The Grand -- If you cut me, I would shine. - the conversation i was having in my head

who honestly really, really, really, really knows what they're talking about? i say, not too many people out there do. besides, there are way too many bands out there to know. old ones, new ones, small town town ones, and the list goes on and on and on... i mean honestly, sometimes the only reason why the music you listen to is good to you is because it reminds you of something you hold to dearly. nothing to do with they lyrics, quality of the music, and all that other important stuff that people use to evaluate music. i mean, honestly, what is redeeming about 80's music... BUT its GREAT! and i'm not ashamed to say it.

heh that threw me off "brother christians? what?"

people don't usually 'discover' music on their own, anyway....a friend tells them about it, or they read about it, or whathaveyou. how many times have you just picked up a random cd, and it turned out to be a musical gem no one else knew about? probably not too often.

in light of that fact, i am all about taking suggestions and begging for mix cds from friends to discover new tunes. it's the way to go.

yeah, we were talking about doing the mix cd's, especially from those outside of the midwest. it's fun to hear what people are listening to in Seattle, Chicago, or the South.

yeah, and if you really want to increase your hipness quotient, get a friend in the UK to send you a mix cd. then when the bands from there become popular here in 8 months, you can be all, "psh, the coral? i've been listening to them for like the past year." and everyone will stand in awe.

....or something.

Don't feel too bad... I didn't discover The Cure until "Wish" either. However, I then proceeded to make up for that fact with a vengeance during my senior year in high school... which probably explains a lot.

Methinks there needs to be a mixtape club or something...

Are you volunteering, Jason? Count me in, please...

I want in on this mixtape club of which you speak. Do we need to watch High Fidelity to learn the art of making good mixtapes?

Well, there's a few ways we could do this...

1.) After enough people are involved, everyone gets paired off and you make a mixtape (or CD) for your partner.
2.) We could do a revolving online thing where everyone submits a song and people can go and download all of the submissions.
3.) Like #2, except one mix CD is created, which is then duplicated and sent to everyone involved (and they can send copies of it to whomever they wish).

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head, and I'm sure there are others - so speak up! But yeah, this could be really fun. I've always been a believer that you can't really know someone until you know their musical tastes (don't have to share them, just know them).

And besides, any excuse to watch "High Fidelity" is fine by me.

i'm in, i'm in! [jumping up and down with hand in the air, like the overeager second grader in the front row... or abigail moseman, take your pick.]

Alright... so how do we want to go about organizing and spreading the word about this?

i want in on this dealio, yo.

a proposal:

We gather a list of people who want to be involved on the project. We set up a schedule for at least one person to make a cd each month--e.g., first month Charity, second Renae, third Jason, etc. (The point being that you can make as many CDs as you want, but you'll only HAVE to every 2 years or so when it's your turn.) The master cd will be submitted to us to make copies and distribute to others on list. We will also solicit mix cd's from folks across the country or world. Those will be in our "archive" and available upon request.

I've no doubt the administrative details will overwhelm my meager skills in that area as the list grows, but, heck, I'm a dreamer so let's get started!

Many thanks to Charity who got started typing for me as I was sitting here paralyzed by the thrill of the dream and the impossibility of getting the words out. Sheesh.

that sounds like a lot of work from you guys's end, especially if it gets to be a big thing...you'll be responsible for copying dozens of cds, plus anything anyone requests on a whim. which is cool, if you are willing to do that. i just know i wouldn't be. :)

the most logical thing to me would be setting up a website where people could download the mixes and burn their own cds. we could have the CD of the month up, then put up a new one the next month when it's the next person's turn. that way you could have a list of all the old mixes and what songs were on them, too, for people to peruse (even if the songs themselves aren't on the site). i suppose someone would still need to be archiving and making copies for people who request back . that could be you guys, which would cut down on your cd burning/copying significantly since most people would be just using the ones on the site, or it could be the responsibility of whoever made the mix to keep it and distribute copies upon request.

but it's just a thought.

do we need to worry about legalities in putting things up on the net for people to download?

i don't see how putting it up on the net would make it any less legal than distributing it by hand.

