“Pubes On the Floor By the Toilet” – Tom, 1995¹

(No j-card art; Hand-written title and track info.)

I, too, have no intention of doing my contributions in chronological order, but I do think that this needed to be first. Besides being the first mix Tom gave me, it was the first mix anyone had given me. As mentioned in previous posts, credit is due to Tom getting me into punk². With this, he got me into mix tapes.

Now, like anyone interested in music in the 90’s, I was an avid Radio-Taper. There were two species of this animal: the get-up-as-each-song-ended-to-possibly-unpause-the-record-function-in-case-something-awesome-was-next variety and the record-whole-programs-that-were-known-to-play-stuff-you-liked-then-go-back-and-dub-the-good-stuff-to-a-running-tape-of-songs-of-interest variety (The former would inevitably evolve into the latter when a dual-cassette stereo was purchased- or more likely received as a gift.) I had numerous songs-of-interest tapes by this point and was making dubbed mixes of CDs for portability.³ This tape, though, was something new: a personal mix that said “This stuff is awesome, you should listen to it because I am.” Not a revolutionary idea, but I think there has to be love of your first mix tape even if it sucks.

I assure you: this mix tape does not suck. In fact, this mix tape is composed with so many hits that it’s a fucking cliché. Although it opens with a pretty soulless Ramones cover by Germany’s Die Toten Hosen, it rebounds with a classic Weasel song and just continues to get more preposterous from there on. “London Calling?” Seriously, was there a time in which I needed to be exposed to this? There must have been but it’s so hard to comprehend now that, even in the context of this tape, the song feels more like a reminder than anything virginal.

If there’s one obvious thing in this mix, it’s that Tom was in college. And it was 1995. The track listing is a virtual college radio best-of from that period: The ‘Chunk, Sebadoh, Pavement, the Archers, GBV, Sugar, Material Issue, the Blake Babies. Clichés, every one of them! If this was Tom’s attempt to get his newly-born-punk little brother into the deeper, more intelligent, more mature indie rock that was all the rage in Tallahassee, he failed. Kind of.

In my older, deeper, more intelligent, more mature self of today, some of these bands are no-brainers. The Hüskers and the Archers are both critical to my basic concept of rock and roll today. They’re represented with the four tracks that are not far from perfection. “Mind Is an Island” isn’t a great example of Sugar’s best power-pop traits, but it makes up for it with an extra burst of speed ⁴. Superchunk took longer for me to “get,” possibly because “Forged It” set a standard for what I wished all their stuff sounded like. It’s a blast of impetuousness that out-punks anything else on here. I have a very similar feeling towards “God Told Me,” which isn’t very representative of Sebadoh but absolutely slays. “In a Jar” is one of the great LOUDSONGs in history.

There aren’t many complaints: “Bigmouth” is my favorite Smiths song, but that’s not much of a compliment. The last few times I’ve heard it were at bars, where I’m pretty sure it was played as a joke (probably made by me). There’s the two TMBG songs, neither of which are funny or interesting or witty or any other adjective ever used to describe a TMBG song. I remember skipping them often. My interest in GBV peaked around this time, but has since faded to nothing. I never purchased anything by them and Pollard’s ditties here don’t make me want to now.

I own the albums on which 8 of the 11.5 Side A tracks appear; 6.5 of the 13.5 from Side B. Obviously, there’s an influence on my music collection that can be traced back to this tape. However, today I relate the Archers songs with the albums they’re off of rather than this mix. I’m a far bigger fan of Ben Weasel’s stuff than Tom ever was. Yes, this may have been the turning point of my love for Screeching Weasel, but it’s impossible to associate any of these songs to this particular tape. I guess if there’s one negative to giving someone a tape, one that helps mold their taste to such a ridiculous aspect, it’s that the tape itself will dissolve into a “greatest hits” collection instead of being a statement in and of itself. Such is “Pubes…”

I didn’t purposely avoid this tape for any reason over the past few years, but just a glance at the track listing would probably bring up the question, “Why?” As in, why would I put this on, this glorified personal mix? This (narrow) collection of best-of’s from (pretty much) my personal musical hostory? Listening through a couple times, I found three reasons, of which I had pretty much forgotten over time.

