November 2011 Track Listing

1. Majestic - Journey

2. Born Under Punches(The Heat Goes On) - Talking Heads

3. Let's Go (Nothing For Me) - New Order

4. First We Take Manhattan - REM

5. People Suck - Bill Hicks

6. Me Myself and I - De La Soul

7. The Magnificent Seven - Clash

8. Epic Problem - Fugazi

9. Sitting on the Dock of the Bay - Pearl Jam

10. My Brain is Hanging Upside Down - Ramones

11. I Hate the TV - Violent Femmes

12. Long Shadow - Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros

13. I Guess I'll Get the Papers - Louis Armstrong

14. Representing - John Frusciante

15. Rebirth of Slick - Digable Planets

16. Hooch - Melvins

17. Thunderbird - ZZ Top

November 2011

Nov. 2011 CD Mixtape is in the mail!!!! Sorry for the delay!! It will be worth the wait!

Still October....barely

Hey gang. First off, I hope everyone receives their disc before the end of the month, so if you don't get it by Monday, let me know and I'll send out a new one.

I'd commented in another thread, but I also guess I'll put it here as well. I wanted to give Brian time to get caught up and get his disc out, but with the end of the month fast approaching, I didn't want to steal any thunder from the November person as well. Hope you enjoy the mix. I'll post the track list in the comments here in a few days.

Until then, sorry about the volume leveling (or lack thereof). Itunes sucks and I was in a hurry.

Lost in the Mail Tapes

Hi, Chris here, 5 time listener, first time poster on this web log.

I am a fan of medium rare Filet Mignon with a side of asparagus on a brisk evening in October whilst sipping a Scoth that is slightly younger than I, all the while taking in the view of either a pristine sunset or two ducks doing it nearby. 1

I also enjoy strong, light roasted coffee prepared in a French Press by my own hand on a Sunday Morning when I do the crossword I am ultimately going to cheat on when my girlfriend goes to check on the Frittatta 2 I have made from unused roasted vegetables from the night before that wouldn't fit into my tacos. 

I love most though, outside of making love to my sweet, sweet lady, or watching, perhaps "Game of Thrones"3  is listening to new, exciting music. For the last several months, I have received, each month, as all of you have, a brand new compact disc via the United State Postal Service. In all honesty, it was the first time in a while I was excited to get the mail. The last two months, this has not happened. And I am wondering why.

I will send out supplemental mixes to all of you if need be. But hook it up.

Love Chris

1) Duck Fucking -Have you seen this?!?!?! It is pretty amazing.

2) Frittatas- They are easy and delicious. Google that. 

3) "Game of Thrones"- a Home Box Office series. Main Themes: Heads being cut off, Badassery of Peter Dinklage, and Boobs

  

Volume 5

Sorry for the delay. I hope everyone recieves the disc before the calender hits September.

See the reply to this post for the tracklist.

Volume 4, July, 2011

Justin was having trouble with his blog account. He can comment, but not create new posts. He is going to list his tracks in the comments of this post. Loved the mix Justin, nice work.

Mike

Volume 3, June 2011 is upon us!

Well, I will not forget June 2011 for a lot of reasons. This is the month where:

-My son fully became potty trained

-My professional life extended into crazy double duty days both teaching and writing over 7200 math problems freelance for a textbook company.

-CD Mix Tape Volume Twig finally came into being.

After a month of going back and forth about what I wanted to pour into volume 3 of CD mix tape, I finally put it all together and its now in the mail! You should all be receiving it within the week. These are all songs that have been stuck in my head for the better part of this year for one reason or another. Basically, this is Twig on a disc. Very different vibe than the other two CD's. Final count is 16 tracks with 1 interlude. I really hope you guys all enjoy!

Full disclosure - Track 06 on the CD has some undesirable skips in it in several places due to the fact I got a bad torrent for the file. I only discovered this after the mix hit the mail, so I hope it doesn't damper the enjoyment of the disc as a whole.

On that note, I'm gonna bring some high tech shit up in this. I have track 06 fully downloaded now and all of my files posted on the internet through dropbox.com. Basically, dropbox is a cloud computing service where you can sign up for a free account and get 2GB of storage free online to access anywhere. I can share my mixtape folder, and all files on it, with anyone that also has dropbox. This would also prevent you from having to work to rip my CD on a computer in case you wanted the files digitally.

If you would like to get dropbox click the following link: http://db.tt/h26jjMW

Once you have dropbox, all you have to do is just let me know and I can share my mixtape folder with you (it also has a bonus track that didn't make the final burn)!

I am going to wait until later this week to post the tracklist in the comments, as has been customary so far.

- Twig

New Members/Updated Rotation

Let's give a big hello to our newest members, Amy, Curley, and Brooks. That rounds our rotation out at 13 members. Anyone think we should set a cap on the number of members? I'm split evenly between the "More the Merrier" camp and the "Postage Is How Much?!" camp. Weigh in under the comment section. Twig, you're time is nearly upon us. I'll get you an address list. Updated rotation posted below.

June - Twig
July - Justin
Aug - Matt
Sept - Gach
Oct - Tom
Nov - Mark
Dec - Andrew
Jan - Chris J.
Feb - Amy
Mar - Curley
Apr - Brooks
May - Mike
June - Clay

Tracklist for May 2011

In comments for your convenience.

Volume 2

I have to wonder, aside from Twig, who else read the title of this post and thought "Electric Boogaloo"?

On to matters of note. By now, most of you should have received the May 2011 version of this project. If you haven't, you surely will today or tomorrow. If I've ruined the surprise, my apologies. Then again, what the hell are you doing lurking around this blog without disc in hand!?!??!

