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    Thursday, February 24
    ▲ 11:40pm

    (via swap-meet)

    70 notes

    swap-meet: My mom has told me (more times that I can count) that I am “hot-headed.”  While it’s true that I once picked up a coffee table and threw it at boyfriend, I generally consider myself fairly calm and even-tempered.   Okay, wait…that’s not absolutely true.  And although most of you don’t know me in real life, I don’t want to mislead you.  In reality I’m a whirling dervish of anxiety and impulsiveness/compulsiveness.  But I’m really, REALLY skilled at keeping it all inside.  Credit my childhood in a household ruled by WASP-y stoicism, or my rarely relenting stubbornness.  Emotional outbursts just aren’t very dignified! However, if I’m completely alone and/or I’ve had an excess of four alcoholic beverages, all bets are off.  And so one cold night in early winter, after a few strong happy hour drinks, I swooped into my empty apartment in a fit of rage.  I can’t remember exactly why I was upset, but even now, I could give you no less than three reasonable guesses.  I grabbed the wooden cigar box of the soon-to-be Never-Sent Mixtapes from their home on my desk and sent them hurling down the stairs into my grimy basement.   I smoked a forbidden cigarette at my kitchen table as I considered my actions. My first thought:  It serves him right.  He’ll never appreciate them because he’s a selfish, self-absorbed fuckface. My second thought:  That was stupid. I spent so much time on them.  I could have given them to Robyn.  She has a tape deck in her car and she would really appreciate the tragic element. And then I thought about the past summer…one of the best times in my life, to date.  Non-stop sunshine, late night bike rides, backyard slumber parties.   Maybe he wasn’t so bad.  Maybe there really had been something special there…even if he was a selfish, self-absorbed fuckface.   Softened by nostalgia, I descended into the basement to retrieve the tapes and their broken cases.  I stuffed everything I found into a box of my faux-Canadian, non-boyfriend’s belongings.   When I decided to share these mixtapes via the magic of the internet, I rummaged them out of that box…only to discover that the liner notes for the third tape were missing.  I searched every inch of my apartment, even the darkest corners of the basement.  No luck.  This was/is especially sad, because they were the best liner notes…made from an amazing photo of women praying in Cairo.  I found it in the Life Nature Library’s The Desert, published in 1961. I’m telling myself that on the day I find these lost liner notes, I will finally present him with the tapes and the vintage Walkman, even if it’s also the day I move out of my beloved apartment. Side 1 (download it here) Bob Dylan, Cat Power, Phosphorescent, Beck, Dr. Dog, Elliott Smith, Beach House, Neutral Milk Hotel, Deerhunter, The Beatles, M. Ward Side 2 (download it here) Liz Phair, Band of Horses, Here We Go Magic, The Kinks, Mimicking Birds, Twin Sister, The XX, She + Him, Mayer Hawthorne, Best Coast, The White Stripes To maintain track order (it’s especially important!), please create a new playlist in iTunes and then click and drag the folder to import. P.S.  This is my favorite of the four tapes…I wouldn’t change anything, except maybe losing the Best Coast song, because I’m just kinda over it.  Or maybe not…

    swap-meet:

    My mom has told me (more times that I can count) that I am “hot-headed.”  While it’s true that I once picked up a coffee table and threw it at boyfriend, I generally consider myself fairly calm and even-tempered.  

    Okay, wait…that’s not absolutely true.  And although most of you don’t know me in real life, I don’t want to mislead you.  In reality I’m a whirling dervish of anxiety and impulsiveness/compulsiveness.  But I’m really, REALLY skilled at keeping it all inside.  Credit my childhood in a household ruled by WASP-y stoicism, or my rarely relenting stubbornness.  Emotional outbursts just aren’t very dignified!