The more I think about this, the more I agree that an online solution of some sorts would be optimal. That would eliminate the need for a core group of people to burn CDs and send them out to everyone, and would make it easier to include new people as well.

Here's my idea. It's somewhat along the same lines as what Bethany said, but a little bit different. Basically, everyone involved would have a member account and would be able to upload songs to the website, which everyone else in the club (or whatever we call it) would be able to download as often as they wanted, burn onto CD, etc.

However, it would be sort of a revolving playlist. You could post as many songs as you wanted and as often as you wanted, but each new song you post would replace the previous song you uploaded. Let's say that there are 15 people in this "club". At most, there would be 15 songs to download. The reason I suggest this is mainly for technical reasons, in order to cut down on the amount of bandwidth and server space involved. But it would also help from the administrative side of things. Also, doing it on a rotation basis means that you wouldn't have to wait until the end of the month to get a bunch of new music. Theoretically, you could get a new song every day, if enough people get involved.

As far as legality goes, I agree with Bethany. Also, as long as we keep this a private thing that's only open to those with member accounts, I think that'll help us cover our butts.

I'd be willing to set this up on Opus. I've actually been giving it a lot of thought, and I don't think it would take too long to set up all of the back-end functionality. I could probably even get started on the basic structure sometime next week. If it becomes bigger, or server space becomes an issue (which is doubtful for the immediate future), we could always look at moving it somewhere else (and I know of a few places to look at).

Any thoughts?

i definitely want in on this project, but at the moment i don't have any bright ideas to contribute.

Jason's idea sounds like a good plan to me. It'd more of a "here's a cool song" type of thing than an actual mix cd, which is totally fine. Sometimes that can be less overwhelming.

So, each person would have their own account, and could upload one song at a time. So in theory, couldn't there be 15 (if that's how many members there were) new songs a day? It seems like if you were a normal person, and not a freak like me who spends hours daily online, it could be difficult to keep on top of downloading everything. Which also brings up the fact that not everyone has free highspeed internet access courtesy of UNL like some of us, thereby making it difficult to download 15 or so songs/day.

What say you?

a lot more thoughts floating around our house regarding wanting to build community, the art of making a mix tape (including a cd cover, personal thoughts on the songs you chose, etc), jason's insight into getting to know people through the music they like, etc. for now, i'll leave you with a point to ponder:

"Now, the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do's and don'ts. First of all you're using someone else's poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing." - Rob, High Fidelity

Isn't it obvious that this is *entirely illegal*, even if it's account based. Moreover, doing it online makes the culpability easier to prove. The only way it's not illegal, is if the music is streamed (not downloaded) and the host has a liscense to broadcast music.

Well, however we do this - whether it's via the Web, burning CDs, or making cassette tapes - it's going to be illegal.

I suppose the only way for this to *not* be illegal would be to have some sort of listening party once a month or whenever where people bring stuff they want others to hear - and would let others borrow CDs *only* if they promised not to copy it for themselves.

Of course, I am perhaps the last person to be commenting about legality. My integrity in legal issues leaves much to be desired.

Well, at least you realize that! ;)

okay, folks, we can't leave this conversation here. so what are we christians to do about tape mixing (or using photos from the web without paying copyright fees, or breaking the speed limit while driving, so on and so forth...)?

they act according to their conscience?

Well, breaking the speed limit is easy - you're going to hell for that one. As far as issues surrounding mixtapes go, I suppose I have somewhat similar issues surrounding my website. I post song clips, artwork, band photos, movie stills, etc. to my site without any permission whatsoever. And seeing as how my site isn't *really* a journalistic endeavor - when you get right down to it, it's me basically being a fanboy - I don't know if I'd be covered by "Fair Use" doctrine (though I'd like to think so).

However, I assuage my conscience because I don't profit from doing so (I've received some money from affiliate stuff, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to what I spend on the stuff I review). Not to mention all of the time I've poured into the site. I do it because I want people to find out about these artists and movies, and buy them - not because I want to make a cent.

