Highway 62

Subtitled: A Message from 1994, the power of the SA90

See, I never called them "mixtapes." We started out calling them "random tapes", my friends and I, all based on the tape that started it all on a roadtrip to Rice, California in 1986. That tape was called (uninterestingly) "Random I & II," and featured all manner of gems served up without embellishment to be blasted full power from the dashboard of a friend's '73 Pontiac Grand Prix as we ripped up the asphalt on Highway 62 with great abandon, burning in the daylight sun, killing time so we could see Halley's comet spraying against the desert night.

Then it got to be something of a habit, making tapes, filling 90 minutes with at first music, and then music and bits of sound, radio static, children's records, television (tricky in the days before RCA plugs were grafted onto every audiovisual appliance) and whatever the hell else we could find. Mind you, this was also in the days before digital recording (an innovation that only came in about five years after we started doing this), before dual turntables became more common than dirt, back when all you had to do transitions were volume sliders, possibly the bank switcher on your tuner (if you had one) and the pause button. It was a live art, recorded, at its best. Oftentimes the mistakes were more interesting than the intent (but not always; a bad transition or a cut a second too soon or too late would haunt you forever).

Of course, nobody listens to cassettes much anymore, right? Sure, there were the countless hours screaming over sunbleached asphalt and vistas wide and alien and sparkling as anything you'd seen. Sure, there were hours of subdued cruising when all you could see were the stars and the glow of the dash lights on the Coke cans and half-emptied bags of Fritos; when the world outside was shrunk down to what the headlights washed over. And those hours were lasting forever, the freedom of motion was eternal and liberation.

And then they weren't anymore. Real life intrudes, priorities change, children are born, drift sets in.

But you still have those moments, don't you? They're still there, locked away on those millions of metal particles spooled on mylar thread like the Norns once wove, that chunk of life is still in there. This one in particular is from January, 1994, entitled An Imperfect Prescription, and my undying admiration to the first commenter who gets the reference. Given the bands that show up in the list below, it should be pretty easy.

Side 1 - Pale Sun (remember, only 45 minutes to a side. No cheating!)

Tell Me When It's Over / The Dream Syndicate
Angels in the Trees / Murray Attaway
Noel, Jonah and Me / The Spinanes
Weed King / Guided by Voices
Cirrus Minor / The Pink Floyd
Year of the Tiger / Look Blue, Go Purple
Waving / The Bevis Frond
Long Way Down / Michael Penn
Crescent Sun / The Cowboy Junkies
Call the Doctor / Spacemen 3
When Tomorrow Hits / Mudhoney

Side 2 - Blow, Wind Blow

Blow, Wind Blow / Tom Waits
Cross Road Blues / Robert Johnson
Top of the Hill / Gutterball
Catapult / REM
Another Day / Galaxie 500
Certain Gift / The Walkabouts
Can't Find My Way Home / Swans
Troubled Times / Screaming Trees
Dark Field / Nick Saloman
Six to Go / The Pogues
May the Circle Be Unbroken / Spacemen 3

Now fire up those peer to peer clients and get 'a burnin!

I tell ya, you kids and your technology. You have no idea how easy you've got it.