemporary. Like, my sister had tapes.

Eric:    Right. Okay. You thought tapes were cooler?

Jeff:    I thought tapes were cooler essentially. Yeah. I guess tapes seemed like the real thing. And this was like my parents’ kind of thing. They had a shelf of records. And this [record] related to that. And it was strange to see Michael Jackson – Thriller on this giant 12-inch –

Eric:    You wanted the tape.

Jeff:    I wanted the tape, which seemed real. And my first tape was – well, the first tape that came into my life was- my brother got the Ghostbusters soundtrack. Which we listened to over and over.

Eric:    This was like in the early 2000s or – [laughter]

Jeff:    Yeah. [laughs]. [My brother] got the Ghostbusters soundtrack. And I didn’t have my own tape for many years.

Eric:    You would play it like on a shared deck?

Jeff:    I would play my siblings’ – there are four of us, and I would play everyone’s tapes. And then I would listen to the radio and stuff. But my first tape I remember distinctly that I was at the store – I know you didn’t really ask, “What was your first tape?”

Eric:    Oh, no. I was getting to it. So, you saved me a question.

Jeff:    I went into the store with my mom to a Walgreen’s and I picked out the Stand By Me soundtrack. Which I don’t know if you guys have seen that movie or heard that soundtrack, but that’s a cool soundtrack.

Eric:    It’s all early 50s and early 60s pop, right?

Jeff:    Yeah. And I listened to that thing over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.

Eric:    Had you seen the movie?

Jeff:    No. I wasn’t allowed to see the movie. I think it was too adult or something.

Eric:    So, do you think you had developed an interest in classic pop already at that point? Do you know what provoked your curiosity?

Jeff:    Yeah. I picked it out because it had kids on the cover. Or on the poster or something there were kids and they were my age. And I thought that was cool.

Eric:    That was a big soundtrack. I bet it sold a couple million copies.

Jeff:    It definitely sold one. [laughter]

Eric:    And do you remember what age music started consuming your life? Like you really just became an addict and music was a big source of happiness for you? Maybe I’m assuming that happened.

Jeff:    [laughter] Music is the first thing I remember as my way of orienting myself to reality. As many can relate, I’m sure. Once again, my parents had records. And I remember being kind of confused about the mythology of rock and roll and the mythology of my parents. And confusing the two things and thinking that they knew Elvis and that they were Elvis. [laugher] Or that my dad was Elvis or that my mom – I didn’t understand. That’s how young I was.

So, that’s saying something. Because that’s not 5, that’s like 2 or something, I think. I don’t know. Maybe [my wife] can tell you what child development looks like. I mean, I remember just spreading them all out – the records. And then playing them and being perplexed by the mythology of the whole thing. The Grease soundtrack– I thought that was Elvis. And Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

Eric:    So, it sounds like you were really in to soundtracks that were mix tapes basically. Things that would expose you to a lot of different artists with one purchase.

Jeff:    Yeah, sure. That’s a good point. I never thought of that. Yeah. That’s true. Those were like collage-y kind of things.

Eric:    American Graffiti, I’ll throw that out there. Woodstock.

Jeff:    I never heard American Graffiti then. But yeah, Woodstock was a big record in my house. My parents would always have the Woodstock record on. And I remember – it’s funny to talk about it. It seems like I’m trying to be cool or something. But I had older siblings. And so, when I was in third grade, I got really interested in the fantastical quality of music. Meaning like this music sounds like it’s from another world and I’m curious about that other world.

Eric:    And you’re not talking literally about experiencing international music. You’re just talking about getting a sense of production and bombast, and the excitement of music?

Jeff:    Yes. Well, to be specific, I remember the Depeche Mode tape People are People. My sister had that. And for me, a little kid in third grade in Baltimore County, it sounded so exotic, and so worldly, and so intelligent and sophisticated. And they knew something. And they seemed to be experiencing something that I didn’t have any access to.

Eric:    Yeah. I’ve felt that way about Depeche Mode too, actually.

Jeff:    Really? They had a powerful-

Eric:    Yeah. They were exotic and emphatic, you know what I mean?

Jeff:    Right.

Eric:    They believed what they were saying. People are people.

Jeff:    Yeah. Right. That was a good example. And that was also – that message, that song may have been written at a third-grade level [laughter] so I could absorb it. Not to slight them or their song. I heard their new song the other day.

Eric:    So, we started creeping into like middle school, high school. So, as you start getting into music that may be like alternative music, maybe even punk music, is tape a format that you were going for? Were you taping records with friends and trading tapes?

Jeff:    Here’s an interesting thing. I think that same year, third grade, my brother Jim – my oldest brother – he had – and I’ll never forget it. It was a black – I forget the brand, so I will forget it. But it’s a black tape with a white and orange sticker. And it was old school before they were clear- a dub tape for dubbing. And it was a dubbed copy he got off of a friend of his of Dead Kennedys’ Frankenchrist, which had just come out. And to a third grader, all that sounds so exciting. It sounds like monsters. And Kennedy was a word that floated around my house quite a bit. And to hear the “Dead Kennedys,” it just fit right in.

Frankenchrist

So, my brother had this dubbed copy from his friend of Dead Kennedys’ Frankenchrist. And I got a hold of a blank tape from the store or something. And I made my own copy, like fourth generation of Dead Kennedys’ Frankenchrist, which sounds like AM radio when you record it four times. And so, that was my first copied intentional dubbed thing, was Frankenchrist.

Eric:    And you’re already responding to music like Dead Kennedys. And beyond just liking the name, you were taking that kind of music in in the third grade?

Jeff:    Yeah. I was lucky or maybe unlucky. Whatever. I don’t know.

Eric:    I mean, I was listening to Genesis in third grade, so-

Jeff:    I had a very early exposure to things like punk rock and new wave because of my siblings. And because North Wind Road, where the nexus of Loch Raven Reservoir and the Perry Hall area is a real nexus of music culture. Especially for the third-grade community. [laughter] There’s a lot of history there. The High’s and the Video Mania, it’s like CBGB’s.

It’s cool the way that music traveled back then. And I think we all had the same or similar experience where it was a special coveted journey to wind up with something. And the Dead Kennedys tape was a good example of that. Where it was like this thing that was kind of like a covetous gem. Like I’ve got a little piece of punk rock. It’s real. It wasn’t purchased or anything, but it’s real. And it came from someone who purchased it. Some source is out there glimmering somewhere.

Eric:    Yeah. And I think tape culture, like punk, really embraced it the way maybe other genres didn’t. You wouldn’t be cool for having a dubbed Debbie Gibson tape. You know what I mean? But you would be cool for having a dubbed Dead Kennedys tape.

Jeff:    Yeah. Or the Debbie Kennedys. [laughter]

Eric:    So, as we’re getting into middle school and high school, are you making mix tapes for friends? Are you receiving them?

Jeff:    I’m trying to remember. Good question. The earliest memory I have of making a mix tape is embarrassing, I guess.

Eric:    This is meant to be embarrassing.

Jeff:    Okay. [laughter] So, I had a ritual for a couple of years wherein I – my sister had a big stereo like this. [Points.] It’s like a stereo receiver with a turn table.

Eric:    Yeah. Like a one-piece furniture stereo.

Jeff:    Yeah. She had a thing like that in her room. And she did a lot of extracurricular  stuff. So, she got home from school really late, even though she was in high school. So, when I was in middle school, I would come home from school. And I would untuck my uniform shirt and I would get a big bowl of chips or something. And then I would go in my sister’s room – where I was welcome – and she wouldn’t be home. And I would lay on the floor and I would open up her big Case Logic thing of cassettes. And I would listen to all the tapes. Because she had a lot of good tapes.

