K-Mart Radio Network Mix CD

A few years ago, I discovered a tracklist of a mixtape I had made back in the '90s. It inspired me to wax nostalgic on the value of mix-tapes but it also inspired me to go back and find more tracklists in scattered notebooks or on the tapes or CDs themselves (here and another CD here).

This summer I realized I had forgotten about an important mix CD I had made in the late '90s My K-Mart Radio Network Mix CD!

This image just screams 90's to me. You have to admire the effort here, go on, admire it with me. By the way, although a second volume was planned I never got around to it.

This CD demands a little more explanation. My first job was at the neighborhood K-Mart because my friend Philip worked there.  I worked there from December 1994 through January 1995. I had to briefly quit as I was planning on being in the school musical and wanted to enjoy the last of my senior year. One of the mangers was nice enough to hire me back in June 1995, I kept the job until June 1997.  It was a long two years. 

The pay and management were horrible but my friends made it worthwhile (as Philip got most of our friend's there a job at some point).  At any given point while working there, there was a good chance I had a friend clocked in when I was there. Soon enough, I got to know more people and it was its own little community. Although we had much to complain about at the time, it really was a perfect "first job". I have many great memories of those days.  I can still smell the place in my head. I'm surprised I have never written "K-Mart Fragments" but it's due to happen one of these days....

I started as a checker and ended up working at almost every department, at least a few times. I spent some time at Service Desk (which was stressful and overall awful) but mainly I spent my time in Lay-A-Way. That was the sweetest gig at K-Mart because it was in the back of the store, surrounded by hardware and auto accessories. Basically, you could hide back there. We might get busy on Saturdays or for an hour or so, but otherwise, there was plenty of time to relax. I could grab a video game magazine and read it in the back or study for an exam and no one would be the wiser. 

No matter where you worked though you could not escape the "K-Mart Radio Network" that played while the store was open (I always found the store to be eerily quiet once we closed). 

In between store promos and announcements, the "network" played classic '60s tunes including rock and Mo-Town. There was also a heavy dash of '70s R-n-B and pop-folk with good dose of '70s and '80's adult contemporary songs.

In the beginning, my friends and I complained about the "lame" music....but after being forced to hear these songs over and over AND over again, our attitude began to change.  I don't want to dramatize this but the K-Mart Radio network forced me to re-evaluate my snotty 19-year-old attitude towards music that wasn't '90's alt-rock. It got me to admit that maybe I didn't know it all, it challenged me to have more of an open mind to music than I did before. 

This was in the infancy of the internet, it wasn't that easy to figure out the artists or song titles. Googling song lyrics didn't even occur to us because Google didn't exist yet. Over the next two years, my old buddy Philip and I would track down the songs and purchase entire CD's often to get to just one song. 

Honestly, I think Philip picked up the vast majority of them, he would usually surprise me by playing a new CD in his car when we were out cruising around town. Once we had compiled numerous CD's it was just a matter of time before this puppy came along. 

Here was my mix CD of the K-Mart Radio Network, Vol. I. 

1. Doobie Brothers - "Without Love"
2. BJ Thomas - "Hooked on a Feeling"

3. The Buckinghams - "Kind of a Drag"

4. Paul McCartney - "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey"

 5. The Spinners - "I'll be around"
6. Eric Clapton - "Layla"
7. The Chi-Lites - "Have You Seen Her?"
8. Madonna - "Borderline"
9. Beatles -"Lonely People"
10. Peaches & Herb - "Reunited" 
11. Neil Diamond - "Sweet Caroline"
12. Chicago - "Saturday in the Park"
13. Stylistics - "Betcha By Golly Wow" 

14. Chi-Lites - "I'm gonna make you love me"
15. Simon & Garfunkel - "El Condor Pasa" 
16. Roy Orbison - "Pretty Woman"
17. Prince - "Raspberry Beret"
18. Peter Frampton - "Baby I Love Your Way"
19. Buffalo Springfield - "For What It's Worth"

I would be happy to make a playlist for you but I know the odds of someone listening to it is between slim and none. So, get YT or Spotify and look up some of these oldies. They won't let ya down. 

