GRATEFUL DEAD, BANGOR MAINE

Sometimes the best mix tapes are the songs that one of your favorite bands selects for a live performance. I can't even remember when this cassette turned up in my yellow '72 Beetle; but I have a suspicion that a friend of mine got it from another friend, who probably forgot to return it to someone who borrowed it from someone else. So the stories often went in the days before jam base and digital download; the time when you met this guy who dropped a hot show on you. You can't remember his name and you can't remember the city, or the circumstances surrounding the moment you met him. The hiss evaporated moments after you hit play regardless and, if only for a dreamy ninety minutes you were carried away to another time; another place. Some other city where the magic happened without you.

This one is a soundboard recording from April 22, 1971, in Bangor, Maine. The cover art is hand-drawn and quite remarkable. It's the original line-up of the Grateful Dead, and it's got cowboy songs, great covers, and funky originals. Side A: Bertha, Me & My Uncle, Lied & Cheated, Loser, Playin' In the Band, Cumberland Blues, Hard To Handle (Ron 'PigPen' McKernan on vocals for this cover, as well as Lied & Cheated) Side B: Deal, Me & Bobby McGee, Casey Jones (II) China Cat Sunflower, I Know You Ryder, Greatest Story Ever Told, Beat It On Down The Line, and Sing Me Back Home.

I hadn't heard it in fifteen years until tonight, when I popped it in the old bug and puttered downtown.

J. Brown, Raleigh NC

LOST MIXTAPES, CASABLANCA

I was walking through the trashiest looking flea market in Casablanca and saw these cassettes lying in a heap on the ground. Everything for sale at this flea market was lying heaps on the ground. People were pulling items out of enormous overflowing dumpsters in the middle of the tiny square and selling them.

K Bland, Brooklyn, NY

EAR CANDY FOR METAL MAVENS: A TRUE STORY

In 1988, the greatest format in the history of recorded music — the 33 1/3 long-playing record — was giving ground to its successors, the cassette tape and the compact disc.

Your writer stubbornly clung to his albums, which was cool — except for the fact that he couldn't bring a turntable along with him on the road. Not that it would have mattered in his mom's '86 Nova, which featured only AM radio. But some of his friends had car cassette decks.

Thus "Ear Candy for Metal Mavens" was born: two 90-minute tapes of great heavy metal, not-so-great heavy metal, and classic rock warhorses. These tapes provided the soundtrack to many an aimless drive through the side streets of Reynoldsburg, Ohio. If I remember correctly, the tunes even served to help annoy a tight-ass high school marching band director who had to listen to them while walking by your correspondent's room at band camp.

"Ear Candy for Metal Mavens" has sat unheard for two decades. It might not be heard from again. But thanks to a prompt from the "mixtape" project, the ear candy will not fade into oblivion without proper recognition.

VOLUME 1 SIDE A Alice Cooper, I'm Eighteen, Queensryche, Eyes of a Stranger, Megadeth, Hook in Mouth, Aerosmith, Dream On, Van Halen, Eruption/You Really Got Me, Blue Oyster Cult (Don't Fear) the Reaper, Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven, Yngwie J Malmsteen, Heaven Tonight, Europe Rock the Night
SIDE B Metallica, Fade to Black, Whitesnake, Still of the Night, Great White, Rock Me, Black Sabbath, Iron Man, Kiss, Rock and Roll All Nite, UFO, Lights Out, Iron Maiden, Run to the Hills, Judas Priest, The Hellion/Electric Eye, Death Angel, Cold Gin

VOLUME 2 SIDE A Guns N Roses, Welcome to the Jungle, Def Leppard, Rock of Ages, Micharl Schenker, Attack of the Mad Axeman, Deep Purple, Smoke on the Water, Anthrax, Be All, End All, Dokken, Without Warning/Tooth and Nail, Triumph, Magic Power, Cream, Sunshine of Your Love, Cinderella, Gypsy Road
SIDE B AC/DC Back in Black, Jimi Hendrix, Foxey Lady, Kingdom Come, 17, Van Halen, Panama, Ted Nugent, Cat Scratch Fever, Bad Company, Can't Get Enough, Metallica, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Iron Maiden, Back In the Village, Scorpions, Dark Lady, Led Zeppllin, Good Times Bad Times.

M Kokai, Raleigh NC

PART 1 of a driving mix from Ted, King of Mixtapes, for my reluctant departure (one of many) from Wilmington, NC. One of my favorite mixtapes of all time. As with all of his mixes, worn through on my car cassette player. Doesn't keep me from keep the box close at hand.

SIDE ONE See the Woman?, The Sea MORCHEEBA, From a Motel 6 YO LA TENGO, Dash 7 WILCO, Dice Behind Your Shades PAUL WESTERBERG, Big Star?, Lay Back in the Sun SPIRITUALIZED, Monochrome?, It's All Too Much BEATLES

SIDE TWO Boots of Spanish Leather BOB DYLAN, Horse In The Country?, Winter?, Father to a Sister of Thought PAVEMENT, Tower?, Things You're Doing?, You Said That Last Night APPLES IN STEREO, Part of The Process MORCHEEBA, Look Away?, The Wheel.

(Oh shoot I really need to splice this take back together. So I can play it again. As I remember SIDE ONE into SIDE TWO is especially good.)

SENT FROM JL, Providence RI

A mixtape is the nicest thing thing somebody could do for you. I can't find half the mixtapes I used to have. It breaks my heart. That's what made me start collecting pictures and stories about mixtapes. I want to relive the feeling of getting a mixtape. That is the best kind of love. Listen, I don't want your playlist. It takes 2 minutes to make rather than all day long. And where's the homemade cover?

My high school boyfriend made me the greatest mixtape ever. And then when I was about nineteen, someone made me another greatest. Those tapes changed my life. I'm not kidding. That was how I heard the Pixies, Sly and the Family Stone, Donovan's Colors, Alex Chilton. I wish I could find those mixtapes now.

GREETINGS FROM VIETMAN. I don't have a cassette player anymore. I am pretty sure this is an audio letter from my friend John. The one on the bottom looks like a live show our band played. I have no idea what the other two are.

This could be a SEAWEED tape. It might also be HANGOVER DEMOS. Whatever those are.

All important Campground Information.

I have way too many cassettes.

See what I mean?

Really. Too many.