And I would bring – I had my own Case Logic thing of tapes I would bring in. And I would just be surrounded with all the tapes like this, and I would lie there. My bookbag far away. Homework not being done. And I would just lie there with Combos or Cool Ranch Doritos or something. [laughter] And I would drink Coca-Cola constantly. But sometimes I wouldn’t do that. But most of the times, I would. So anyway, I would just – that was my activity. I think most kids – a lot of kids played sports that I knew. Or hung out with friends or did things at school, or did homework. Or succeeded in some way at something. [laughs] But I laid on the floor listening to tapes and obsessed about it.

Also, because when you’re entering teenage years, I started to have a little self-consciousness about maybe I’m different or something. But anyway, it was then, that period of hanging in my sister’s room in the afternoons. She had two tape decks. So, you could tape off of tapes. And that’s the first time I realized that in seventh grade. And I tinkered with it and figured out you could do that. No one showed me. So, I’m a genius for figuring it out. [laughter]

Eric:    The record button.

Jeff:    Yeah, and it says “record” and has an arrow floating over it. [laughter] But it didn’t occur to me to – and this is what I referred to the embarrassing thing. It didn’t occur to me to make a regular mix tape. Like song, pause, and song, pause. I made these tapes that were like – so I would have all these parts in my mind of the parts of the songs that were the most exciting parts of the song. Or the great moments in the song or whatever it was, little passages that were really exciting. And I would cue them up and then I would record that part. And then I would pause it, and I would take out that amazing part. It would be like a sound bite that was like two seconds long. And then I’d put the next one in.

And you could hold the pause button down in such a way that it’s seamless, you know. So, I made these 60-minute tapes of just all these parts that would just be like [makes noise sounds].

Eric:    Literally like two second snippets?

Jeff:    Literally. Like two seconds.

Eric:    So kind of too hard to process.

Jeff:    Totally bizarre behavior. And so, it ended up sounding like something you’d never want to hear. [laughter] And then I’d remember something. I’d be like, “All right. There’s like a really cool part of that.” Like from some music that I didn’t really know very well. And then I would work really hard at trying to figure out what it was, what the song or the music was. And I would ask people at school. If it was an old song, I’d ask my mom or something. And I would try to get it so that I could put it in my bizarre tape of parts. Yeah. Really weird.

Eric:    Do you have any of those, do you think?

Jeff:    I doubt it.

Eric:    Yeah. Those would be great to get your hands on.

Jeff:    That would be really fun. And they’re probably really stupid. God, I remember thinking that – I had this vague – maybe you do things when you’re a kid that you never really think about what you’re doing.  But I do remember thinking, “I’m going to get good at this. And these are going to be these incredible super songs.”

Eric:    Would you have heard The White Album at this point? Do you think you were thinking about Revolution Number 9 or something?

Jeff:    I hadn’t heard that. But certainly, I heard weird things in passing. But I do remember coming across one in high school and playing it. And being like, “That’s weird.” And it was so careful, you know.

Eric:    But I like what you said about hearing little bits and then trying to chase after a song based on a little passage that excited you. Thinking about when we were in middle school or high school, something that you don’t experience too much anymore is the idea of hearing a song you love, having no idea who the artist is, and if it’s a new song, maybe you wait a week before you hear it again. And hopefully, the radio announcer says who it is. Or it’s on a friend’s tape and they tell you.  But maybe a month – a year if it’s an older song – until you hear it again. And the rush of excitement you’d have –

Jeff:    To finally be hearing it.

Eric:    – when you hear it again. Whereas now, it’s this instant gratification. You wear it out in a day, typically.

Jeff:    Yeah. And that makes you sort of ask the question, how much of it is in the chase? Or is in the experience of suspense, and anticipation, and potential disappointment? How much of the experience of this kind of treasure hunt of music and whatever it is is wrapped up in that? And not in the actual value of the music itself. I don’t know. I know that it’s boring for me to search around on the Internet for music, typically. Well, boring – it’s not boring. It’s cool. I’m like, “Neat. This sounds great. I like the way it sounds.” But what I mean is to actually scroll around and click, that part doesn’t –

Eric:    It doesn’t feel good.

Jeff:    It doesn’t feel good. [laughter] But it’s good to discover stuff.

Eric:    Absolutely. Yeah.

Jeff:    But that part is weird and feels strange. I still tend to enter into music now the way I did when I was a kid. Someone will say something like, “Have you heard such and such? You ought to check it out.” And I’ll take that and I’ll say, “Oh, I should check that out.” And then I’ll wait until I see it at Normals or something and I’ll buy it. But I also find stuff online.

Eric:    The impulse behind those tape collages isn’t that different than the impulse of creating hip-hop with identifying open beat passages and mixing them and stuff. It’s just that your result was unlistenable, but theirs was the foundation of hip-hop. But it might say something about a young attention span that you want to not just enjoy a song, but identify the emotional surges that you were experiencing.

Jeff:    I think so. And the difference obviously, those early hip-hop people were geniouses or whatever. And I was just a goofball in my sister’s room. But I think the impulse was similar. Because the tools were similar.

Eric:    Yeah. Early beats were made with pause buttons. You know what I mean?

Jeff:    And it’s interesting just how the arc of technology, and history, and music – you can’t really escape from it.

Eric:    I want to ask you about this tape in a minute. But the one thing that is being left unsaid, I think, was were mix tapes – whether making or receiving – ever part of your courtship rituals when you were younger?

Jeff:    Yeah. When you mentioned waiting for the song to come on the radio–There was a girl in high school that I really liked in ninth grade, the first day of school. And I remember it was the first time I had the idea that I’ve got to make a mix tape to express all of my feelings. And I really wanted to find the – god, what is it called? It’s a Cure song.

Eric:    Just Like Heaven.

Jeff:    Yeah. The one that Dinosaur Jr. covered. And it’s funny. I’d never heard it on the radio very often. But WHFS played it. WHFS – as you guys may know – used to be kind of cool. I don’t know if you knew that up in Pennsylvania. [teasing] But we had the Weasel down here, okay? We had Rob Thomas. The Weasel is the guy.

But the new Cure album at the time would’ve been Wish. So, it wasn’t like it was new. But Just Like Heaven, I heard it on the radio and I was like, “What a knockout.”

Eric:    Yeah. It’s a great song. That was big for me.

Jeff:    I was like, that song has got to be on my mix tape for this girl that I obviously need to be with. And so, I waited for it to come on. I had the tape cued up to the part where I would put that song on. So, I had a few mix tape songs, and then it was time for that one. And I had the tape paused and the radio on every night. It was kind of like the radio was on in my room. This would be in my room, not my sister’s room. So, it was a big deal.

But it’s crazy to think in a way now how technologies changed. So, the tape turned out being like of course, I was in the hallway getting a towel or something and I heard it start. I was like, “Ugh.” I ran and I un-paused it. So, you don’t hear the beginning, but you hear most of the song. And that was on that mix tape, which I’ve never heard because I gave it to Emily Butler and she never talked about it. And then later told me that she couldn’t date me because when we held hands, it felt like I was her brother. [laughter]

Eric:    Well, you got to – I think holding hands is like third base in ninth grade.

Jeff:    I spent my gym uniform money on buying her a Smiths tape.

Eric:    Damn.

Jeff:    She introduced the Smiths to me, but I was like, “What’s your favorite Smiths tape? Which one should I buy? Which is the best one?” And she was like, “The best one is Louder Than Bombs. I don’t have it, but I have a copy of it. But that’s the best one. And that’s the one that you should get.” So, I took my gym uniform money and I went to Sam Goody, or The Wall, or Listening Booth, or something. And I bought Emily Butler a copy of Louder Than Bombs.

Eric:    Well, that’s a life changing moment for you. I mean, yeah. Getting into the Smiths is a biggie. If I know my McGrath lore. [laughter]

Jeff:    Yeah. Totally. I know. Again, for better or worse.

Eric:    Yeah. I never really received one myself. But that must have been pretty common to mix tapes that are made off the radio- are going to be missing the first 10 seconds or 15 seconds of songs often, right? Because you’re like oh, this is the one I want.