It's true you can never really go back home again.  The old K-Mart shut down in the '00s and I've lost contact with most everyone that was at the store. I found one of our friends back in the early days of FB but I don't think he posts much and besides, I deactivated my account awhile back too. 

To be honest,  I haven't really talked with Phil in over four years (Phil, are you there, man? I miss ya).  I'll never see that K-Mart community together again and that makes me a bit sad. I know annoying Chris passed away in a car accident in the early '00s and I am sure some of those older folks have passed away too (old Marvin in gardening and the ancient German lady who smoked like a chimney, Heidi). I would pay good money to go back to re-live a few hours working at K-Mart. Time is like that, your brain can take you back in a flash. Geez, I'm getting old.  

At least I still have the music to help me reminisce and remember...and now you do too. 

Mix-Tape #3 - The Concept Album

I wrote an ode to mix tapes a few years ago here and then after I found another track-list, I wrote a follow-up here. Now, it seems like I am finishing up a trilogy of posts about mix tapes with this post.  

I recently re-discovered another mix CD in one of my old CD cases. I had never really forgotten about this mix CD but it's been sitting in its sleeve for years, unloved and un-listened to.  I never had much reason to listen to it after I made it (early 2001). Subsequently, I never really tied this mix into my whole "track down every mix tape/CD" before the world ends blogging activity. 

Between the years of 1997-2002 I was a romantic relationship to friendship to somewhere in between romance and friendship with Marie. It was the typical young love, long-distance, on-and-off again type stuff.  I was committed to making it work, even if that meant giving space, being a friend and generally not moving on with the rest of my life. Don't try that at home, folks.

Eventually, this was finally resolved when I started dating my wife. Some of this is covered in epic fashion here for those suckers interested.

 I titled this mix (in hastily written permanent marker) "Concept Album - Mix 2000-2001".  The CD was created as cathartic exercise in healing from my heartbreak over Marie. Honestly, if you look at the track list I think  you'll agree it was clearly so cathartic that it became over-indulgent.  For heaven's sake, there's 19 songs. It's like eating too much soft-serve ice cream, it ultimately just doesn't sit well. I was in my early twenties, so cut me a break. Here's the track list broken into the themes for the sake of convenience. 


Part I
1. Ash - "Walking Barefoot"
2. The  La's - "There She Goes"
3. Sloan -  "I Can Feel It"
4. James Taylor - "Country Road"
5. Eric Clapton - "You Look Wonderful Tonight"
Part II
6. Green Day - Scattered Pictures
7. Breeders - Do You Love Me Now?
8. Fountains of Wayne - "Troubled Times"
9. Duncan Sheik - "Barely Breathing"
10. Elvis Costello - "Everyday I Write the Book"
Part III
11. Peaches & Herb - "Reunited"
12. Foo Fighters - "Up In Arms"
13.  Tom Petty - "The Wait"
Part IV
14. Everclear - "So Much For the Afterglow"
15. Ben Folds Five - "Evaporated"
16. The Beatles - "I'm Thinking Through You"
17. The Rentals _ "Say Goodbye Forever"
18.Coward - "I Don't Care"
19 Foo Fighters - "M.I.A."

(Insert embarrassing emoji here)

Thinking of this track selection almost twenty years later I find this mix overly earnest and entirely too long.  While I do like the whole idea of theme, rather than collecting the songs that were personally important to me, it looks as though I settled on trying to capture every possible angle on ALL of my feelings. This is what kills the album.

Also, Duncan Sheik? Embarrassing....

Ok, ok, I still kinda like that song....

