So Jolie, a long time friend of mine from my WVU days, happened upon this picture of a mix tape lineup at my facebook spot here from our days together going on 30 years now. A picture of a mix tape’s list of tunes that I couldn’t even begin to remember where it is that she came about it, well I mean I know where it is, obviously it’s there, I mean she found it and liked it, I just hadn’t thought to look for it in quite a while but was wonderfully reminded that it exists there somewhere (not thinking of other possible pics that might exist … really, I didn’t know they had a camera … well Ok … not TOO embarrassing I guess … I’m alright with average though I’ll tell myself above so).
There was this alternative college radio station and there was this bar, the Foxfire Pub, that liked this alternative college radio station enough to get drunk with it, get drunk with it quite often and sleep with it and build babies/friends who would go on to do wonderful things, live wonderful lives but still talk to this day and give and take shit and even accidentally, it seems, come across reminders of those first flirting days. (I’m not condoning sleeping with your college alternative music mix pub by the way).
Brian said that if I built new tapes (for you youngins they were things called cassettes, original Mix tape things, things that you recorded songs on and tried to impress girls with, in a small flat plastic thingy with spinny holes, playable in cars as new car standard then) that the beers were on him for the night, a Friday or a Saturday, depending on when I presented my beer tape golden ticket .
#14? Yeah, I had quite a few freebie nights it seems … still searching for my pants from tape # 9 and my New Order T-shirt from tape #3. Sheila? Really? I loved that T-shirt.
I thought to YouTube the tunes then and, man, I suddenly didn’t feel that ache in my shoulder and my ginger stand ups from a wonky back? I could lift the world, ok not really and that’s a bit too dramatic (bend at the knees dude) but I was young again for 3 or 4 minutes at a clip, the world was so big and I was so small according to Miracle Legion, Adrien Belew was all poppy, CS Angels did the drone, Railway Children got even more poppy than Adrien, the Bat Mastersons played the dining room after we cleared out all the tables AND the dinner patrons “You done with that? Seriously, we can box it up for you … now”, The Rave-Ups rocked (and still do), the Jack Rubies had that alternative sound and even Steely Dan snuck their asses in there.
Now this tape isn’t entirely indicative of what these tapes were. I’m a poppy guy and this one reflects that, but I wasn’t the only one to present a golden mix tape ticket, Bill Pearis was the one with more of an edge, but we both enjoyed those dumb free beers. Too much so. I’m sure we both made note, at some point, that the other got home safe while wondering why we were maybe shoeless in a fountain somewhere, in a neighboring state somehow or falling down a hill.
But these tapes were our world in the most perfect of spots, they were our thoughts rock and rolled when our own thoughts were insufficient, they were our identity … and, well, some free beers.
“Dude? Where the fuck are your shoes … and how about we do a Little Latin Lupe Lu with the Strawberry Zots?”
frankenberrysattic.com 
The days of the mix tape…morphed into a mixed CD when I met my future wife in 2010
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Shit evolves but those Mix Tape days? Man they were the best.
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