    However, if I’m completely alone and/or I’ve had an excess of four alcoholic beverages, all bets are off.  And so one cold night in early winter, after a few strong happy hour drinks, I swooped into my empty apartment in a fit of rage.  I can’t remember exactly why I was upset, but even now, I could give you no less than three reasonable guesses.  I grabbed the wooden cigar box of the soon-to-be Never-Sent Mixtapes from their home on my desk and sent them hurling down the stairs into my grimy basement.   I smoked a forbidden cigarette at my kitchen table as I considered my actions.

    My first thought:  It serves him right.  He’ll never appreciate them because he’s a selfish, self-absorbed fuckface.

    My second thought:  That was stupid. I spent so much time on them.  I could have given them to Robyn.  She has a tape deck in her car and she would really appreciate the tragic element.

    And then I thought about the past summer…one of the best times in my life, to date.  Non-stop sunshine, late night bike rides, backyard slumber parties.   Maybe he wasn’t so bad.  Maybe there really had been something special there…even if he was a selfish, self-absorbed fuckface.  

    Softened by nostalgia, I descended into the basement to retrieve the tapes and their broken cases.  I stuffed everything I found into a box of my faux-Canadian, non-boyfriend’s belongings.  

    When I decided to share these mixtapes via the magic of the internet, I rummaged them out of that box…only to discover that the liner notes for the third tape were missing.  I searched every inch of my apartment, even the darkest corners of the basement.  No luck.  This was/is especially sad, because they were the best liner notes…made from an amazing photo of women praying in Cairo.  I found it in the Life Nature Library’s The Desert, published in 1961.

    I’m telling myself that on the day I find these lost liner notes, I will finally present him with the tapes and the vintage Walkman, even if it’s also the day I move out of my beloved apartment.

    Side 1 (download it here)

    Bob Dylan, Cat Power, Phosphorescent, Beck, Dr. Dog, Elliott Smith, Beach House, Neutral Milk Hotel, Deerhunter, The Beatles, M. Ward

    Side 2 (download it here)

    Liz Phair, Band of Horses, Here We Go Magic, The Kinks, Mimicking Birds, Twin Sister, The XX, She + Him, Mayer Hawthorne, Best Coast, The White Stripes

    To maintain track order (it’s especially important!), please create a new playlist in iTunes and then click and drag the folder to import.

    P.S.  This is my favorite of the four tapes…I wouldn’t change anything, except maybe losing the Best Coast song, because I’m just kinda over it.  Or maybe not…



    Reblogged from swap meet..
    Tags: swap meet.

    February 24, 2011, 11:40pm  Comments

    Comments
    Saturday, January 8
    ▲ 7:56pm

    (via swap-meet)

    31 notes

    swap-meet: The Never-Sent Mixtape Project:  The Second Tape Perhaps the only thing more frustrating than being in an unrewarding long distance relationship is knowing that the other half of the aforementioned unrewarding long distance relationship is in another country listening to Kanye West/Lil Wayne.  So of course the second tape had to be a hip hop mix.   This one is heavy on the Dilla influence (more than half of the tracks were directly produced by him).  After all, if you’re going to make a somewhat romantic-ish hip hop mix, don’t you want it to be filled with that smooth Detroit sound? The liner notes were made from an old science textbook called The Wonderworld of Science, published in 1941.  The pages were pulled from a chapter about “seeing light.”  There are approximately 25 metaphors going on here, from basic “dropping science/hip hop” to silly relationship stuff.  I really love over-thinking! The sides of the actual tape were labeled with questions from the “homework” section of the chapter, carefully extracted with an X-acto.  Take note—this is when I sliced my finger and stained my favorite t-shirt with blood.  Other materials:  vellum, more Letraset letters, and ultra-fine Sharpies. Even if you don’t “like” hip hop, give this mix a try.  I promise it’s 90 minutes of feeling good… Side 1 (download it here) J Dilla, Slum Village, Common, Terry Urban, DNS, Erykah Badu, Clipse, A Tribe Called Quest, Talib Kweli + Hi Tek Side 2 (download it here) J Dilla, Jay Electronica, Emanon, Gangstarr, People Under the Stairs, Notorious B.I.G., Suff Daddy, Pacific Division, Little Brother To maintain track order (it’s especially important!), please create a new playlist in iTunes and then click and drag the folder to import.

    swap-meet:

    The Never-Sent Mixtape Project:  The Second Tape

    Perhaps the only thing more frustrating than being in an unrewarding long distance relationship is knowing that the other half of the aforementioned unrewarding long distance relationship is in another country listening to Kanye West/Lil Wayne.  So of course the second tape had to be a hip hop mix.  