Ahem....a surprising aspect about this album was that I included Sloan's 'I Can Feel It". This is a song I have long associated with my wife, in fact I had it playing when I proposed to her. It's funny how memory works, as soon as I started blogging on this mix, I uncovered memory of myself singing this song in my dorm room, of course thinking about Marie. But up until this rediscovery, I had convinced myself that my only attachment to this song was through my wife. It seems my brain had conveniently wiped away any associations I had with Marie and this song and dumped them in favor of associations with my wife. 

Finally, I think the mix suffers from too many disparate parts, it feels almost manic-like in its need to catalog "hey, here's a song, oooh, whatabout this song?"  From Green Day to Tom Petty to Peaches and Herb....I just think it's too jarring of a listening experience.  

Because I can't leave good enough alone, I succumbed to my temptations and made a new edit of my concept album. This time I used songs that I associated with Marie at the time (and still do). You might ask yourself, "Why bother?"; and that's a pretty good question. It's just with somethings in life I have to get it just right....and this is one of them.

Notable changes included exchanging Ash's "Walking Barefoot" for Ash's "Oh Yeah".  I had included "Oh Yeah" on Marie's first mix-tape (which just came to me in a flash and is mysteriously missing from my blog post about its creation...???). "Oh Yeah" is a romantic song about a summer love and the chorus repeats, "Oh yeah, she was taking me over and oh yeah, it was the start of the summer". After Marie had heard the tape she asked me, "So, am I taking you over?" That's one of  those lovely little memories that I've retained from that summer.

I also added Jimmy Eat World's heartbreaking "Your House". It fit so well, it's hard to leave it off.

I was also quite smitten with Ben Fold Five's "Emaline" and "Evaporated". They seemed to speak to me in a way that other songs couldn't. They were a big part of my life between 1997-2000.  I decided to keep Peaches and Herb as I find it kinda cute and I remember it vaguely being the inspiration to create my own concept album.

So, here would be my 2018 edit, trimmed and more focused:

1. The La's - "There She Goes"
2. Ash - "Oh Yeah"
3. Ben Folds Five - "Emaline"
4. Breeders - "Do you Love Me Now?"
5. Elvis Costello - "Every Day I Write The Book"
6. Fountains of Wayne - "Troubled Times"
7. Peaches & Herb - "Reunited"
8. Foo Fighters - "Up in Arms"
9. Tom Petty - "The Wait"
10. Beatles - "Looking Through You"
11. Jimmy Eat World - "Your House"
12. Ben Folds Five - Evaporated

So, there ya have it, possibly my last post on mix-tapes. Then again, I am a pack rat, so  you never know!

Mix-Tape # 2: Forlorn Love in Early 21st Century

A little over a month ago, I wrote an ode to mix tapes when I discovered the track list for the first mix tape I had made my first love.

I found another track list in the same journal. So I'm back for more of the same. 

This mix tape was also to that first love (Marie) but a few years later. Our relationship at this point (I am estimating this was the spring of 2000) had run the gamut - together, broken up, in between, friends (kinda), back-together, broken-up, wistfully broken up but still friends, etc., etc. 

This found track list was in a rough draft of a letter explaining the tracks. It's incomplete and I am not sure if this ended up being a CD or tape. I was unsure what was more convenient for Marie at the time. I thought about giving Youtube links but they will eventually just expire, so just copy and paste them and take the two seconds. I promise you, some of these songs are awesome. Especially if you just been through a heart-break. 

1. Paul Simon - I am Rock

2. The Apples in Stereo - You Said That Last Night

3. Ben Folds Five - Emaline 

4. Radiohead - Black Star

5. Beatles - For No One 

6. Spoon - Car Radio

7. Sloan - Bells On

8. Coward - unspecified 

*Track 8 was probably Coward's "I'm Alright". 

I must have felt this was a "desperate times call for desperate measures" time. 

It was pathetic and ballsy all at the same time. It's equal parts sadness and defiance.  I was also sending her the not-so-subtle hint, "I'd take you back in a heart-beat".  If any track sums it all up, it's the Beatles "For No One" from Revolver. A great track that I had actually kinda forgotten about (Paul forgive me!). Another highlight is Radiohead's "Black Star" - crazy good song from a crazy good album. 

