SUPERSTAR DJS FUCK OFF! - From LDN to the Chi

I have so much Ferrite Love I cannot even describe how excited I was to receive my tape in the mail. And even better -- it came from the UK! Part of the reason I hang around Dissensus is to soak up all the lovely Brit vibes, so this rubbed my Anglophilic pleasure zones right before I opened the package! I did face some not-insubstantial disappointment, however, after ripping into the envelope -- in violation of established rules and long-held customs, the tape was not decorated!

However, in the charitable spirit of international mix exchange, I will dub this a deliberate aesthetic choice, and actually, now that I think about it, quite appropriate for the rough-around-the-edges contents contained therein.

I was further delighted by the tracklisting, handscrawled on a piece of notebook paper: I recognized barely any of the artists and NONE of the songs. Exactly why I got into this business. And the flippant description! I knew this would be something special.

I will refrain from narrating the entire contents, but I'll do my best to describe the music: PUNK AS FUCK without an overwhelming amount of punk. Really, the mixture of reggae, punk, jungle/breakcore, with the odd bit of grime/bhangra/pub chant made me think "AUTHENTIC UK CULTURAL PRODUCT" many times, and I said as much to my friends if they happened to be in the car with me: "Yeah, you know, I got this tape from North London... got connections on the interweb doncha know..." If I were a mixtape archaeologist (and Xenu willing, I will be some day), I'd say the fella who recorded this (on his "battered, 14-year old aiwa tape deck") is between 30 and 40 years of age, of Irish extraction but currently living in London (and probably a bit bitter about it), peppers his diction with liberal doses of "fuck" and "cunt," can drink me under the table, and has a box of 7-inches in his closet that pisses on my entire record collection from a great height. Some indications of at least one poorly made amateur tattoo from his teen years, but an all around clever guy. Apologies if I'm off the mark, this is practice.

Anyway, the MUSIC! Most of it I enjoyed greatly -- I've always believed track selection is 90% of what makes a good mix, and this one had it in spades. In fact, within days I had downloaded Lee Perry's "Dubbing Psycho Thriller," Z-Factor's "Fast Cars" (I am going to kill many a mixtape with this no-wave gem, don't let my secret out), and Salma Agha's sublime Bollywood funk, "Sote Sote Adhi Raat." Side A is practically perfect, except that the Resonance FM Midnight Sex Chat bit at the beginning is too unintelligible and basically sounds like someone watching television in the next room. My no-count friends (aka DRUNKS) also loved the punk songs and the overall working class atmosphere the tape provided for the Nissan, as frequently my car trips include too much gay dance music and too much rap in incomprehensible languages. The Slaughter and the Dogs track went over particularly well with this crowd.

Where my friends and I differed was on the prevalence of pub sing-a-longs and other Irish folky bits on Side B, and that's because I'm a nancyboy without a drop of Irish blood in my body. I fast-forward through the John Cooper Clarke every time. Give me more of the Tuff To The Bone, it makes me feel well hard (you see what this British culture does to me). HOWEVER, I forgive the tape all minor sins on established anthropological grounds -- I am not such a philistine that I can't recognize EXCLUSIVE AUTHENTIC CULTURAL PRODUCT when I hear it, and I continue to keep this tape close at hand. I just hope its Spartan decor doesn't let it get lost in my pile of FAR INFERIOR mixtapes which I have similarly neglected to label. Good sequencing, consistent volume, and shit-hot track selection makes this a treasured artifact in my music collection, exotic origins notwithstanding. And I'd trade your tape recorder over mine in a hot minute.