Anyways, I hope you enjoy. It was much harder that I anticipated. Not only cutting songs down to one disc's worth, but also the arrangement and pacing. But I think I produced a fun, worthwhile mix. Certainly not every song will be everyone's cup of tea, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't very intrigued and looking forward to reactions, commentary and criticisms.

That being said, I thought I might get a little experimental. On the "left" side of your disc, you'll see a circled number. This was a randomly generated number that correlates with a track number. If you do decide to post on the blog, I thought it might be cool for each group member to post specific info regarding the randomly assigned track. Some tidbit of info about the song or artist, the year it was recorded, a particular lyric, or any musing inspired by the track. Completely understandable if you don't feel like I have earned the right to assign you homework, but the idea of group based research seemed worth a try.

Track list will be posted in a day or two. Happy Listening!

About the listeners

What exactly is the average attention span of everyone? I personally don't plan on putting any 20+ minute epics on my mix but I would like to know on average how long you guys can listen to a song.

What if it was Nick CAGE and the Bad Seeds?

These are the kinds of esoteric questions that run through my mind as I prepare to build the follow up to Volume I.

Now here's a question that's actually answerable: Are we planning on using this blog as a forum to get all pitchforky and review/critique/discuss/praise/defend the works held within each Volume of the project? Or, are we just going to keep our mouths shut and listen? I'm not entirely sure if the answer will affect my playlist in any way, but I am curious.

December

Mark down Andrew for the December mix slot. Welcome aboard.

Mike

New Order

Haven't heard from Steve P, so I'm assuming he's a no-go. His spot will open up and everyone will move up. Also haven't heard from Matt Jessen's brother(Mike) or Mark's boy Andrew. If they chime in we'll add them to the end of the queue. The new order for the first wave is as follows:

May - Clay
June - Adam
July - Justin
August - Matt
September - Brian
October - Tom
November - Mark

Mike

April 2011 Tracklist

Had a great idea sent to me by Matt Jessen to post an announcement of the tracklist, and then add the actual tracklist to the comments. This way you can view it at your own discretion instead of having it slapped across your face. Check the comments for the 4/11 tracklist.

Mike

Remail

Seems like there's enough problems to merit a reburn and remail on this inaugural wave of discs. I'm setting the bar really high here Clay, the pressure is on.

Arrgh.

Heard back from two people who have discs that won't play. Shoot me a text, or email me @ slcheff@gmail.com to let me know if your disc plays. I'll send out replacements tomorrow. Sorry bout the troubles.

Surprises Instore?

I agree with Clay in that I don't think that any formal announcements need be made when future discs are mailed. The surprise is half the fun. To this end, I did not include any sort of tracklist with my discs. What's everyone's take on that? Would you like to know what you're getting into each month, or would you rather simply listen and enjoy? Maybe we could put this to a vote in the comment section of this post. To list or not to list. I had planned on posting the tracklist on the blog sometime next week after everyone had a chance to receive and digest the music. I will send out an updated member list including addresses via email once I have everyone's address. I'd rather not post it to the site, as I see no need in announcing everyone's postal address to the world.

Mike

$240 worth of puddin'

Well done on getting this bad boy underway, Heff. As keeper of the addresses, will you be posting those here, or is it the previous sender's responsibility to pass along to the next?

I'm a little upset at myself for checking the blog today of all days, robbing myself of that special little surprise headed my way. I for one, will NOT be announcing when I send out Volume 2. It'll be in May, but other than that, walk to you're mail box every day in high hopes. Just know that there's going to be some disappointing days. But I will do my best to make that disappointment wash away with the sweet, dulcet sounds of my mix.

First Disc Is Away

The first mix disc went out with today's post. Still waiting on an address from Steve, but in all 10 discs were distributed. I bout must've changed the playlist everyday for the past two weeks before I finally said to hell with it and went to the post office. Here's what I found in putting the first disc together: As far as supplies go I found that Staples had the best prices

• a spindle of 50/100 cds will run you about $9-$15


• slim jewel cases run about $.50 each (paper sleeves are much cheaper)


• a pack of 12 bubble mailers is $7.50 or $1 individually -a pack of cd labels and labelling software runs about $15 (I didn't use them, but probably will in the future)


• cost of mailing each cd was $1.60

All told I spent around $35 and it should be less next time with about 90 discs left on my spindle.

There are now twelve people in the group. Mike Jessen and Andrew Aragon have both recently entered our ranks. The Bloomington group should have it the easiest with mailing costs so long as they can hand deliver a few of the discs.

Here's a bit of advice:

• Use burning software that allows you to normalize the volume levels of the songs. This helped out tremendously with some mp3s on my mix that had widely different volume levels. There only ended up being one song that was much louder than the rest.


• Burn a trial copy and listen to it. I made one copy and listened to it in my car before burning all 11 copies. This was awesome because the first copy that I made was jacked up due to an mp3 used from a bad cd rip as well as an old mp3 that had the end of the song cut off.

That's all for now. Enjoy!

New addition

Welcome Chris Johnson, RB, to the mix. He'll be slotted in right behind Mark.

The Order!

Hey Guys- Let's get this thing kicking!

The order of our CD distribution will be as follows:

1. Mike Heffernan
   
2. Clay Davis
3. Adam Terwilliger
4. Justin Harrison.
5. Steve Philbeck
6. Matt Jessen
7. Brian Gach
8. Tom Hootman
9. Mark Armentrout

Now.......Let's have some fun!