The only track that isn't themed is the Spoon track (off the under-rated "A Series of Sneaks"), which was purposefully placed to give her some much needed lift after "For No One" and then, the slow and sleepy, "Bells On" from Sloan (from "Twice Removed" another excellent 90's under-rated album in the US - but not in Canada). I think I could have found a more fitting song but I adored that song, so that could explain it. 

The Ben Folds track was very meaningful to me at the time. It described how I felt at the time to a tee (with some minor lyrical issues that were very specific to the song and not my life). Still a great track to this day. 

If you haven't heard of Coward it's because they were FOW/Weezer type band that bombed. Still that CD is a wonderful, cheesy guilty pleasure. It's S/T - pick it up if you enjoy "Power Pop". That particular song would make for a great stopping point for a short tape or CD or the end of side A 

Looking back, if there was a Side B,  I don't know where I would have gone from there. The only logically place would be straight-up love songs. I don't remember what the final product was and it's even likely my rough draft changed a bit (but most definitely made it). 

I have vague memories of eventually sending a CD instead of a tape but maybe that was yet ANOTHER mix-tape/CD. I remember I made a cover featuring this famous Van Gogh. Maybe it was another Van Gogh but this was what sprang to mind first. 

At the time we were living in separate cities so I sent some version of this sucker off in the mail to her. I have no recollection of how she responded, although I do know she listened to it (at least once). Time went by and....

It actually worked! The tape or CD worked! 

It kept me fresh in Marie's mind and gave me a puncher's chance at getting her back. During December of 2000, we almost got back together (well, at least for one night). Maybe I'm giving this tape/CD too much credit....but so what? Just let me just live with the idea that it changed everything. Some of this is briefly recounted at the end of this blog.  Mix-tapes and CD's are a lost art but they make for some great memories. 

I doubt I will find another track list of a mix CD or tape but you never know.....plus if I get really bored I still have a box of tapes I could listen to and find more treasures from the 90's. Until that day, make your own mix today and go ahead, burn a copy and give it to your lover. 

The Art of the Mix Tape or My Summer Love Mix-Tape of '97

This past summer, during the Epic Re-Flooring of 2015, I came across one of my old poetry notebooks from 1996-1999.  Everything was going in boxes or being thrown out and I was tempted to throw this bad boy of bad poetry into the recycle bin.

Something stopped me though. I felt that if I threw the notebook away, it would have been a rejection of a part of me. Sure, that aspect of me is long gone but it felt wrong and I wasn't ready to let it go. At least not yet. Well, months later and I am still organizing my bookshelf and I found that old notebook of poetry again.

The notebook has more than just poetry, it has thousands of doodles, notes, script ideas for my summer film projects, and to-do lists, etc. To my delight I discovered an old mix tape track-list that I had made for my girlfriend Marie in the summer of 1997.  We had gotten together in May of 1997 and it was the first time I had experienced love. I was head over heels and having the time of my life. So, what's a guy in the 90's supposed to do for the girl he loves? Yep, make a mix-tape.

This was one of my first experiments in making a mix-tape. I might have made one for Mikey but it was all so long ago, it's hard to remember. I would later become an expert at pacing my track list and adding surprising or funny content to add to the listener's experience.

Here's a clip from High Fidelity about the rules of making a mix tape, also I wanted to include it because it's a great movie.

I ended up seeing High Fidelity with Marie and it was kinda weird because we were in a in-between spot when we saw it and the subtext for us was just hanging over us once the movie ended.  

Before we get to the track list, I have to set up a little more of my background.

First, I was pretty new to rock music in general.  All the time in high school I should have been discovering rock history and listening to the Beatles and Pink Floyd I spent listening to awful country music and being generally un-musical. So, my knowledge base of rock music was shallow to say the least. I was into "alternative" but it was mainstream alternative. I simply wasn't aware of the depth and richness in alternative, punk, indie,  you name it, etc. If this had been two years later (after being a college radio DJ) my track listing would be much more expansive and include some curve balls.