    This one is heavy on the Dilla influence (more than half of the tracks were directly produced by him).  After all, if you’re going to make a somewhat romantic-ish hip hop mix, don’t you want it to be filled with that smooth Detroit sound?

    The liner notes were made from an old science textbook called The Wonderworld of Science, published in 1941.  The pages were pulled from a chapter about “seeing light.”  There are approximately 25 metaphors going on here, from basic “dropping science/hip hop” to silly relationship stuff.  I really love over-thinking!

    The sides of the actual tape were labeled with questions from the “homework” section of the chapter, carefully extracted with an X-acto.  Take note—this is when I sliced my finger and stained my favorite t-shirt with blood.  Other materials:  vellum, more Letraset letters, and ultra-fine Sharpies.

    Even if you don’t “like” hip hop, give this mix a try.  I promise it’s 90 minutes of feeling good…

    Side 1 (download it here)

    J Dilla, Slum Village, Common, Terry Urban, DNS, Erykah Badu, Clipse, A Tribe Called Quest, Talib Kweli + Hi Tek

    Side 2 (download it here)

    J Dilla, Jay Electronica, Emanon, Gangstarr, People Under the Stairs, Notorious B.I.G., Suff Daddy, Pacific Division, Little Brother

    To maintain track order (it’s especially important!), please create a new playlist in iTunes and then click and drag the folder to import.



    Reblogged from swap meet..
    Tags: swap meet.F

    January 08, 2011, 7:56pm  Comments

    Sunday, January 2
    ▲ 9:58pm

    (via swap-meet)

