Artist	Song
Puffy Amiyumi	Tokyo I'm On My Way
The Wonders	That Thing You Do
Rod Stewart	Young Turks
Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman	Stumblin' In
Big Country	In a Big Country
echobelly	Close ... But
The Co-depe-ndents	far away eyes
Kelly Hogan and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts	Mystery
josh ritter	golden age of radio
Neko Case & Her Boyfrie-nds	Misfire
Motion City Soundtrack	the future freaks me out
Kim Stockwood	She's Not in Love
KT Tunstall	Suddenly I See
The Libertines	Can't Stand Me Now
Pet Shop Boys	Too many people
Alice Deejay	Better off Alone
Lowest of the Low	Giuletta the Just
Franz Ferdinand	walk away
national dust	crawling back
The Kil-lers	Change Your Mind
Communique	Rattling Bones
Choe Seung-yeon, I Ji-su, and Sim Hyeong-jun	the last waltz

Comment:

2006/11/24 - - iqaluit, NUNAVUT, CANADA

this mix was mostly an attempt to compile a few of the songs that had sunk into my head over the past summer. themes that en-ded up on the final cut include contemplations on fire and light, seeking your place in the world, and love won and lost. bits of clever / ironic track title adjacency was mostly by design, but as usual, some of the lyrical progressions between subsequent tracks still came as a surprise to my conscious self. oh, and i guess i was in a mood for warbling harmonies this summer ...

thanks to popmatters and youtube for the very fun puffy amiyumi burst that kicks off the mix in fine J-pop style. their beatles-inspired tune-smithery is followed by a similar sweet from the tom hanks flick 'that thing you do'. the next two tracks are fondly recalled from the jukebox that we used to maintain in our family restaurant, and were ripped for this mix from my collection of vinyl '45's.

the big country anthem is of the same vintage, but both of my cd versions sounded really muddy, a sadly common problem for early cd's transferred from vinyl. i did a bit of audio processing to get the track closer to the bombastic punch that i recall shouting along with in my younger days. i also cribbed a few of the lyrics for the title of this mix.

the echobelly pick was mostly sel-ected so its title could run into the title of the following track, but also to give the mix a chance to shift into a countryfied gear. the co-depe-ndents from calgary perform a live cover version of a sly rolling stones track (brit-pop leading into brit-rock ?), followed by kelly hogan's masterful version of a tune penned by jon langford. josh ritter turns the radio dial to a rollicking road-ready song and neko case hits the bullseye with her fiery cresce-ndo of innue-ndo.

popmatters gets a 2d nod for introducing me to motion city soundtrack. the kim stockwood track is a cover of a jill sobule song and is taken from the newfoundland singer's debut album 'bonavista'. my copy of that cd doesn't include her hit 'jerk' since i had picked it up on one of my trips north from the states and had travelled back south of the border before it got re-issued.

the KT track which jumpstarted the movie 'the devil wears prada', but wasn't included on the official soundtrack (tho found on her debut album, it's crippled by evil DRM), was sent to me by lastyearsgirl as part of a mix trade. antiparticle sent me the libertines in a different mix trade, and a third of that cd's playlist featured the magnetic fields, whose track 'papa was a rodeo', was covered by kelly hogan on the same cd as 'mystery' (i.e. 'beneath the country underdog').

the deejay / PSB track duo kept trading places in the playlist order until i finally swapped other songs around them and this final incarnation prevailed. the reunited lowest of the low of toronto showcase some typically yearning lyrics from lead singer ron hawkins. "you're saddled with that Cadillac heart, it's so beautiful, but is it so smart, in this city of sharks ?" the franz ferdinand se-lection is my favourite track off of their 2d album and ties in neatly with the song that follows by edmonton's national dust.

yes, i know that the kil-lers have been hyped so much that they're old hat by now, but i came to them late, so i hope the mix hipsters will forgive me for including them now. (i *do* live in the arctic). 'change' is my fave track from 'hot fuss'. continuing the apologetic line is a plea from communique and closing off the mix is 'the last waltz', featured in the brilliant soundtrack to the korean revenge flick 'oldboy'. when i received that cd from amazon, i was dismayed to discover that i had paid $50 for a disc labelled 'copy-controlled', but was relieved to find that i was still able to rip a copy.<B

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