<\/a><\/p>\n

Welcome to the second installment of “Only Noise<\/a>,” in which Madison Bloom writes a memoir with music.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

A mixtape is something Generation Y shouldn\u2019t grasp the importance of. Despite the small number of people who claim to prefer the sound of tape, mixtapes today are largely leveraged as devices of kitsch and nostalgia. There is of course the tape renaissance in the cottage punk industry<\/a>. Once declining tape-manufacturing plants such as National Audio Company<\/a> are finding newfound profits in reel-to-reel, and brands like Urban Outfitters are eager to get in on the \u201cvintage\u201d trend. The clothing retailer made a gesture towards analog at last year\u2019s Northside Festival<\/a>, stuffing press goody bags with a neon green compilation tape featuring artists such as Blanck Mass and Juan Wauters.<\/p>\n

But truth be told, most people born post compact disc proliferation have never had a pressing need <\/em>for a mixed tape.<\/p>\n

Unless\u2026<\/p>\n

There was a patch of time in the late nineties when the good people at Subaru neglected to outfit their Foresters with the leading method of musical consumption: a CD player. My mother owned such a Forester, and though in hindsight I realize the simple solution would have been to purchase a CD player, the decision was well out of my 12-year-old hands.<\/p>\n

At the pinnacle of my musical discovery, as well as the inception of my aural snobbery, this absence was an abomination.\u00a0 Living as we did in bumfuck Washington, we were out of range for all of the cool radio stations like KEXP<\/a> and 89.9.\u00a0 All we had was classic rock, Top 40 (not so great in 2000), and 107.7 The End, which boasted that ambiguous, doomed banner \u201calternative.\u201d The End was given to playing Papa Roach, Disturbed, and the state-ordained daily quota of Nirvana.<\/p>\n

It was ok, but when something truly abysmal came on, there was nowhere to run.\u00a0 The car at that time, just on the cusp of mp3 players, kept you captive with your music more than most situations, which was the beauty and the burden of being on the road.<\/p>\n

I began to do what any other pre-teen would have done in the decades prior: I made mixed tapes.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t need an authentic childhood void of the internet, compact disks, or Napster to understand how these things worked. I\u2019d seen High Fidelity<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I was in a unique position as a kid in the 90s who actually knew what a vinyl record was.\u00a0 I was, as all kids are, egocentric, and having admired my Dad\u2019s 4,000 plus record collection for as long as I can remember, I would go to sleepovers and birthday parties wondering: where are your Dad\u2019s 4,000 records?<\/p>\n

And yes, I too fetishized the faux nostalgic from a young age.\u00a0 I blame the amazing stories my parents told me about growing up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.\u00a0 They had \u201cused up all the fun,\u201d as my mom puts it.\u00a0 I wanted to pay a nickel for a candy bar, and have a paper route, and take acid with my high school teachers.\u00a0 I wanted boys to make tapes for me!\u00a0 Fantastic tapes filled with songs I\u2019d never heard, the J-cards meticulously filled in with ball-point pen renderings of hearts and music notes alongside the painstakingly written song titles, artists, and run times.\u00a0 The cassettes would have themes, and clever titles winking at some hilarious inside joke.<\/p>\n

But there were no boys. There were no tapes.\u00a0 So, like an independent 12-year-old woman, I made my own goddamn tapes.<\/p>\n

The first was simple in its purpose: songs for the road. Or, as my strained, blue Bic handwriting declares: \u201cSongs For The Ramblin\u2019 Traveler.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t going to get less embarrassing.<\/p>\n

So deprived I was of decent music in the car, that I overcompensated with flamboyant, and horrible titles. The music however, wasn\u2019t so<\/em> terrible. Side One included Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cPeggy Day\u201d off of Nashville Skyline <\/em>as well as \u201cRadio Radio\u201d by Elvis Costello. Neither was directly related to driving lyrically, but sonically they possessed a forward-motion needed for a good car song. Just uplifting enough to keep your eyes ahead.<\/p>\n