    24 notes

    swap-meet: The Never-Sent Mixtape Project In the basement, at the bottom of a box of photos and old birthday cards, is a shoebox filled with letters I’ve never sent.   One can trace the chronology and geography of both my paper preferences and romantic obsessions. Light blue-almost-white stationary and my daughter’s father. Chicago return address. Yellowy quadrille paper and various ill-advised relationships. Portland zip codes. Brown Muji recycled writing paper. Still a favorite.  Individuals all over the continental United States, intended to be mailed from Philadelphia. Always written with Uniball pens.  I deserve an endorsement deal. So many hours, writer’s cramps, and 1st-2nd-3rd drafts.  I’ve even sacrificed a few stamps.  I intended to send them all.  Really! While art school has made me blase about under-utilized paper, I hate the idea of wasted effort.  Yet I’m a big believer in timing, whether it applies to the exact way I tell a story, when I arrive for a date, or the moment I’ll drop an envelope into the big blue mailbox around the corner.  And sometimes the perfect time never seems to arrive. And thus begins the story of the Never-Sent Mixtapes.  I fell in love with a boy.  He was (no, IS) funny, smart, sweet, cute and on and on.  It would have only been more perfect if we owned a private jet and a wide assortment of Pendleton blankets.  An amazing opportunity/exactly-what-he-needed arose.  And so he left the country.   I was thousands of miles away from him, holding a bag of words I never said, just because the timing never seemed right.  I worried that he would never know exactly how I felt.  I decided that I wanted to make a series of mixtapes for him.  I imagined that if someone sent me a series of meticulously crafted tapes, complete with aesthetically pleasing liner notes, my heart would be won forever.  He would feel similarly, right?  A vintage Walkman would be required, too.  After all, how would he listen to them otherwise?   My friends watched the process move along:   The day I found a stereo with both input for my computer AND a cassette recorder (after weeks of scouring any thrift store in bicycle/bus-accessible radius). I walked home with the components balanced on my bike’s handlebars. The endless procurement of vintage paper and photos. The assortment of glue sticks, scissors, markers, and Letraset sheets that covered my couch for at least a month. The day I sliced my hand with my X-acto  knife while otherwise carefully cutting up the table of contents in an old science book. The constant playlist revision/debate. “I’m jealous,” one friend said. “He better realize how lucky he is.”  My best friend demands gratitude. And soon they were finished.  Well, four of them were complete.  I was debating sending a fifth later.  I placed them in a wooden cigar box under my desk.  I wasn’t ready to send them yet. For a few days I was mad at him.  Then I thought I might be visiting.  I could take them then.  No, no, they should go in the mail.  Oh wait, it was too close to Christmas.  Now I was angry at him again.  Then we weren’t speaking.  Things were getting weird.  And so on. Eventually the little wooden box moved to the basement, tossed into a larger cardboard box filled with the random clothes and detritus he had left behind. “It’s a shame,” a close friend declared sadly. “They were so lovely and loving.” I shrugged my shoulders and mutter something dismissive and untrue like “He wouldn’t have cared anyway.”   Another friend pointed out that I should do something with them.  Some day I might send them.  I’ve come close.  The Walkman (acquired through copious hours of ebay searching) lives in my bottom desk drawer, along with everything else I’m too sad to see regularly. In the name of unwasted time, of making something nice out of something sad, of turning the proverbial frown upside down…I’m posting one every week, in the order they were made. The First Tape The liner notes were made from a map of Missouri, vellum, an arial Letraset sheet, and of course, a uniball pen.  The A-B sides of the actual tape are labeled with Missouri city/town names.   The image would be sharper if I had actually scanned the liner notes, but I’m saving the best view for him (when I eventually send them). Side A (download it here) Mirah, Plants + Animals, Beach House, Deerhunter, Nico, Little Joy, Fleetwood Mac, Devendra Banhart, White Fence, Yo La Tengo, Fruit Bats, Jim James + Calexico, The Kinks Side B (download it here) Atlas Sound, Woods, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Them, Bettie Serveert, The Greenhornes, Bowerbirds, Mazzy Star, Phosphorescent, The Breeders, Viva Voce, Scout Niblett. Sorry…you’ll have to actually download the mix to learn the track names! To maintain track order (it’s especially important!), please create a new playlist in iTunes and then click and drag the folder to import.

    swap-meet:

    The Never-Sent Mixtape Project

    In the basement, at the bottom of a box of photos and old birthday cards, is a shoebox filled with letters I’ve never sent.   One can trace the chronology and geography of both my paper preferences and romantic obsessions.


    Light blue-almost-white stationary and my daughter’s father. Chicago return address.

    Yellowy quadrille paper and various ill-advised relationships. Portland zip codes.

    Brown Muji recycled writing paper. Still a favorite.  Individuals all over the continental United States, intended to be mailed from Philadelphia.

    Always written with Uniball pens.  I deserve an endorsement deal.

    So many hours, writer’s cramps, and 1st-2nd-3rd drafts.  I’ve even sacrificed a few stamps.  I intended to send them all.  Really! While art school has made me blase about under-utilized paper, I hate the idea of wasted effort.  Yet I’m a big believer in timing, whether it applies to the exact way I tell a story, when I arrive for a date, or the moment I’ll drop an envelope into the big blue mailbox around the corner.  And sometimes the perfect time never seems to arrive.

    And thus begins the story of the Never-Sent Mixtapes.  I fell in love with a boy.  He was (no, IS) funny, smart, sweet, cute and on and on.  It would have only been more perfect if we owned a private jet and a wide assortment of Pendleton blankets.  An amazing opportunity/exactly-what-he-needed arose.  And so he left the country.  

    I was thousands of miles away from him, holding a bag of words I never said, just because the timing never seemed right.  I worried that he would never know exactly how I felt.  I decided that I wanted to make a series of mixtapes for him.  I imagined that if someone sent me a series of meticulously crafted tapes, complete with aesthetically pleasing liner notes, my heart would be won forever.  He would feel similarly, right?  A vintage Walkman would be required, too.  After all, how would he listen to them otherwise?  

