Artifacts
But these tapes don't necessarily show that part of my musical history. They contain shared memories or were meant as part of my musical education. I've held on to them because I hold on to everything, old letters and pictures, ephemera from boys long gone. I hold on to people in my mind, too, keep them close and safe, warm in the glow of a shared past.
In no particular order, here are three samples:
The relationship mourning tape
The this is music you need to know about tape
Part of my musical education, a tape made for me by a Hollywood Beach regular, M, who was about seven years older than me and had a plethora of albums from the sixties onward. This was my first exposure to the Velvet Underground. It still has the best version of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing that I've ever heard (and haven't been able to find anywhere else). Sometimes I track down Heartbreaker's Beach Party on YouTube because I want to remember M and the Hollywood Beach crowd, the beach bonfires, the alcohol, kind M hanging out in the background.
The college friendship tape
This mixtape is from freshman year in college, made for my roommate Martha and me by fellow Third Floor Nerd Floor resident Kitty Hill. Kitty lasted at our small liberal arts college for a year before going back to Cincinnati (and that is her real name: I'd love to find her). I lasted slightly more than a year and Martha finally graduated a few years behind schedule. I'm attached to this tape less because of the music than because of the fleetingness of the time it represents, that brief strange period I had in the dorms. My memories of Kitty include her drinking Purple Jesuses (grape Kool-Aid and vodka) and singing Unhappy Birthday on her birthday and the spring 1988 trip we took to Annapolis in Imran's crumbling Mazda RX-7 to see the Navy boys.
If I were to represent my current life in a mixtape, I'm afraid it would be high on the melodrama. That's where my emotional musical tastes lie at the moment, in songs that can coax the feelings out of me. I do better when I can cry about something else, something unrelated to the present, like a memory from 25 years ago or a song about someone else's pain.
I'll spare you the drama. Let's start with something fluffy and light, danceable, a nice accompaniment to a glass of white wine or sparkling water, that 80s classic, Things Can Only Get Better (thanks, Kitty).
Top image: Keep it in Mind, a clip from ZigZag magazine that used to be on the wall of the Little House. I regret tossing the old issues away.