Artist	Song
Tom Waits	Chirstmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis
Billie Holiday	Fine And Mellow
Peggy Lee	Johnny Guitar
Portishead	Over
Rasputina	Rusty The Skatemaker
Sneaker Pimps	How Do
Etta James	I'd Rather Go Blind
Lightnin' Hopkins	Drinkin' Woman
The Chantels	Maybe
Shirley Horn	You Won't Forget Me
Pain Teens	Moonray
Joseph Arthur	Invisible Hands
Lamb	Feela
Alberta Adams	Remember
Deanna Durbin	Always

Comment:

While I've got plenty of sweetness and light, there are still dark streets and rainy nights inside my head. Walks down these ill lit paths have me contemplating melancholy, desperation, and loneliness. Not so much indulging in them, more examining them, prodding around their edges. Taking their temperature, as it were. Music is often the quickest route to these gray spaces.Case in point, "Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis". Besides having one of the best titles ever, the song itself embodies that ragged, rough and tumble downheartedness that I'm talking about. A listen to this got the music bug cranking away. Visions of Billie Holiday and stripped down, sad torch songs came flooding in and it was off to the races.This mix en ded up in a lot of places that I didn't expect. I'd originally envisioned a tapestry of acoustic, tears-inspired pieces, but Portishead came creeping in and everything went all to hell. Suddenly I'm cramming doo wop together with trip hop and dusty Texas blues. Pain Teens raised their ugly head and bared their claws in response to Shirley Horn and Etta fell to her knees in misery.
Stumbling and tripping, I finally made it out the other side.This thing ain't perfect by any means. Even I have some issues with the sequence, but that's how it all poured out of me. Then again, what we're talking about here isn't perfect to b egin with. We all have times where we're broken and empty, disjointed and out of whack. And the road map back from that soft and bitter place never has a straight line on it.Click on the first track to listen to the mix and check out other musical fallout I've thrown together at the DJ Abstract website.

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