the war's been going on in your heart tonight / and life is just bets anyway: with >toxotronic< & natalyesaurus

Side A
Artist Song
the electric soft parade  a beating heart 
nada surf  see these bones 
tocotronic  free hospital 
modest mouse  i came as a rat 
figurines  wrong way all the way 
the wunder years  laughing at a wound 
grandaddy  underneath the weeping willow 
this providence  card house dreamer 
gisli  straight to hell 
tony sly  international you day 
the youngbloods  get together 
alkaline trio  i found away 
rilo kiley  love and war (11/11/46) 
the hold steady  stuck between stations 
olli schulz & der hund marie  jetzt gerade bist du gut 
joshua radin  one of those days 
Side B
ArtistSongBuy
the secret handshake  everyone knows everyone 
future of the left  manchasm 
the weakerthans  virtue the cat explains her departure 
the veils  night thoughts of a tired surgeon 
copeland  the day i lost my voice (the suitcase song) 
jens lekman  rocky dennis' farewell song 
aloha  i don't know what else to do 
die aeronauten  mein bester feind 
the jealous sound  got friends 
ted leo & the pharmacists  little dawn 
silversun pickups  growing old is growing old 
morrissey  suedehead 
minus the bear  absinthe party at the fly honey warehouse 
james  getting away with it (all messed up) 
the lawrence arms  minute 
sun kil moon  exit does not exist 

Comment:

IN THE WORDS OF NATALYE

the mix itself is 120 minutes, divided into two sides. the plan is that we'll eventually make tapes and trade them with one another, each designing our own cover art and such for the other person. side a was kicked off by johannes, with him choosing odds and me choosing evens. we switched it up for side b, with me picking the first track and continuing with odds while he chose evens. luckily for us (but mostly for the sake of symmetry) it ended up with 16 songs on each side.

the title came from song lyrics. i decided on the first half, which is from johannes' pick of "little dawn" by ted leo. he decided on the second half, which is from my pick of "see these bones" by nada surf.

the actual background work on this mix first begin in december 2007, when johannes (who lives in germany) suggested the idea of doing an alt dj project with me (and i live in california). seeing as we have made so many mixes for one another, it only made sense to make one together!

in his words:

"...i thought that we, great mixers that we are, could, or maybe rather should do a mixtape together, and since we're unable to do it the old fashioned 'drop by for a fun evening of drunk mixmaking' way it's going to be the digital version with many zeros and ones transatlanticly sent on a weekly basis with songs that have or have not a connection to what came before in our [lives] and on the mixtape..."

and so this tape was born, although sometimes it was more than a week that passed between songs.

in fact, it took more than a year and a half from start to finish, which makes this tape a bit more meaningful than others i've made, just due to the pure amount of thought and emotion and time that went into it. i particularly love that i can point to any song chosen by either one of us and it tells me where we were in our respective lives. that said, this tape is not just an alternating mix between two people; rather it's a chronology of their lives over a given period of time.

the thing about our relationship is that it is and has been organic from the start. we met by chance on art of the mix, and our friendship blossomed and flourished from there on out. we've grown closer through the years and johannes is one of the only people i would do any and every thing for - he is that important and instrumental in my life. perhaps it was coincidence or perhaps it was fortuitous, but to be honest, i strongly suspect that the intersection at which our lives merged was serendipitous.

and while the task of writing liner notes was bestowed upon me, johannes did have this to say - a line from the first track of the mix.

"what starts as make believe / becomes a plan of action ...
and in the center of it all / a beating heart"

...which could mean different things on different levels, but as it applies to the two of us and this mix, i think it's just about perfect.

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