Jeff:    Here it is. You have to hurry up and get it together. It’s like taping movies off HBO when you were a kid. If you ever did that. But I made mix tapes after that first one in ninth grade and after my weird proto-hip-hop, collage, art of noise period. I made mix tapes incessantly throughout high school.

Eric:    For all genders.

Jeff:    Yeah. I mean, yeah. I went through different phases, you know. And then wanted to share it with everyone. I think a big part of it too is like when I think about – I’ve never told anyone about the art of noise collages thing. But as I think about it now, out loud, I think it was an impulse to get involved, like to do it. Do you know what I mean? Like I felt like this stuff has all this power over me. And there were no instruments in my house, or no belief that it was possible to play an instrument. So, I think I wanted to do a thing. I wanted to do the magic that I was hearing.

So, that was how I learned. Where I thought I could do it. Well, not thought. I just did it. So, I was doing it the best way I could know how to do it or whatever.

Eric:    Yeah. There’s an authorship of sorts to making a mix tape. It’s a curation. Looking over this track list, would you – from the songs that are on there, if you were to guess what year you made this tape roughly?

Jeff:    That’s a really good question. A lot of this stuff is interesting and cool. And I don’t remember some of it. “I Want You” by Bob Dylan is a perennial favorite of mine.

Eric:    It seems like in a way, a lot of these artists are kind of like the Jeff McGrath canon. You know what I mean? Like Fugazi, Lungfish, Kate Bush, and of course, Morrissey. These are all – we can’t say all. But most of these are classic artists that have resonated with you for a really long time. And the most recent song on here would probably be Fugazi or The Warmers, I’m thinking?

Jeff:    I think that Lungfish song at the time – so that’s kind of a giveaway. That Lungfish song is from an album that came out in – Love is Love. That came out in 2003? And, let’s see. I’m just kind of a little embarrassed that I put such trite music on. I mean, the music is beautiful. But why did I think Eric Hatch needs to hear Sweet Jane by The Velvet Underground? [laughter] “Let me turn you on to this band, Velvet Underground.”

Eric:    So, here’s the thing. I got really in to tapes again in a moment when tapes were out of vogue and were not becoming cool again. And I’m going to guess this was maybe even a couple years after that Lungfish came out, like ’05 or ’06, or something like that. I remember getting deeply back into mixes and never really enjoying mix CDs. And making tapes for people. And I put something up on Myspace, I think, that was like if you make me a mix tape, I’ll make you one. I had been writing music reviews for a while, and burned out on music basically. I got kind of sick of it.

I quit writing music reviews and a couple years later, had this rebirth of loving music in headphones specifically. And this idea that if my friends made mix tapes for me, I would understand them better and hear the world the way they hear it basically. And you were one – I mean, a lot of people took me up once. And I think you and I maybe exchanged three or four mix tapes.

Jeff:    Yeah. I definitely still have some of yours in the box that [a friend] has.

Eric:    I know we made specific, curated tapes for each other. And I think you made some that were like “cooler”. That were like –

Jeff:    [Turns to microphone:] “Yeah. Make sure you get that. Okay?” [laughter]

Eric:    What I mean is they were more like the music that would’ve influenced you as a musician the most. Like This Heat or things like that that were a lot of post-punk, a lot of soundscape stuff. And I feel like this must have been a conscious attempt on you to be like, “These are my classics.” Does that sound legit?

Jeff:    Okay. That sounds – I think that must be the explanation. I do. Because this is such a – it’s also so all over the place. “America” by John Fahey, I remember when that song really hit me. It’s a long song.

Eric:    Yeah. That piece takes up – I mean, this is a 60-minute tape and there’s less songs on side two. It’s Fahey’s fault.

Jeff:    And “That’s All Right, Mama” is probably like a minute-and-a-half long.

Eric:    But I will also say, maybe these are more your go-to songs by these artists. But it also, in many cases – with the exception of maybe Sweet Jane – I would never pick any of these as the most well-known songs by any of these artists. So maybe you were also trying to give some deeper cuts or something like that.

Jeff:    Well, I can glance at this and say that I remember these being my favorite tunes by these people. I don’t think I was consciously trying to do deep cutting. But I did probably want to impress you and not do the nerdy thing and give you the songs you’ve already heard. For instance, Sweet Jane. [laughter] But I do remember also at the top of side two was a really cool Smithsonian CD that I got, like folk music of the Pacific Islands and stuff.

Eric:    When I Shazammed that it said like seven other people have Shazammed this, like ever. [laughter] It gives you the number. And for most of these, it was like 140,000 or whatever, and that one was seven.

Jeff:    Maybe this is off the record. But this is interesting to look at too like – just between friends I’ll say this, not to the blog – a lot of this music at the time, in the early 2000s, was not – what’s the word? It was refreshing at the time or novel to be listening to a Kate Bush record at that time.

Eric:    Let’s put this on the record.

Jeff:    Yeah. Well, I’ll say it’s interesting to look at this now in 2040, or whatever year it is, and look at how Kate Bush is absolutely – like Pitchfork talks about her like every week. And then even though Kate Bush doesn’t probably do very much- well, she did that live show. But my point is that a lot of this stuff felt really special and kind of sub-culture-y. And now it doesn’t look that way to me.

Eric:    Well, I think like Scott Walker and John Fahey – not that those were unknown artists – but those are a bit like outsider or ahead of the curve to be listening to that in the early 2000s. But I also have always thought of you as a guy like – when there’ll be moments where it’s uncool to listen to music that’s not obscure. Where everyone’s trying to outdo each other to listen to the deepest obscurity. And I think you’ve always owned like, “I love Morrissey,” or “I’m going to put on INXS at the party,” or whatever. [laughter] You have a deep love of –

Jeff:    That’s true.

Eric:    You don’t get caught up in that bullshit is what I’m saying.

Jeff:    I don’t. But I surround myself – I think I have that as a luxury because I surround myself with a lot of people who have a very rich knowledge. And people like you who have a great, richer understanding of things that are less available or lesser known. So, I do absorb a lot of stuff that friends have shown me and stuff like that. And so, there’s plenty of room for Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy.

Eric:    I think I had also maybe even specifically challenged you to put a Morrissey song that would win me over to Morrissey solo. Because I was a big Smiths fan, but Morrissey solo had never clicked with me. And also, I think I must have requested Lungfish as well. Because I knew you loved Lungfish and I had seen a lot of their live shows. But at that point, I don’t think their records had really clicked with me.

Jeff:    I remember we had lots of conversations about Lungfish.

Eric:    Yeah. I feel lucky to have seen them so many times. But in a sort of cruel irony, their music clicks with me a lot more now than it did then in a way. You know? I was more Fugazi, Nation of Ulysses, and the trance-like state of Lungfish worked for me live, but didn’t work for me as one record back then as it does now. Do you feel bad for sending me these mixed signals with “I Want You” followed by “Leave Me Alone”? [laughter] I remember being sad about that.

Jeff:    I just thought it was part of the game. “Leave Me Alone” is another. That’s a really good New Order song. It has a really cool beginning. I think the underdog on this tape is “Mad at The Man” by The Warmers. I think The Warmers are such an underdog band. I love that band. I think they’re such a cool, awesome band.

Eric:    Yeah. I mean, the mid 90s D.C. – you know. There’s bands like The Warmers and Monorchid and stuff that I would go see them pretty much every time they played the same as I would with Make-Up, or Fugazi, or something. Or even sort of more art punk. You had a noise punk band like Metamatics who were so important to me at the time. And I feel like as the histories get written, they’ve got to find a place for these bands.

I was just going to ask if there were songs of these you had heard recently.

