As promised, here's my breakdown of this mix. The title was a combination of the mixer's names - Doug, Melissa and Nora, and we were choosing songs in that order. Melissa had the last track on "12 Hours of Power," so Nora started this one with a good James Brown opener. Keeping the pace up, I went for Phish's "Chalkdust Torture." Melissa chooses a track from the Origin, which keeps the groove flowing but slows us down a notch, also taking us into acoustic territory. Nora follows the acoustic/upbeat cue with the Pogues' version of "My Blue Heaven." Apparently dissatisfied with this acoustic turn, I derail that train by going with the goofy Anthrax track "I'm The Man." It's actually a good song to shift gears with, as the opening sample of Sam Kinison's scream provides a pretty clean break with whatever flow was going on. Melissa picks up the harder vibe with "Chewbacca," and Nora answers with another guitar cruncher, "Back In Black." This seems to remind me of my snotty adolescent phase, so I pull out the snotty adolescent anthem, "Everything About You." On the ball as usual, Melissa goes further back in time for "Another One Bites The Dust." Nora grabs the smooth beat of that track and spins it into "The Phunky Feel One," a surprisingly nice transition. Then, for some unknown reason, I take the wheels right off this mix with the Dead's "Stagger Lee." It's actually a great mix track, with a nice beat and short length, but it's way out of place here. Bad move on my part.

Continued...

Melissa gets to open side 2, and goes with Ani DiFranco's funky cover of "Amazing Grace." Good opener, establishing a mellow groove for the end run. Nora brings the pace up a bit with a personal favorite, "She's Always In My Hair," but in response I choose to take it the mood way down with some folk. Note to mix-makers, this track features one of my favorite lines ever, "I'm tired, and drunk, and I've lost all my charm, will you waltz me home?" Still, another bad transition, I should have gone with something a little faster. Melissa follows the folk theme but brings the beat back up with Tracy Chapman's "Give Me One Reason," a good call. Nora responds with some mellow beats from Digable Planets, and I follow the beat theme with Beck's "Loser," probably already overplayed at the time but still a killer track. Melissa shifts to some classic sounds with Santana, and Nora grabs that theme with the Beatles. The mix ends with another Dead track from me, this one from one of Jerry's solo albums and a much better choice in this slot. All in all not a particularly strong mix, working with three people definitely buts up against the "too many cooks" warning, but in the end not bad considering the diverse backgrounds and mix experience we were coming from. I suspect if I hadn't been working so hard at controlling the direction of the mix, it would flow much better...