Mix #9: 7/22/11

Click here to listen to the majority of the playlist.

1. Wetbones – Illy B *
2. Time to Pretend – MGMT
3. It’s the Little Things We Do – The Zutons
4. Gates of Steel – Devo
5. Don’t Make it Stop – Firewater
6. The Gods of Basketball – The Flys *
7. Hungry Ants – Barry Adamson
8. Animal – Prick
9. Can’t Come Down – God Lives Underwater *
10. Clarissa – Mindless Self Indulgence
11. Convict Colony – Saul Williams
12. Push Eject – Boom Boom Satellites
13. Auto Rock – Mogwai
14. Reality Check – Schneider TM
15. The Crystal Cat – Dan Deacon
16. Bukowski – Modest Mouse
17. About a Girl – Nirvana
18. Find Another Girl – The Hives
19. I Come From the Water – The Toadies
20. Everyone Alive – Local H
21. Sam Hell – Helmet
22. I Don’t Wanna Grow Up – Tom Waits
23. Toothbrush – Tennis *
24. I Seen a Man Die – Scarface

* = video not found

MGMT: Time to Pretend

Take one look at the dark circles around her eyes and tell me she’s going to age well.

The Zutons: It's the Little Things We Do

Like taking two showers a day and not wearing the same shirt twice if you sweat through it on the first application and are planning to go into the subway.

Devo: Gates of Steel

Just went to get a refreshing Coors Light from the fridge and an empty bottle of rum toppled off and struck the crown of my head. That’s probably the most pain I’ve been in for a year.

Firewater: Don't Make it Stop

Firewater probably has as many songs in my personal top 100 as any other band. It always surprises me a little bit that this one has caught the most registered plays in my iTunes. I think it’s a nice testament to some sort of controlled randomness.

Barry Adamson: Hungry Ants

Trent Reznor’s “Natural Born Killers” soundtrack, to me, set a bar for movie soundtracks that I’m not sure has even been approached (#2 of all time is the soundtrack to "Witness," the only tape my family owned until I turned 21). What I’m talking about here is less the selection of tracks, and more the recorded artifact which blends the music with dialogue from the movie. I had heard the soundtrack so many times before I saw the movie, that I felt like I knew it by heart. The button!

Prick: Animal

We have been fighting mice and their turds all summer.

Mindless Self Indulgence: Clarissa

I once had to put together a themed mix CD for a place where I was working. The theme I chose was something along the lines of songs with girls’ names in the title. I picked cover art from some Dean Martin movie called “The Ladies Man.” I used this song in the mix. None of the ladies I gave the mix to ever talked to me again.

Saul Williams: Convict Colony

Thanks to my African American Studies 101 class, I knew who Saul Williams was like 15 years ago. Otherwise, I would have thought he was just some dude lucky enough to hook up with Trent Reznor for an album or two.

Boom Boom Satellites: Push Eject

Speaking of Trent Reznor, this Boom Boom Satellites song once got leaked on the radio and they were saying that it was a new Nine Inch Nails track. It took so long for us to download a primitive MP3 over a modem (I think it came in three parts that needed to be put together using some sort of shareware), but we tried, we tried so hard. Good hoax.

Mogwai: Auto Rock

Sometimes you just need to say, How fucking old am I? and put in the air conditioner yourself.

Schneider TM: Reality Check

Most people don’t know that this is Beck’s cousin from the other side of the family (not the side of the family that has the Hanson girls and the Scientologists).

Dan Deacon: The Crystal Cat

I added all the people on Facebook who have the same name as I do. There are four of them, and only one accepted my friendship request. He tipped me to this song.

Modest Mouse: Bukowski

Bukowski would really love this lesbian coffee shop and the group meeting that’s going on in the back corner. I can't even tell what they're talking about, but their leader keeps going "Let's try to not talk about politics!" The Asian guy is freaking out and everybody else looks embarrassed.

Nirvana: About a Girl

This song’s off my first blog. Most people don't read it.

The Hives: Find Another Girl

And sometimes you can’t find the hammer and you remember your dad not being able to find the hammer and blaming you, and at this particular moment you think Dad, you should have looked behind the mini drum set and the Mr. Potato Head.

The Toadies: I Come From the Water

From the best live band I’ve seen. Which is a bold statement for somebody with a mixbag so deep. But let’s get it out of the way early.

Local H: Everyone Alive

I think Local H is underestimated as a band that has consistently put out strong efforts time and time again, each of them rocking as hard as the last. Plus, they've been around for long enough to ascertain the fact that they're aging really well. It has made constant sense to play them directly next to The Toadies over dozens and dozens of mixes.

Helmet: Sam Hell

This is one of my favorite Helmet songs, I think, because it sounds the least like Helmet.

Tom Waits: I Don't Wanna Grow Up

This song would go well on my “Hey Mope” playlist, which whips, with a rubber hose, the notion that sad songs need to be acoustic and must feature male falsetto. Except I think the ukulele is acoustic.