Jeff:    Well, I played a Warmers song in the van. I think it’s funny too to look at this and see that I put Charles Ives, and I would never do that now. [laughs]. I mean, I’m laughing at myself. I’m not laughing at that music. The music is great, I’m sure. But I would never do that now. I think that was – well, you go through phases and stuff. I think was being influenced by friends and hearing a lot of classical music from them. And so, it’s not phony or anything. But it’s just funny to think like, wow. It’s a peculiar thing to thing that I owned classical records. It’s just funny. It’s an interesting time capsule.

“Funeral Tango.” I don’t remember that song by Scott Walker.

Eric:    Hmm. Yeah. I think it’s on one or two. It’s not on four, which is the record I know best.

Jeff:    Right, four is the one with the Jacques Brel songs and stuff?

Eric:    I believe so. Yeah. Four is the darkest. Now that tapes are sort of coming back and kids who never experienced them out of necessity are buying them as a trend, do you have any sort of engagement with the return of tape culture?

Jeff:    Yeah. Well, a couple years ago, I had a band with friends.

Eric:    You played just a couple shows, right?

Jeff:    Yeah. We did two shows.

Eric:    It was an awesome band.

Jeff:    Thanks. I thought it was awesome. We recorded a record. That was a long, painful, fractured process. But we’re making a tape right now. So, my involvement or connection to the tape resurgence is that now it’s like a viable, non-laughable way to release something. That just seemed absurd. Like ten years ago, it would be absurd to try to make a real release on a cassette, I think. But now–

Eric:    And this will come out only as a tape?

Jeff:    Yeah. I think so.

Eric:    Any mp3s or?

Jeff:    I think it will probably have a download or whatever. But it’s probably like 25 minutes long. But it’s funny that everything about it is like the band hardly existed. It hardly existed a while ago. And then there’s this tape thing as another feature to make it more alien to me. Like a disembodied band that doesn’t exist, that barely existed, that now is going to make a release on a format that seems archaic. But I’m told is not archaic anymore.

Eric:    But could end up being a really lasting trace, you know what I mean? If you don’t decide to release that, it’s binary, right? If you never released anything, there’s a pretty much absolute certainty no one will be listening to it in 50 years. But this tape, someone may.

Jeff:    And it’s cool because I do love tapes. Do you remember, did you guys ever have a problem with a tape and have to take it apart?

Eric:    Oh, yes. Yeah. Absolutely. I didn’t have great success with that though.

Jeff:    Oh, man. My brother showed me how to do that. His Run DMC Raising Hell tape broke. He had a purple one. There were different colors. You could get like green, purple, yeah. And he had purple, as I recall. And it broke. This is like, again, third or fourth grade. And he had the whole – like my dad’s eye glasses kit with the little screwdriver. And he had the lamp behind him. He had this little station where he took it all apart and put it all back together. He took the tape from one of my parents’ bullshit tapes from their car or whatever. And replaced the little felt pad and did it all. Just tinkered his way into replacing it perfectly. It was impressive.

Eric:    What a magician, man. That’s amazing.


Jeff:
    Yeah. He’s a beer brewer now. I think the height of my mix taping was I remember feeling like I had a real skill for it at one time. And I think – and every mix tape maker will remember – the discovery of the input level. So, if you have a stereo with an input level when you’re dubbing, you can control it. And it’s like a visual thing. I don’t know how to describe it.

Eric:    You’re talking about taking things into the red just the slightest bit to boost the dynamics. Yeah.

Jeff:    Yes! Ever so slightly. If you have an EQ thing that shows you the input levels, it’s like a visual guide to see how hot the signal is going from one tape to the other or from the record to the tape. Because multiple sources are going to have a different input level. So, if you have a vinyl record – you have this song on a record that you’re going to record on a mix tape, and then you’ve got a song on a tape or a CD, they’re different. You have to adjust it as you go so that it’s all – it’s like mastering. It’s like you’re a mastering engineer or something.

Eric:    Yeah. If you were making a mix tape that had tape, CD, and record sources, you had to adjust them to get it to come out at essentially one volume. Or else the tape to tape stuff would sound so tinny and shitty. And the vinyl to a certain degree too, depending on the system.

Jeff:    I made a tape for a friend one time. He asked me, “I need someone to show me how to like Fugazi. I don’t get it. It’s all this screaming and yelling. What’s the big deal?” And I was like, “I’m the guy for the job. So, I’m going to show you.” And I was living on St. Paul Street. And I remember setting up my mix tape station and making the coffee. And I got all my Fugazi records and a couple live bootlegs I had at the time. This was before Internet stuff. And certainly, before the Fugazi Live series.

And I was like, “There’s this version of –” what was it? It was like a version of one of their demo things from their movie that was so cool. But of course, it was the only piece of music in the movie that they didn’t put on the record.

Eric:    You’re talking about Fugazi: Instrument?

Jeff:    Yeah. Yeah. Instrument.

Eric:    Because the Fugazi song here is from the Instrument soundtrack.

Jeff:    Right. So, this would be from the same movie, but didn’t make it to the soundtrack. It was a version of the song Break. I remember now. It was like a slower version of it slightly. And it didn’t have any vocals. To me, that was the thing that was going to be the first song on the tape. Had to be. And that was going to get him to like Fugazi. And so, it was only on the video, which I had a VHS of. Or maybe I got it from Video Americain which would have been one block away when I lived there in St. Paul. And I was like, “How am I going to do this?”

And I thought about a microphone. I had one for band practice downstairs. I was like, “Maybe I could hold it to the TV.” Because I went to MICA, where I worked, and I got the RCA cable thing that would go from VHS, VCR sound output and go into my stereo input. And it worked. That was a revelation. It worked, and he still has that tape.

Eric:    Did he fall in love with Fugazi?

Jeff:    He likes them. He really likes their later albums. But the funny thing about that particular mix tape is I made this masterpiece of a Fugazi side of a tape. And I didn’t want to mess it up. I didn’t want to – I felt like it was finished. I was like Michelangelo looking at David [laughter] and being like, “Should I make the top of his head not flat like that?” And so, I made Side B, I made it an all Elvis mix tape.

Eric:    Equally perfect. Right?

Jeff:    Yeah. It was really good. He told me that he liked the Elvis side better. I mean, he is The King. But that was a moment I remember. That was an achievement in my mind, getting the movie onto the tape. On the topic of input levels.

Eric:    Yeah. I remember when I had my DVD player hooked up to my stereo and realized I could record from DVD to audio tape, I was so psyched. But I remember, I would record a lot of my favorite soundtrack music. But in movies, you don’t usually hear a complete song from start to finish. You hear like a 20 or 30 second passage. So, the results, I enjoyed listening to. But I gave one to a friend and she was like, “No.”

But I think it was pretty much similar to those tapes you made as a kid where it’s just like– she didn’t have the connections to those movies, or the moments, or whatever. It just didn’t have the effect I hoped.

Jeff:    Yeah. It’s all very personal. A mix tape is also – I hate to think that it’s gone. I got a wonderful mix CD from Sarah as part of a wedding gift. And it’s great. I listen to it all the time. It’s great because it’s in the car. And also, it’s fun to hear the Kurt Vile song that we had such a nice time together hanging out watching him play. And it’s cool to hear that. I think of that when I hear it. It has a personal texture to it the way mix tapes did. But there’s nothing like a mix tape. And it’s strange, but I don’t know.

What if it has something to do with the mechanical quality or the – I don’t know what it is. Or maybe it’s because of our age group and tapes were the beginning of our connection to music. If I’m correct in saying that for you two. I don’t know.

Eric:    Yeah. Tapes were my format. I didn’t get into records until my 20s.

Jeff:    Same. So, I don’t know. Yeah. It was really hard for me to let go of tapes and admit that CDs were part of life. The Internet is like the new CD.

Eric:    Sarah and I talked a little bit about how making a mix tape was so time consuming, but therefore more special because you – you’re not creating an iTunes playlist that you just burn and the whole thing could take 15 minutes. You’re listening to the song. Maybe you put it on double speed with tape to tape. But otherwise, you’re listening to the song. And you might decide it’s the wrong one and rewind and tape over. And what jogged my memory was you talking about levels.