And I view mixtape stuff the same way. When I burn a mix CD for a friend, I do it in the hopes that they'll check out some of the artists on there and get a CD or two of their own.

Now, I fully realize this wouldn't save my arse in a court of law... but it certainly allows me to sleep at night. And that's why I have no moral problems with doing this mixtape club - because I certainly won't be profiting from it one bit. Well, except for all of the cred I'll be getting when I wow you all with my eclectic musical selections... ;)

i agree. many of the key players in this endeavor will be at movie night tomorrow at the koenigs (minus myself). here are my two cents and maybe y'all can chat about it after the movie discussion or what not: i love the idea of mix cd's rather than internet stuff. while the internet would be more convenient, there is something about creating your own cd, making a cover, commenting on why you chose such and such a song, having a theme for the cd, physically giving the cd to someone else, blah, blah, blah. the internet keeps everyone at arms distance away and though it is a part of community, it seems more like a prelude. anyway, renae knows most of my thoughts and trust the grand will represent us well.

i'm cool with that as long as y'all realize how much work that's going to be, especially if the group gets to be larger than just the ten or so of us.

You're right... there is nothing like handing a good mix CD to someone and getting one in return. But it is quite a bit more work, especially if we make mix CDs for everyone involved.

It might not be so bad if you were matched up with a partner on a rotating basis. You make your partner a mix CD, which they can then pass on to whomever. And then you get a new partner for the next time. Or something like that.

i understand that it could end up being a ridiculous amount of cd's to make by one person by hand. but it seems we could do some brain storming about different ways to deliver the music. maybe we could create groups of five and then once a month a different person in the group provides the group of 5 with a cd, then after five months, we could reshuffle the groups. we would have to think about how to add new people and new groups, but i'm sure we could think of a way. i would have no doubt that cd's would get passed between the different groups, but it would then mean that each "mix taper" person would just make five copies. anyway, that is just another thought of a way to do things...

Yeah, if we do the whole "making an actual mix CD" thing, we'll need to break people up into smaller groups, just so it's manageable. I'm not opposed to this, by any means - in fact, part of me savors the thought of going through my CD collection and culling together 15 or so great songs.

i, too, feel more comfortable with the idea of handing out mixes to a small group. but my conscience hasn't reconciled this idea yet... so i'm not sure if i'm in or out. i LOVE the mixes i own (some are my own, some not) but i also wonder what it's like to be a recording artist and have folks owning your songs for free. wouldn't that suck?

all i want to say is that you all are amazing people, and I am glad to know you. i only managed to skim these entries, because they are EXTREMELY LONG, but please count me in!

i wonder if there is some sort of world record for the number of comments on a single blog entry.... i love it!

Returning to the topic of my deficient musical sense, I've started an experiment, which will at least be fun for me. I have been listening to KEXP (um, only the best radio station in the WORLD) on the internet (thank you, thank you, thank you, Neil, for introducing me). I'm keeping a tally of which songs I like or hate enough to pull up the playlist and see who it is. So far I have peeked twice for Franz Ferdinand, once for the Pixies, and once for Mclusky 'cuz I liked them so much. And Fugazi and My Bloody Valentine I apparently hate. Who knew? So far I've only been keeping track for about a half day, so we'll see, but I'm optimistic that this will work. (Um, and while I was writing this I had to look: Junior Senior, "Chicks and Dicks" not so much for me...blech.)

It's working! So the good thing about this music experiment is that it forces me to be honest about what I like and don't like. Generally, I am waaaaay too influenced by the person doing the recommending--i.e., if I like the person, I want to like the music regardless of whether I actually do or not...blah. Anyway, so I've discovered that I really do like, for example, Lemon Jelly and Halloween, Alaska, and most (but not everything) of what I've heard from Muse. I also find that I'm not writing down as many bands that I don't like since I'm trying to remember that I might like them if I wasn't trying to CONCENTRATE at work. Plus, and this may be the best of all, I'm actually starting to recognize music I've heard before. Yeah!