JANUARY 2001

 

This one has been on the shelf for a long long time. Every time I pick it up, with its innocuous hand written label in unknown handwriting and no cover or track listing...I just put it back on the shelf. Who has the time to dig through a mystery? Who has the patience to find out if it's even worth a listen? And then it starts with a couple of BILLY BRAGG tracks (and I'm admittedly not the biggest BILLY BRAGG fan) so am I really interested....? But I kept listening just in case and it's hard to believe this has just been right in front of me for so long (years) but perhaps the point is that now is when I was meant to hear it. There's some songs that I wouldn't have liked in a different context, some songs by bands that everyone else loved but I was always whatever about or never even heard at all...and basically this is the antithesis of a tape I would have made in 2001. Twenty two years later, I'm very glad that someone else made it. I have no idea who/m, but I'm glad they did, and I'm glad it landed on my shelf. Make more mix tapes please. Share them. Give them to people. Give them to strangers. Leave them in coffee shops. Fuck dude, mix tapes are so fucking important. 

MIX TAPE (JANUARY 2001)