Because I remember I would always listen to a portion of the song on pause and watch the levels to make sure I get it. And then turn the knob up or whatever. If you’re going to do that, you’re talking about – it’s a whole afternoon at the very least to make somebody a mix tape.

Jeff:    The last time I made a mix tape – when you said whole afternoon, it made me remember that I was living in a warehouse in downtown Baltimore and it was pouring rain. And I didn’t have a job or anything. So, I was hanging out by myself. And a friend was like, “I want someone to prove to me that The Beatles are worthwhile.” I know. Like literally out of all of western culture hadn’t tried that already. [laughter] But I was like, “I’ll be the one to show you. Because I’d be happy to.” So, I had this great idea that I would make a really cool object that would be Beatles Side A and Side B for her. And Side A would be black and white Beatles. And Side B would be like color Beatles. That was my thought. Meaning black and white Beatles is like the first couple of years.

Eric:    Hard Day’s Night era.

Jeff:    Yeah. Exactly. And it had a picture. You take the tape out and it had a two-sided picture. And it had a really “All You Need is Love,” hippie, Beatle, colorful picture and then had them in the suits. You know, like side-by-side. And I spent all day making that tape because it was so important to me that she come over to the Beatle’s side. And it was such a fun afternoon. That was such a fun way to spend time by myself. And that’s the last time I remember making an actual mix cassette mix tape was that Beatles tape.

I was really proud of that Beatles tape. And again, I really worked on it. I had this Beatle anthology. You’ve probably seen the anthology. And I found little funny takes that weren’t the takes that they used in the album. And I was like, “That’s a cool take. [This friend], who’s never listened to The Beatles will really appreciate this alternate take of Mr. Moonlight.”

But then that makes me think – not to be too tangential. But that makes me think how much of making mix tapes is really just like a – I don’t want to say the word “vanity.” But is a way to experience yourself. A way to be with yourself. I was having such a great perfect thing. Rainy day, making tea, and hanging out. And surrounding myself with my favorite music and showing myself how I understood my favorite music. And exhibiting it presumably to a friend. But really, I’m having a chance to kind of curate – you used the word “curate” earlier – and stitch it together in a way that it – and sometimes, it has something to do with changing reality.

But yeah. I think it has a lot to do with, as music lovers, it has something to do with understanding our relationship to our thing we love. Like it’s a way to spend time with it, or meditate with it, or something. And that’s sort of nourishing. I mean, it’s certainly nourishing. But maybe it’s a missing piece. Because you know also the feeling you get when you listen to music in your car by yourself? That can be also nourishing in a similar way. Because it’s just you and the music. And it’s interesting. But the mix tape thing is doubly interesting because the whole point of it is to share it. But I think what’s at the heart of it is something that it’s about – like the joy of it is that you’re spending time with yourself.

Eric:    Yeah. While I’m picturing that, I’m thinking of times where I’ve made someone a mix tape. And their experience is those 90 minutes, but our experience are those six hours or whatever. And when we think of them listening to it, we’re also thinking of those six hours.

Jeff:    Totally. Absolutely. And also, making a mix tape can resonate in strange other ways. Like I remember when More Dogs would go on tour. And I would be like, “Hey, you guys are going on tour? I’ll make you a mix tape.” And you would put jokes in it, you know? Or something to kind of be like are they listening? Are they paying attention? [laughter] That kind of thing. Or wait with anticipation for them to come home. And be like, “Well, go ahead and tell me what you thought of the thing.” And so, that would be cool.

The band Love. I remember being really proud of myself that I turned people on to Love. The band, not the experience.– I think right now, I’m turning Godfrey [the cat] on to love. But yeah.

For more about Eric, see Turn This Shit Over Like Bush Did a Vote.

Jeff McGrath is the guitarist for Permanent Waves, an art handler for the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and an infamous fan of the works of Stephen Patrick Morrissey. He lives in Baltimore with his wife Sara and two cats.

Jeff


 

All Through a Life

If we are lucky, we have friendships in life which help us connect where we came from to where we are going. Mat Darby is that friend for me. We met during high school in small town PA and became almost instant high school sweethearts. I was 15 and he was 18, and our teen romance did not survive his move away to college. In the years after, we built an enduring friendship that has lasted through moves, jobs, marriages, children, good news, and bad news. Sharing a love of music has been a constant theme in our friendship, and we exchanged dozens of mix tapes and mix cds over the decades. On Sunday, January 22, we sat down with the mix tapes that we made for one another. We mused about making them and about how the tapes we made for one another evolved over the years along with our friendship.

half full box of mix tapes

Mat:   I’d forgotten this thing that I did was oftentimes–I didn’t do this with all of them, but a lot of times when I made people tapes, I would make a dub of the tape I was giving away so I could listen to it, too. So it was like I was making you a tape, but I was also making me a tape. Well, the intention was always to make you a tape.

And I remember this tape for your sister being just kind of a weird mix of songs, but also sound bites and weird things.

Sarah:   Yes, I remember a lot of sound bites.

Mat:   I think I remember your sister saying at the time something like, “Well, you didn’t really make me a tape, it was just a lot of- ”

Sarah:   A sound collage.

Mat:   Yeah. Also, thinking about in doing that, the mechanics of recording it, and having to be at the ready with the play and the record, and figuring out that way of, “Okay, you press pause, and you got the play and the record on, and you release it gently so it’s not that ccckkk sound.” –-And I don’t remember, did I call her Al at one point?

Sarah:   I think you did that to bother her. [laughs]

Mat:   Oh, okay. That’s nice. And I have no idea what the reference here is: “large curd cottage cheese side.” I’ve got a quote each from Emerson and Shelley on the tape. That’s verging on pretentious.

Sarah:   Well, I’m looking at a tape that I made for you where I reference Hole so that’s—[laughter] – that’s great.

Mat:   I think this is the first tape. Is it the one
with the duct tape? Yeah, that’s the first one. Which one of these [tapes that I made you] do you think is one of the first ones?

Sarah:   The first one you made me is this one.

Mat:    I remember I was really in to naming the sides of tapes, and I cribbed that idea from R.E.M. because they would name the sides of their albums. Oh, man, and just seeing the songs I chose to put on these tapes.

Sarah:   Which ones are you thinking about?

Mat:   The Gorilla Biscuits. I probably haven’t listened to the Gorilla Biscuits since right after I made this tape.

first tape – Mat to Sarah

Sarah:   Mm-hmm. I’m looking at these first few tapes that I made for you, and – well, maybe I probably was trying to seem cool, but they’re mainly just very dramatic songs.

Mat:   Well, I think, too, it’s that whole idea of are there rules for making mix tapes? Whether there are capital R rules, or rules that you set for yourself, but I think later on, I never would have put two songs by the same band on a tape because that just seemed like you were ruining the potential variety of what could be on a tape.

Sarah:   Right. Yeah, there were a few bands that you were very heavy on at that time.

Mat:   Yeah, like what?

Sarah:   Like R.E.M. A lot of Camper Van Beethoven.

Mat:   Yeah, that makes sense.

Sarah:   A lot of Dag Nasty, actually, I think. Dag Nasty, Government Issue, that sort of variety of bands.

Mat:   Not Dag Nasty specifically, but definitely Government Issue – was [because of] hanging out with friends [who were] listening to a lot of Government Issue.

Is that your handwriting there on the date, or is that mine?

Sarah:   No, that’s you. I probably wouldn’t have done anything to these because I would have felt like that would have somehow sullied the original.

Mat:   “Music for old women and their dogs.”

 

Sarah:   Yeah, I made this list of the tapes you made for me, and pretty much all of them have titles.

Mat:   This was April of 1992. Wow.

Sarah:   Okay, so here is the tape I made for you on the back of the inside of an envelope, which I say is subliminally to get you to want to write to me. You must have already gone to college by the time I was making this tape for you.

