Making a Mixtape

Recently I was invited to spend the weekend with An American Colleague at her home in Bridgewater, New Jersey, USA. They have a Mall in Bridgewater. With a Macy's. And everything. V. American.

Whilst idly passing time in the kitchen, drinking coffee and trying to ignore the fact that my toes had registered that it was minus 1.2 million on the Cold Enough For You? temperature scale, her husband asked me about music. My favourite question. He had no idea what he was in for. After naming a few bands that he had never heard of and some that he vaguely had, he rushed off to find a 'rock' CD that he was sure I would like. American Colleague looked at me with raised eyebrows and mouthed "WTF?" And then after a thoughtful pause, "It's probably ten years old, I warn you." It was. Whilst not truly awful it was not rock and it was not for me. I was a guest after all so I made some appropriate Interested Listener noises, and as quickly as it was polite to inserted Fiona Apple into the pretty silver Bose. At that moment I promised myself and American Colleague that I would make American Colleague's Husband a mixtape of proper music.

Making mixtapes is something I did as par for the course when I was younger. By younger, I of course mean when cassette tapes were the actual main component of mixtapes. I remember sitting cross-legged on the lounge floor nose to nose with the radio listening to the Top 40, finger poised and hovering over the Record button waiting for the DJ to stop talking and get on with playing the damn songs.