    My friends watched the process move along:  

    The day I found a stereo with both input for my computer AND a cassette recorder (after weeks of scouring any thrift store in bicycle/bus-accessible radius). I walked home with the components balanced on my bike’s handlebars.

    The endless procurement of vintage paper and photos.

    The assortment of glue sticks, scissors, markers, and Letraset sheets that covered my couch for at least a month.

    The day I sliced my hand with my X-acto  knife while otherwise carefully cutting up the table of contents in an old science book.

    The constant playlist revision/debate.

    “I’m jealous,” one friend said.

    “He better realize how lucky he is.”  My best friend demands gratitude.

    And soon they were finished.  Well, four of them were complete.  I was debating sending a fifth later.  I placed them in a wooden cigar box under my desk.  I wasn’t ready to send them yet.

    For a few days I was mad at him.  Then I thought I might be visiting.  I could take them then.  No, no, they should go in the mail.  Oh wait, it was too close to Christmas.  Now I was angry at him again.  Then we weren’t speaking.  Things were getting weird.  And so on.

    Eventually the little wooden box moved to the basement, tossed into a larger cardboard box filled with the random clothes and detritus he had left behind.

    “It’s a shame,” a close friend declared sadly. “They were so lovely and loving.”

    I shrugged my shoulders and mutter something dismissive and untrue like “He wouldn’t have cared anyway.”  

    Another friend pointed out that I should do something with them.  Some day I might send them.  I’ve come close.  The Walkman (acquired through copious hours of ebay searching) lives in my bottom desk drawer, along with everything else I’m too sad to see regularly.

    In the name of unwasted time, of making something nice out of something sad, of turning the proverbial frown upside down…I’m posting one every week, in the order they were made.

    The First Tape

    The liner notes were made from a map of Missouri, vellum, an arial Letraset sheet, and of course, a uniball pen.  The A-B sides of the actual tape are labeled with Missouri city/town names.   The image would be sharper if I had actually scanned the liner notes, but I’m saving the best view for him (when I eventually send them).

    Side A (download it here)

    Mirah, Plants + Animals, Beach House, Deerhunter, Nico, Little Joy, Fleetwood Mac, Devendra Banhart, White Fence, Yo La Tengo, Fruit Bats, Jim James + Calexico, The Kinks

    Side B (download it here)

    Atlas Sound, Woods, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Them, Bettie Serveert, The Greenhornes, Bowerbirds, Mazzy Star, Phosphorescent, The Breeders, Viva Voce, Scout Niblett.

    Sorry…you’ll have to actually download the mix to learn the track names!

    To maintain track order (it’s especially important!), please create a new playlist in iTunes and then click and drag the folder to import.



    Reblogged from swap meet..
    Tags: swap meet.

    January 02, 2011, 9:58pm  Comments

    Tuesday, December 28
    ▲ 8:09pm

    (via swap-meet)

    16 notes

    I made this mix for my other blog, swap-meet: My bestie Janelle made a deal with me:  she would drive me to the Philadelphia airport at 4 am this week, but ONLY if I made a new mix.  I would rather spend the $30 cab fare on a new flannel shirt(s), so I agreed.  Insert a virtual handshake (via gchat) here. Behold, Mystical Triangles! Inspired by Go Ask Alice (my mom gave me a copy when I was 10…you decide if that was a good idea), a visit to the crystal store, biking in a cape, extensive kaleidoscope use, lunar magic, and applied mathematics.  Download it here. Track Listing: 1.  Season of the Witch—Luna (masters of the exceptional cover) 2.  Hello, It’s Me—Todd Rundgren (we listen to this an awful lot in my apartment) 3.  White Moon—Beach House 4.  Dr. Cat—Mary Timony 5.  The Valleys—Electrelane 6.  I’m Not in Love—10cc 7.  Billie Holiday—Warpaint 8.  Dreams—Mark + Suzann Farmer 9.  Quick Canal—Atlas Sound 10. Desire Be Desire Go—Tame Impala 11. Sisters of the Moon—Fleetwood Mac 12. White Rabbit—Jefferson Airplane 13. Ramble On—Led Zeppelin 14. Trapdoor—Salem 15. Nights in White Satin—The Moody Blues (the original extended version, complete with creepy spoken word) To maintain track order (it’s important!), please create a new playlist in iTunes and then click and drag the folder to import.