 

Mat:   I bet. Does it have your address on it? Is it the one with the address?

Sarah:   Yes. Well, that’s not so subliminal, is it? [laughs]

Mat:   Yeah. Okay, so this is Mat Darby Compilation No. 2 because I indicated it as such. Did I put a date on this one? Maybe not.

Boogie Down Productions. That’s amazing. It’s interesting, too, in a lot of these early tapes, it seemed really important to provide at least a little commentary on the song. It’s like, “Here’s the reason I’m putting this really important song on the tape,” rather than letting the song speak for itself.

Sarah:   Yes. Yeah, I just saw a note that I made on one of these songs for you that says, “You’ll probably hate this, but- ” Like, “Let me justify this for you.”

Mat:   “Let me just assume how you’re going to take this.” Oh my god, I used the worst tapes for these.

Sarah:   [laughter] Yeah, I was struck by how many different brands of tapes and tape holders you had. Why was that? Were you just foraging somewhere?

Mat:   I mean, if I had to say where these tapes came from, I have no idea. I had a lot of tapes from when I was a kid because – this was maybe Christmas of ’84, I got a boom box with the double tape decks, and I think it was the first time that I had something I could record on. This one in particular seems really just like crappy, crappy tapes. Laser.

Sarah:   Yeah, I don’t even know what that is.

Mat:   That’s not a brand, no. I remember getting these, and I don’t think these tapes had cassette cases; they came in a sleeve. They’d be hanging up [laughter] – I’m sure these came from Radio Shack, and there’d be five tapes, and they’d be hanging on one of those little hooks. I wasn’t really thinking about audio fidelity in any way, shape, or form.

I like this tape case that kind of – it’s L-shaped –

Sarah:   Yeah, that one’s cool. Where’d you get that one?

Mat:   I have no idea. What year is this?

Sarah:   This one kind of needs to be repaired. I haven’t repaired it yet.

Mat:   Yeah. A little glue stick will take care of that. That’s the other thing. Well, this is the thing I know now, or should have known at the time: don’t use rubber cement on anything. It’s going to ruin whatever it is you’re trying to do.

Oh, this is a good one. This has gotta be later. Oh, this is your birthday in 2001. Because I put a date on it, which makes sense. It’s funny because knowing I’m an archivist, and dates are important – at that time, I had already gotten out of grad school. [Dating the tapes] would have been an important thing.

I mean, this is a really good one.

Oh my god, my handwriting hasn’t changed much.

Sarah:   I have to say I spent a lot of time trying to have nice handwriting on these, which I probably never do now.

Mat:   Oh man. “I am punk rock.”

Sarah:   [laughter] That one’s an early one.

Mat:   Yeah, definitely. I can tell that I was probably trying to impress you. Well, “This is Ocean Spray, Mat Darby Compilation No. 3. Every song on this tape falls into one or more of the following categories: 1.) a cover song, 2.) a song about an animal or somehow related to an animal, 3.) a song about that crazy little thing called love, or the lack thereof. Sorry, no, ‘I was so dicked over songs.’ Listen and enjoy.” I don’t know what that’s about. Man. I can also tell the things that I had probably purchased recently.

Sarah:   Yeah, that’s kind of a nice thing, too. I feel like making tapes was a really nice way to engage with the music that you are listening to at the time. It’s like you start to think about how the songs that you like on a certain album fit or don’t fit with the other things you’re listening to, and what they add.

I think I pretty much just kept putting the same bands on these tapes, just choosing different songs. Oh, man, this one’s not even readable anymore.

Mat:   Oh, is it fading out?

Sarah:   Yeah, I guess the paint on the one side degraded the paper and the ink on the other side. It’s kinda cool.

Mat:   Oh my god, GG Allin. That and the Yo La Tengo song on this came from this  Homestead Records compilation. It was called Human Music. There were lots of bands that I’d never heard of before, and I think this was probably close to the first time I had listened to Yo La Tengo, and then had sought them out. And this was a cover of – which I don’t think I knew until later – was a Jackson Browne song.

Sarah:    Really? Wait, what song is that?

Homestead Records compilation

Mat:   Somebody’s Baby.

Sarah:   Oh, okay. Yo La Tengo. I thought you meant the GG Allin song.

Mat:   No, no, no, no, god.

Sarah:   I was like, “He was covering Jackson Browne? That was GG Allin’s Jackson Browne phase?” [laughs]

I just noticed that on this tape that I put two unidentified songs on here. I’m trying to think of how that even would have happened. Maybe I had taped something off of college radio, and I didn’t even know what it was, but I thought I should put it on a mix tape.

Mat:   You really liked it?

Sarah:   Yeah. I actually just discovered what something like that was a month ago when I was at a record store around here, and the person put on a Connells record, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I know these songs.”

Mat:   I think what I’m seeing here is as it’s gone on, a greater mix of diversity in the songs that I’m putting on here.

Sarah:   Mm-hmm, and the genres, maybe.

Mat:   I got Winnie the Pooh on here.

I’m pretty sure that this art here was in the – I remember I went to DC, and I think these came out of the DC City Paper.

I think this photo here is a statue on the campus of Penn State University.

Sarah:   Did you take that photo?

Mat:   Yeah.

Sarah:   Because it’s a really nice photo. It’s very blue in a nice way.

Mat:   I think it’s just a shitty disposable camera. Oh, okay, here we go. Yeah, I got into typing out things because I was really in to the typewriter. This fabric is these pants that I made into shorts.

Sarah:   I remember. I really liked those.

Mat:   Yeah, I wish I still had those. I could probably wear them now. I think I outgrew them at some point.

Oh, man, I love this Naked Raygun. “This is a Stiff Little Fingers song. It’s called Suspect Device.”

Sarah:   The diversity of genres that you would put on these tapes. For example, Bobby McFerrin, and Burl Ives. Do you think that was representative of the kinds of full length albums you were listening to, or –

Mat:   What Bobby McFerrin did I put on there? I remember the Burl Ives. My mom had all of these old 45s, and I think there were two Burl Ives songs that I remember putting on a bunch of tapes for people. One was A Little Bitty Tear, and the other one was Lavender Blue. It might be that those were the A and B sides of that 45. I think it’s part of my inherent sappiness in some respects, but I don’t know, I just like the songs.

I think that’s what it came down to. I wasn’t putting on Burl Ives compilations and listening to them around the clock. I think it was just I picked up on certain songs, and they just stuck with me for whatever reason. What was the Bobby McFerrin?

Sarah:   I didn’t find it in here. It might have been on a CD later, but to me, it exemplifies something about the mixes you’ve made over the years, where there’s always something kind of unexpected.

Mat:   Yeah, I noticed that, too, in looking at the early ones. The first few are really homogenized in terms of some of their genres and things, and then it gets really mixed up. A lot of that’s probably just, one: feeling probably more comfortable in expressing myself with music, and not feeling like if I put this song on, then “She’s not gonna like me anymore,” or something. Then, it’s like, “Well, even if she doesn’t like this song, it’s not a big deal. It’s something I like, and I feel fine letting her know that.”

Did you lose the tape?

Sarah:   It’s somewhere! I was really afraid of doing this interview from the standpoint of me maybe not having taken as good a care – actually, I woke up the other day in the morning and just remembered, I must have been dreaming about it, but remembered that there was a tape that is not here that you had made me. I can visualize it, but I don’t know where it is at this very second. It’s somewhere. I thought, “Oh, I hope Mat is not mad at me.”

Mat:   Well, but really, think of all of people you’ve made tapes for, who you’ve given those tapes to, and those tapes are long gone, or that they listened to it once, and they never listened to it again.

There’s one that starts off with “Hate Your Friends.” Yeah, and Arson Garden. This might be a tape I listened to more than any other one.

Sarah:   Why do you think you listened to that tape more than any other?

