A Playlist and a Story

I’ll start with something obvious:  Tastes are not only unique to individuals, they are unique to periods of time.  This mix, which I made in the DC blizzard of February 2010, seems miles away from where I currently stand, musically speaking.  There are plenty of old favorites, but as with any mix made any time before just now/ five seconds ago, there are some selections on here that give me pause.  The inclusion, for instance, of The Constantine’s “Young Lions” indicates to me that I made this mix at a time when I was feeling particularly nostalgic for driving the freeways and overpasses of Dallas late at night, probably heading to consume some fast-food-type toxins.  Letting Mirah’s operatic “Cold Cold Water” run ‘til its last note indicates that at that point, I had either a) lost interest, or b) run up until bedtime/Gossip Girl/ something else that demands quiet in my household.

I made this mix as a sort of olive branch to someone that I play music with.*  It was intended to entice the listener into thinking that I was cool enough to partner-start a neolectrosoul/summer-club-banger-oriented band.  With two months left until official summer, I don’t think that it worked.  Looking back at this mix, I see that my approach was pretty off the mark.  You are listening, friend, to a failed mixtape.

Mixtaping, as John Cusack’s character from High Fidelity would (or possibly did) say, is an art.  And while it is — I’ll agree — a lesser art than making music or writing or painting or haberdashery, it shares the defining characteristic of all things arty:  it tells you something about yourself in hindsight.  I haven’t deluded myself into thinking that placing the Go! Team after John Maus was a capstone moment for G Mitchell London, but looking at this list in the context of what I was doing at the time paints a clearer window into my life.  Even the failed attempts — perhaps especially the failed attempts — serve this purpose.

- GMLjr

*This phrase-ending preposition was a point of stylistic choice.

Playlist Submission 1 by Mitchell London.

1.  Wild Letters:  ”Senator Toss Off Beat Side A”
2.  Joni Mitchell:  ”California”
3.  John Maus:  ”The City”
4.  The Go! Team:  ”Huddle Formation”
5.  Blackalicious: “Blazing Arrow”
6.  Four Tet:  ”Smile Around the Face”
7.  The Constantines “Young Lions”
8.  Delorean:  ”Seasun”
9.  Madvillain:  ”Money Folder (Four Tet Remix)”
10.  The Boredoms:  ”(star)”
11.  Mirah:  ”Cold Cold Water”

G. Mitchell London Jr. grew tall in Birmingham, went to school in Dallas and now lives in DC. He tumbles here, tweets here, jams here, and you can also find some work of his here. Although he is particularly skilled at leaving voicemail, his more impressive talents include teaching English in the Mississippi Delta, photography, tennis (presumably), writing, deejaying at weddings and fiddling with musical equipment in a generally productive way. This short biography was not written or condoned by its subject.