    I made this mix for my other blog, swap-meet:

    My bestie Janelle made a deal with me:  she would drive me to the Philadelphia airport at 4 am this week, but ONLY if I made a new mix.  I would rather spend the $30 cab fare on a new flannel shirt(s), so I agreed.  Insert a virtual handshake (via gchat) here.

    Behold, Mystical Triangles! Inspired by Go Ask Alice (my mom gave me a copy when I was 10…you decide if that was a good idea), a visit to the crystal store, biking in a cape, extensive kaleidoscope use, lunar magic, and applied mathematics.  Download it here.

    Track Listing:

    1.  Season of the Witch—Luna (masters of the exceptional cover)

    2.  Hello, It’s Me—Todd Rundgren (we listen to this an awful lot in my apartment)

    3.  White Moon—Beach House

    4.  Dr. Cat—Mary Timony

    5.  The Valleys—Electrelane

    6.  I’m Not in Love—10cc

    7.  Billie Holiday—Warpaint

    8.  Dreams—Mark + Suzann Farmer

    9.  Quick Canal—Atlas Sound

    10. Desire Be Desire Go—Tame Impala

    11. Sisters of the Moon—Fleetwood Mac

    12. White Rabbit—Jefferson Airplane

    13. Ramble On—Led Zeppelin

    14. Trapdoor—Salem

    15. Nights in White Satin—The Moody Blues (the original extended version, complete with creepy spoken word)

    To maintain track order (it’s important!), please create a new playlist in iTunes and then click and drag the folder to import.



    Reblogged from swap meet..
    Tags: swap meet.

    December 28, 2010, 8:09pm  Comments

    Friday, May 28
    ▲ 12:05pm

    (via swap-meet)

    19 notes

    If you haven’t heard, I have another blog called Swap Meet, where I write about music and the memories specific songs inspire.  In honor of my move from Philadelphia to Portland, I made my first Swap Meet Mixtape!   swap-meet: Several years ago, as I found myself minimizing my belongings for the journey to Philadelphia, I decided to sell some furniture on Craigslist.  A woman called about my couch.  We chatted about the condition of the upholstery and the softness of the cushions. Standard small talk.   After we agreed on a price, she asked me where I was moving.  And then, there was her response: “Oh, Philadelphia?  I lived there once for a while.  I felt like everyone else was covered with sandpaper while I was walking around naked.  I came back to Portland as soon as I had a chance.  But good luck…it might be better for you.” I shuddered as I hung up the phone, promising myself that Philly wasn’t THAT bad.  After all, it was the “City of Brotherly Love,” right?   And I was about to have an amazing career opportunity.  That wasn’t going to happen for me in Portland any time soon. Fast forward to now…Early Sunday morning, I’m catching a flight to Portland, OR to begin a new adventure (with old friends in a familiar place).  The last 3.75 years in Philadelphia have never been easy, but I’m grateful for new friends and experiences I’ve had on the east coast.  It’s the people in my life that give me the most fulfillment and meaning…and I’ve learned something from everyone I’ve met here.  Of course, sometimes these interactions have been merely cautionary tales in broken trust and disappointment.  But more often than not, my Philadelphia friends have brought me some of the most precious moments, the kind that I force myself to remember over-and-over again, hoping to imprint them in my mind forever. And so I have made a mixtape entitled Eastern Standard Time, a musical scrapbook of all of the individuals that have shaped my East Coast experience.  Some tracks are old; others are new…but all of them are tied to specific Philadelphia memories.  Hopefully this will the first of many Swap Meet mixes.  You can download it here:  Eastern Standard Time. Track Listing: 1.  When Planets Collide—Viva Voce 2.  Sheila—Atlas Sound 3.  When I’m With You—Best Coast 4.  I Wonder—Dom 5.  True Affection—The Blow 6.  Ramona—The Pains of Being Pure at Heart 7.  This Time Tomorrow—The Kinks 8.  Rain On—Woods 9.  Think About Me—Fleetwood Mac 10.  Heart of Chambers—Beach House 11.  Bur Oak—Bowerbirds 12.  Irene—Caribou 13.  There’s an End—Holly Golightly 14.  Rivers, Veins, & Roots—Mimicking Birds 15.  Phenomenons—Twin Sister 16.  The End of Things—Bachelorette 17.  Fourth Time Around—Yo La Tengo 18.  Big Jet Plane—Angus and Julia Stone To maintain track order (it’s important!), please create a new playlist in iTunes and then click and drag the folder to import.