Mat:   I don’t know. Let me look. I remember in my dorm room, the bed was up on a loft, and I didn’t have a roommate in my dorm. Underneath the bed was a little shelf where I put the tape deck, and so I could listen to it as I went to bed, so it was really close to the bed, I didn’t have to turn it up very loud.

Then, if I woke up in the middle of the night, I would reach down and turn it back on. It was just music all the time, and I don’t know. There was just something about it. I think a distinction between the tapes you made me at the time and I made you is that yours, I think, there were a lot of softer songs, and so I think it made for a–

Sarah:   Good to sleep to.

Mat:   Well, good to sleep to, but also good to just sort of listen to and not have it be kinetic, and loud, and distorted.

Yeah. Then, this first one. This was always concerning to me because I think more than once it got stuck in the tape deck in my car.

Sarah:   Oh. Yeah, I wouldn’t put this in a car tape deck.

Mat:   Well, I did, and it was not pleasant. You had to get a screwdriver or something in there to kind of pop it out, but it always came out.

Yeah. I don’t know, there’s always a lot of bands– let’s see. A lot of bands that would show up, like Arcwelder. You were really in to Arcwelder–

Mat and Sarah in 1992

Sarah:   I was.

Mat:    – and Caterwaul.

Sarah:   I was really in to Caterwaul.

Mat:   Caterwaul is one of those bands that if I’d heard it today just out in the world, “Caterwaul, oh, that’s a Sarah band.” Arson Garden, that’s a Sarah band. I mean, even if you didn’t really listen to them all that much, it was definitely just a thing that was sorta connected to you in that way. Warlock Pinchers, definitely. This is the holy grail right here. Seriously, though. Well, the whole question of, “Made you a tape.” You probably said that to me, “Oh, made you a tape.”

Throwing Muses. Throwing Muses are on here, I think the first song, maybe. Are they on here? Yeah they are, Dragonhead. Yeah, I had heard of the Throwing Muses, but I had never listened to them before meeting you. Man, that first Throwing Muses record, some intense shit.

Sarah:   How do you think growing up in York, PA in the ‘80s and ‘90s influenced your interest in music, if at all?

Mat:   I mean, I think the thing was – I don’t know, I feel like I was inclined to reject a lot of what was happening.

I think a lot of my interest in music came about because I didn’t like – I think it came from not necessarily capital P politics, but looking at the people that I went to high school with and seeing the music that they listened to, and rejecting it because they were either bullies, or hunters, or football players, looking at that and saying, “Well, that’s not what I’m about.” And then thinking, “Okay, what am I interested in musically,” and then – I think a lot of it was listening to music where I knew something about the band or the people, about their politics, and then sort of following it that way.

Sarah:   Yes, yes. I think that’s a big difference between the tapes I made for you and the tapes you made for me, is there’s a lot of animal rights-related stuff on these tapes.

Mat:   Oh yeah, that makes sense. Also, thinking about – you mentioned Dag Nasty. I remember in, I wanna say 1990, taking the bus from Red Lion and going into York to the library. But down the street from the library was this record store called Flash & Trash.

Yeah, and I still have the tape. It’s Dag Nasty, Wig Out at Denko’s. I remember buying that tape there and just thinking, “This is different. This is a thing that’s different,” and it was probably the first thing I ever bought on Dischord, the first time I ever knew about Dischord, and then seeing the address in the back, and knowing that you could order – just the idea of being able to order music through the mail was a huge thing. And that someone would write you a handwritten note back. That was a huge thing.

Dag Nasty – Wig Out at Denko’s

Yeah, but just being exposed to in that store, seeing all of the different kinds of music that I’d never heard of, and then slowly going back and buying other things, and getting into buying seven inches, all of that. It was kind of a huge thing.

You know how far York is from Red Lion. It’s not that far. I think the first time I went, I didn’t tell my parents I was riding the bus, but it was seen as sort of a dangerous thing.

You got on the bus, and you went in, and, I mean, I was admittedly sort of not freaked out, but a little bit like, “Well, I don’t really know what to expect.” Also, from the standpoint of walking in this store and not knowing if I’m gonna be called out as a fraud. Well, they’re gonna know that I don’t really know what I’m doing, and I’m looking at all these records, and I’m like, “I don’t know what any of this stuff is,” but at the time, knowing, “Okay, I’ve heard of this band, Dag Nasty.”

Sarah:   Dag Nasty was your gateway into Dischord and to indie rock records?

Mat:   I think a little bit. I mean, before that was ninth grade, R.E.M. This is very telling, but the whole reason I bought an R.E.M. tape was the girl in front of me that I had a crush on was really in to R.E.M., and I heard her talking about it. I’m like, “Well, I gotta check this band out.”

Sarah:   Which record was that? Was it Document?

Mat:   No, that was Green, so it would have been ’89. Yeah, and so that was – yeah, that was sort of a gateway into that, college radio, and then Dag Nasty was kind of the gateway into punk and indie rock and all of that.

Sarah:   It’s funny; I made this chart of the frequency of tapes that we made each other. Did you think that was interesting at all? Yeah, so when we first met, and we were high school sweethearts, we made a ton of tapes for each other.

Sarah laughing at Mat and “ideal man” doll 1992

Mat:   Oh yeah, and then it depletes, yeah.

Sarah:   Then, there’s the dead year where we probably weren’t even talking to each other because it was right after we broke up or something, and then there’s this comfortable a-few-a-year kind of thing, which I think is very reflective.

Mat:   Oh yeah. Well, I think the first year of tapes were – I don’t know, it’s hard to say. I mean, particularly the first couple are like, “I’m going to try to impress this person.” I’m going to try to impress this person both with the songs themselves, and then my whole commentary about them.

Just the act of devoting time to making a tape seemed– and it’s sort of silly thinking about it now a little bit, but it’s like, “Well, I’m devoting time not only to making this tape, but it’s in service to this person.” You’re taking the time to do this, whether it be an act of love or an act of friendship, you’re doing this thing for this person.

You and I have probably both made tapes for people where you’ve put a lot of time into it, and they just don’t care. And there’s always that awkward thing of, “Okay, you made the tape for someone,” and then you see them again, and you’re like, “Do I ask if they’ve listened to the tape? Well, they haven’t brought it up. Does that mean they haven’t listened to it, or they’ve listened to it, and they’re just like, “What is this about?” The “made you a tape” [phrase] is, in a lot of ways, sort of a weird shorthand for, “I’ve made you this tape because I’m really in to you.”

Sarah:   Right, or at least, “I wanna share something with you.”

Mat:   I wanna share something with you. And there’s always this – I mean, not always, but I think there’s always sort of a self-consciousness of making a tape and saying, “Okay, this is not just the tape. This is part of my being, and I’m giving it to you.”

Sarah:   Yeah, I noticed with the tapes I made you, those early ones are like, “How can I put my heart on a platter?” The later ones are like, “I bought these seven inches. I think you might like some of them.”

Mat:   Yeah. Well, here’s a question for you. Can you imagine our friendship without these tapes?

Sarah:   Well, that’s a good point. Probably not.

Mat:   Yeah, I mean, this – at least here- a year’s worth of tapes, that’s pretty significant. Again, the time that it took to make the tapes.

Sarah:   Well, I think it’s also – some of these tapes represent a time period. This was college [for me].

Mat:   Yeah, yeah. This one in particular, I just noticed. “You’re leaving for good now, huh?” I think that was in response to me saying – because I think one side is “Pennsylvania”, and the other’s “Delaware”– yeah. That was in response to me saying “Oh, well, I’m not coming back. I’m just gonna do my thing now.” It’s sort of grandiose in whatever statement precipitated this.

Sarah:   Right. Yeah, dealing with that transitional period of time.

What’s the frequency with which you make mixes at this point in your life?

Mat:   Well, see, it’s interesting because we talked a little bit about this the other night. I’m not buying a lot of music, and if I wanted to – I still have the ability to – I have a computer I can play CDs on. I don’t have anything to play tapes on right now, so I can’t listen to these tapes.