“Raza Odiada” was put on here, I assume, as some sort of joke. See, the song opens with Jello Biafra doing his best Gov. Pete Wilson impression, and in doing so, completely exposes the silliness of Prop 187 before Mexican radicals assassinate him. Or something. I’m not against political songs but those that date those politics date the songs themselves. Outside of the hammer-the-kids’-heads preaching, the song once felt heavy to me. Maybe it’s that metal influence that Tom seems to be so against, but it no longer does. Forgive my limited knowledge in this field, but it sounds like the band doesn’t have the right amps. There isn’t a deep level of sound in the song, and if I want poli-español, I’ll listen to Los Crudos, thank you. Clearly, it’s not like “Raza” is a particularly great song or has anything universally topical to say, but in a way it represents that “Get it?” point in the tape. I’m not sure if I’ve heard, made, or conceptualized a mix tape since this that did not have that tongue-in-cheek track. There’s nothing amusing, impressive, or inspirational about the song, yet we always include something like it; A moment of levity in it’s manufacturing.

I tried, very hard, to get into the Damned in my early punk years. Needless to say, they failed in every way to get my attention, from their albums to the time I saw them in late 2001 at the Metro (the Utters opened) where left six songs in (after “New Rose”). Hearing the LP version of “Melody Lee” for the first time in half a decade made me realize how completely awesome the song is. Unfortunately, it suffers from KISS disease: if only some other band was performing it! Captain Sensible’s operatic vocals gave the song, at the time, a sense of drama. In the post-Misfit’s era, one simply wants to punch him for birthing Glenn Danzig and the Goth culture. This song begs for a great cover that can truly bring out the sadness and panic in it. Please, someone hear this and try!

Finally, let me just say that I’ll never “get” Pavement. I’ll never understand why they, more than any band of their scene, get unflinching praise to better bands. It could certainly be proposed that the current hipster/Pitchfork/Williamsburg culture is the result of people who like Pavement way too fuckin’ much. But the negative influences of the band itself have left two truly great songs in the dust: “Cut Your Hair,” their biggest, silliest hit, and “Here,” a sadly painful track. “Here,” from a personal standpoint, represents what should have been a step towards the alt-county/folk scene that was blossoming (or dying, depending on your view) in ’95-’96. It took another 6 or 7 years before I caught up and I suppose I’m sorry for missing it. But if Pavement, with their slack-folk impressism and Malkmus’ own descent into the indie nether regions of didn’t-quit-while-ahead (see: Sonic Youth), was my first exposure forgive me for my loss. “Here” is a great song. To see past the bullshit, though, it took more years to really understand.

I won’t be accepting that forgiveness.

Side A

1. Die Toten Hosen w/Joey Ramone – Blitzkrieg Bop
2. Screeching Weasel – Punkhouse
3. The Clash – London Calling
4. Superchunk – Forged It
5. Hüsker Dü – Powerline (Live)
6. Dinosaur Jr. – In a Jar
7. Archers Of Loaf – Backwash
8. They Might Be Giants – I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die
9. Sebadoh – God Told Me
10. Pavement – Here
11. Sugar – Mind Is an Island
12. Liz Phair and Material Issue – Turning Japanese (cut off)

Side B

1. The Pixies – Cecilia Ann
2. Descendents – I’m Not a Loser
3. The Smiths – Bigmouth Strikes Again
4. Archers Of Loaf – Underdogs of Nipomo
5. The Damned – Melody Lee
6. Screeching Weasel – I Think We’re Alone Now
7. Screeching Weasel – I Can See Clearly Now
8. Guided By Voices – Indian Fables
9. Guided By Voices – Kisses From the Crying Cooks
10. Bruharia – Raza Odiada (Peter [sic] Wilson)
11. Archers Of Loaf – Telepathic Traffic
12. Blake Babies – Out There
13. They Might Be Giants – Rhythm Section Want Ad
14. Tom’s pre-digital attempt at a mash-up of Daniel Johnston’s “Jelly Beans” and Hüsker Dü’s “Plans I Make”

¹ On some really fucked up level, this tape can be truly seen as a push for adulthood (puberty, physiologically). It’s really trying to be a step above punk; a step from the ineptitude of youth to the confidence of adulthood… Or, more likely, Tom just picked a terrible title that was supposed to, on some fucked up level, make me remember our lives sharing a bathroom. Seriously, fucking awful title.

² This was inevitable. Seriously, I’ll never be able to pay back Tom for his influence, but I was going to get into punk at some point. Maybe he saved me from the mid-90’s emo boom…

³ I never owned a portable CD player. At 23, 4 years after the first gen iPod and Creative MP3 players and my first CD burner, I finally got rid of my Sony Walkman (cassette) for a Sony NW-E507. Well into adulthood, I was walking into a gym with a huge Walkman clipped to my shorts…

⁴ I was already “sold” on Sugar at this point, and I think Tom knew that. The obvious thing would be to put something from “Copper Blue” on here, but that was old hat; “File Under Easy Listening” never lived up to the promises made earlier. The obvious thing to do was pick the hardest song off the available singles. Tom did just that.