    If you haven’t heard, I have another blog called Swap Meet, where I write about music and the memories specific songs inspire.  In honor of my move from Philadelphia to Portland, I made my first Swap Meet Mixtape!  

    swap-meet:

    Several years ago, as I found myself minimizing my belongings for the journey to Philadelphia, I decided to sell some furniture on Craigslist.  A woman called about my couch.  We chatted about the condition of the upholstery and the softness of the cushions. Standard small talk.   After we agreed on a price, she asked me where I was moving.  And then, there was her response:

    “Oh, Philadelphia?  I lived there once for a while.  I felt like everyone else was covered with sandpaper while I was walking around naked.  I came back to Portland as soon as I had a chance.  But good luck…it might be better for you.”

    I shuddered as I hung up the phone, promising myself that Philly wasn’t THAT bad.  After all, it was the “City of Brotherly Love,” right?   And I was about to have an amazing career opportunity.  That wasn’t going to happen for me in Portland any time soon.

    Fast forward to now…Early Sunday morning, I’m catching a flight to Portland, OR to begin a new adventure (with old friends in a familiar place).  The last 3.75 years in Philadelphia have never been easy, but I’m grateful for new friends and experiences I’ve had on the east coast.  It’s the people in my life that give me the most fulfillment and meaning…and I’ve learned something from everyone I’ve met here.  Of course, sometimes these interactions have been merely cautionary tales in broken trust and disappointment.  But more often than not, my Philadelphia friends have brought me some of the most precious moments, the kind that I force myself to remember over-and-over again, hoping to imprint them in my mind forever.

    And so I have made a mixtape entitled Eastern Standard Time, a musical scrapbook of all of the individuals that have shaped my East Coast experience.  Some tracks are old; others are new…but all of them are tied to specific Philadelphia memories.  Hopefully this will the first of many Swap Meet mixes.  You can download it here:  Eastern Standard Time.

    Track Listing:

    1.  When Planets Collide—Viva Voce

    2.  Sheila—Atlas Sound

    3.  When I’m With You—Best Coast

    4.  I Wonder—Dom

    5.  True Affection—The Blow

    6.  Ramona—The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

    7.  This Time Tomorrow—The Kinks

    8.  Rain On—Woods

    9.  Think About Me—Fleetwood Mac

    10.  Heart of Chambers—Beach House

    11.  Bur Oak—Bowerbirds

    12.  Irene—Caribou

    13.  There’s an End—Holly Golightly

    14.  Rivers, Veins, & Roots—Mimicking Birds

    15.  Phenomenons—Twin Sister

    16.  The End of Things—Bachelorette

    17.  Fourth Time Around—Yo La Tengo

    18.  Big Jet Plane—Angus and Julia Stone

    To maintain track order (it’s important!), please create a new playlist in iTunes and then click and drag the folder to import.



    Reblogged from swap meet..
    Tags: swap meet.

    May 28, 2010, 12:05pm  Comments