Interestingly, we were talking about Spotify; I’ve actually gone back, not all of these, but I’ve gone back– and this is the other thing I wanted to say about mix tapes. Probably, I think everybody says it. But if you ever had a mix tape, and I don’t have a good example, but there’s a part of a song that drops out, or there’s that sound at the end where even if it’s not harsh, you can tell that it’s sort of an audible cue that someone, like you, had pushed a button.

If you hear that song in another context, you wait for the click. It’s so weird. There are songs that I know that I’m almost waiting for it. It’s like, “Oh, at the end of this song, there’s a click,” but there’s no click. That’s not part of the song. But it’s sort of part of the song in the context of the tapes. Also, you’ll hear a song, and you know what the next song should be, but it’s not that song. One of the things that I’ve done is gone back and created playlists, digital playlists.

Here’s the other thing, though, I think my tapes are a little more idiosyncratic than yours – particularly the earlier ones, where I put a lot of little snippets of dialogue and –I mean, it’s probably overkill to a certain extent.

Sarah:   No, no, it does have kind of a sound collage quality about it where it’s different influences flying at you quickly.

Mat:   Yeah, but I was really in to Henry Rollins’ spoken word stuff, so I’d pull out little things, Jello Biafra, all that stuff that was kind of floating around at the time, and kind of just throwing them in there, which is a lot. I mean, you can do it with audio software, and pull out – but there was just something, again, going back to that physical act of pulling out snippets, and – and also, the juxtaposing of things is always fun.

Sarah:   You’ve recreated these tapes in Spotify?

Mat:   Well, I mean recreating them in the sense of, “Okay, if I go through the list of songs, is this available?” Because obviously, not all songs are available on there, and if there’s any kind of – that’s what made me think of the idiosyncratic nature of some of the tapes, is when the song cuts off, you can’t recreate that. There are some songs, I’m not kidding you, where it would cut off, and I hadn’t actually ever heard the entire song, and then later, I hear it. It’s like, “Wow, that’s a totally different song, and I only knew the first two minutes of it.”

Sarah:    For some reason, I always thought it was okay to do that with instrumentals, which is a very naïve way of thinking about music. It’s like, “Oh, it’s an instrumental. It can be cut off.”

Mat:   On one of the tapes, it’s Gridlock by The Pogues. Yeah. That’s one of them I hadn’t heard the full version of until later.

The other thing, and I don’t know if you wanna call it the genealogy of mix tapes, but hearing a song that you’ve put on my tape, and then adding it to a tape that I make for somebody else. You’re like, “Oh, I didn’t know about this band before, but this is a great song.” I think the other thing– and I’ll cop to doing this over, and over, and over again, is there’s these songs that I have probably put on every mix tape that I’ve ever made for someone I was dating.

Sarah:    Yes.

Mat:   I don’t know if I put it on one of your tapes, All her Favorite Fruit by Camper Van Beethoven.

Sarah:    That’s my favorite Camper Van Beethoven song.

Mat:   It’s mine, too, and I heard them play it a few years ago at South by Southwest. Did they play it when –

Sarah:   Yes, I just saw it two weeks ago.

Mat:   Yeah, and it was one of those things where it took it way back. Yeah, but that’s definitely one that comes to mind. It was one of those things where, “Am I just being a hack? Is this a song that I’ve sort of spoiled it by using it over and over again?” I think it’s this thing where it’s all about the context, and about – it’s a thing that means a lot to me and then it’s like, “Okay, I think I’m there. I’m gonna share it with this person.” I mean, frankly, I hope I’m not – cheapening isn’t the right word, but I remember putting that song on a tape for a first girlfriend because I remember buying that tape– I think I bought that tape at a Camelot Music because I had seen them on probably 120 Minutes, or postmodern MTV. I was like, “What is this band about?” Then, that was the song that I kept going back to.

Sarah:   I don’t think it cheapens it.

Mat:   I don’t either. It’s imbued with a lot of life, and lots of different memories, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s on a playlist I made for [my wife].

Sarah:   Mm-hmm. The original question to catalyze that was how often are you making mixes now?

Mat:   I mean, not terribly often. We were planning on making a road trip mix. We just never got around to it.

Sarah:   Yeah. You think it’s time, mainly, is the factor?

Mat:   I think it’s time. I think my relationship with music is different in the sense that I tend to listen to new music, but the amount of new music I listen to is less than it was maybe five, ten years ago. I tend to gravitate toward the things that I’ve always listened to, or maybe revisiting things that I hadn’t listened to in a while.

I mean, often just out of curiosity, it’s like, “Does this even hold up anymore?” That kinda thing. I went back and listened to that Miracle Legion album, Drenched. Totally different, just because of age and listening, maybe, a little more closely. It’s a totally different record because you’re seeing it from probably an –

Miracle Legion – Drenched

Sarah:   An adult’s –

Mat   – an adult’s perspective, yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff like that.

Sarah:   Yeah, definitely listening to that record when you’re like 15, those words mean something totally different than when you’re an adult and you listen.

Mat:   Yeah. Also, thinking about when they made that record, they were probably only in their 20s. They weren’t as old as I am now. Is that true?

Sarah:    I think they might have been a little older, but I’m not sure.

Mat:   Really? Yeah. Well, I guess Mark Mulcahy is what, in his ’50s? ‘60s?

Sarah: I don’t think it’s clear. [laughter]

Mat:   [laughter] Indeterminate age. The beard is confusing. I don’t know, though, but I’ll go back to the thing I said before about just keeping the tapes. I have these tapes. I don’t think I ever got rid of a mix tape that anyone gave me. I have a seven-inch box. It’s full of tapes, and I dug these out. I have tapes from my brother. I found a tape from [an old friend from York]. Yeah. Yeah, probably every girlfriend I ever had. I found some tapes that people had recorded songs on one side, and recorded them talking on the other.

Sarah and Mat in 2004

Sarah:   Weren’t you part of a mix tape exchange club at some point?

Mat:   Actually, you know what? It was CDs. And I’m glad you brought that up. There was a theme every month, and then we’d meet at a coffee shop or a bar, and just exchange our mixes because the idea was that you would show up, and you would make the same mix for everybody, and –

Sarah:   You would leave there with ten mixes or something? Whoah, that’s a little overwhelming.

Mat:   Yeah, and I got rid of a lot of them. There was maybe one or two that I kept. I did it off and on for maybe a year, but I think the thing that I realized is that I don’t wanna do it this way. You know what I mean? The reason I keep these, it’s because of the music, but it’s also because it’s very much an artifact of a period in my life, of a connection to you or whoever.

Yeah, these CD mixes, like, “Oh, these are all songs from 1983.” Okay. I don’t know this person. Oh, the other thing I think I didn’t like was it was a little bit like the early things where I was writing stuff about the songs.

Sarah:   Like, “This makes me cool because I’m about to tell you something that you didn’t know.”

Mat:   “Hey, let me tell you what I know about Steely Dan.”

Sarah:   [laughter] Did that really happen?

Mat:   No, actually, I think it was King Crimson. [laughter] But then, I also realized – I got a CD once where I’m like, “I could have made this. This is my sensibilities,” and then I’m talking to the person, and I’m like, “I don’t really like this person at all.” Musically, we like the same things, but—. I’m glad I did it for the time that I did it, but it wasn’t really a thing that I felt the need to keep up.

Mat Darby is an archivist at the University of Georgia’s Richard B. Russell Library who focuses on documenting the intersection of politics, activism and the public good. Born in Missouri, raised in Pennsylvania, and educated in Delaware and Texas, he currently lives in Athens, Georgia, which he would argue is one of the best college towns in America. He shares a house with his wife, Kristy, and cats Winston and Pippa. And no, he doesn’t know Michael Stipe, but he sees the bassist for Pylon in the neighborhood all the time. Twitter: @matdarby Instagram: @tadmabry

Mat