Side A
Artist	Song
Pink Floyd	In The Flesh? (1979)
Cheap Trick	ELO Kiddies (1977)
Black Sabbath	Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973)
Van Der Graaf Generator	Still Life (1976)
Patti Smith	Waiting Underground (1997)
King's X	Over My Head (1989)
The New York Dolls	Pills (1973)
The Cult	Outlaw (1987)
Bob Dylan	Visions Of Johanna (1966)
Manic Street Preachers	Life Becoming A Landslide (1993)
Metallica	The Unnamed Feeling (2003)
Robert Plant	29 Palms (1993)
Van Morrison	Brown Eyed Girl (1967)
Judas Priest	Rock Hard Ride Free (1984)
Mad Season (w / Layne Staley & Mike McCready)	River Of Deceit (1995)
The Rolling Stones	Salt Of The Earth (1968)
Side B
Artist	Song	Buy
Yes	And You And I: Cord Of Life / Eclipse / The Preacher The Teacher / Apocalypse (1972)
Queen	Keep Yourself Alive (1973)
Aerosmith	Get It Up (1977)
Soundgarden	Slaves And Bulldozers (1991)
Peter Hammill	Trappings (1978)
Led Zeppelin	The Wanton Song (1975)
Living Colour	Solace Of You (1990)
L7	The Bomb (1994)
The Ramones	Tomorrow She Goes Away (1992)
Iron Maiden	Sanctuary (1980)
Rush	Freewill (1980)
Mudhoney	I Have To Laugh (1998)
Def Leppard	Rock Of Ages (1983)
The Mamas & The Papas	I Saw Her Again (1966)
Jane's Addiction	Kettle Whistle (1997)
Montrose	Make It Last (1973)
Mott The Hoople	Saturday Gigs (1975)

Comment:

Yeah, I know how annoyed some people get when I toot my own horn too loudly, but I have to say that I think this particular mix turned out exceptionally well! I think it's got a rather nice balance of material all around: heavy-metal thunder (Sabbath, Priest, Leppard), punk-rock fury (L7, Ramones), both of the aforementioned rolled into one (Maiden), catchy pop smarts (M's & P's), arena-rock swagger (Queen, Aerosmith), epic prog sprawl (Yes, Van Der Graaf), garage-glam blues-rock (Dolls covering Diddley), ethereal bohemia (Dylan, Patti)...

An unexpected bit of seren-dipity: For Disc #2's closer, at first I had in mind Thin Lizzy's A Song For While I'm Away (from Vagabonds Of The Western World in '73), but unfortunately it pushed one or two seconds over the 80 minute-mark. AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHH!!!!! As you can imagine, I was decidedly not a happy camper. So instead I quickly brainstormed...and came up with Mott The Hoople's '75 farewell single Saturday Gigs - which turned out to be the perfect running time, giving me almost 45 seconds to spare!

The funny thing is Mott worked out even better than the Lizzy track would have! I mean, think about it: Floyd's In The Flesh? and Mott's Saturday Gigs make for the perfect double-edged booken-ds. In Floyd's overture to The Wall, Roger Waters - portraying the burnt-out Pink - delivers a sarcastic broadside to his stoned-out audience: "So ya thought ya might like to go to the show / To feel the warm thrill of confusion, that space cadet glow?" And the song itself is a kind of satire of arena-rock excess. But Mott's Saturday Gigs is basically the warm and frien-dly flipside of that, a farewell love letter from a band to its loyal fans: "Do you remember the Saturday gigs? / We do, we do!"

I swear, it's like the Force was with me or something! I mean, we kickstart the proceedings on a note from the Dark Side, and for the finale we en-d up bathed in the Light! I definitely had seren-dipity on my side with this particular mix. Now I can't imagine this mix be-ginning or en-ding any other way! :-)

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