Also, Marie wasn't into rock music either, so I wasn't going to go too crazy here. I remember thinking it was going to be basic and straight forward.  I spent hours coming up with the track list. Looking at the track list today it's hard to see where I was going with this. Was it an introduction to stuff I liked and hoped she would like? Was I sending her any messages? I'm not even sure I knew at the time. Anyhoo, here's the track list with my additional content.

1. "Dill Pickle Intro"
2.  Smashing Pumpkins - "Today"
3.  Beck - "Hot Wax"
4.  "Talk Intro"
5.  Weezer - "No Other One"
6.   Bush - "Comedown"
7.  "Helicopter intro" - Nirvana - "Lithium"
8.   Dean Martin - "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You"
9.   "DJ Speak"
10. Foo Fighters - "Big Me"
11. James Taylor - "You've Got A Friend"
12. Blur - "Song 2"
13. "Rocket Intro" - Rentals - "Friends of P"
14. Smashing Pumpkins - "Galapagos"
15. "Yoda Scene"
16. Pearl Jam - "Better Man"

I have to say this track list is full of rookie mistakes. There is no overall theme and the selections are haphazard (James Taylor to "Song 2"?) I also hate the fact that Bush is on this list...why did I include Bush?  I also am perplexed as to why I didn't end with "Galapagos" as it's a love song and it would have been better than the oddly placed "Better Man".

I have no idea what the "Dill Pickle" intro is nor what I talked about at tracks 4 and 9. Maybe "Dill Pickle" was an inside joke but the world will never know.

I used an old pair of earphones as my microphone. I remember it sounding better than you might expect. I thought the fact that I had discovered how to record my voice on a standard stereo pretty awesome. To achieve my sound effect introductions (I overlapped sound effects over the beginning of tracks 7 and 13), I would run the sound effects CD on a second CD player while holding the mic up the speakers as I recorded the music from the actual attached CD player. It was creative and I think it gave the mix tape a feeling "what will he come up with next"?   I believe the "Yoda Scene" on track 15 was the whole "There is no try" speech from Empire, although Marie probably had no idea where that was from and why this character was speaking in such a weird voice.

I'm not sure if this was one side or maybe just a sixty minute tape. I thought about adding up the times but I don't care all that much.  I remember spending hours  on the creation of my mix tapes. I would try to squeeze the perfect fit of songs so that each side was balanced and the listener wasn't left with 45 seconds of silence before the end of one of the sides. It really is a lost art form.

My wife had a little fun at my expense as I told her the topic of this blog. I was lamenting the loss of the mix tape and she laughed and said, "I wouldn't say it's sad, people are still sharing music".

"Yeah, but not like I did it!"

Of course she replied, "Everything has a purpose for you". And that's true enough.  As the years went by my mix tapes would morph into mix CD's but the same effort was there, including snippets from TV or movies, adding vocal tracks to introduce songs or share something crazy or funny. It was a way of sharing who I was, whether it was my love interest at the time or just a friend. It was also a lot of fun.

I suppose you could put together a YouTube playlist but it just wouldn't be the same for me.

I have a warm memory of how I delivered this tape to Marie. It was one of those wonderful youthful summer days, when there wasn't much to do. I had finished the tape that afternoon and I just couldn't wait to give it to her. She was working at a local diner and I drove down to see her and give her the tape. I remember it was early evening and the sun was just starting it's descent as I drove to the diner. I was wearing my Kurt Cobain shirt and she said she liked it, although I think she was just being nice. I gave her the tape and sat on the bar stool for awhile, watching her work and making small talk, as time allowed.

I went home probably listening to one of the many mix tapes I put together for myself. There might not be very many mix tapes any more, but at least they're missed.

I found another track list - so, here's another blog post on another mix-tape!