Your best mixtape/CD-R segue ever

On one tape I segued from Bloodrock's "D.O.A." to the Cyrkle's "Turn- Down Day." The utter incongruity (the morbid to the chirpy without a beat) delighted me.

On another tape I segued from the Four Seasons' "C'Mon Marianne" to R. Dean Taylor's "Indiana Wants Me" -- and noticed, unintentionally, that Frankie Valli's falsetto whoops at the end sound *exactly* like the sirens that begin "Indiana Wants Me."

She loved me, really she did.

A couple of years ago I bought a mixer at Radioshack, and now could never imagine making a mix without it. You have to do those fuckers in real time, warts and all.

I used to like making ambient/noise mixes where the idea was to blend similar sounds from very different sources. One that sounded great was going from Christian Marclay's "Smoker," which ends with a mass of cricket chirps, then into a chorus of frogs on the "Sounds of North American Frogs" record, and finally into Oval's Microstoria mix "Runtime Engine." Exposed the organic roots of glitch past & present, I think.

You sort of have to hear it to believe it. Same beat.

Sigur Ros (request) -> new Prefuse 73 -> Odd Nostrum -> Dr. Dooom "Leave Me Alone"

Thematic consistency, with a sonic trajectory of a divebomber.

Radiohead's "Karma Police" ~ The Faint's "Worked Up So Sexual" -- ...static outro into static intro makes it oh so e-z...

Live:

Young MC's "Bust A Move" ~ Daft Punk's "Around The World" ~ Prince's "Kiss" -- ...from the last night I actually had fun while dj'ing...

I never would have noticed the similarity if it weren't for random chance.

Maybe it's the similar tempo but this works a lot better than one would think...

It would seem like a really trite idea, to sequence the heavy, heavy rocker next to the easy listening classic, but for some strange reason the two really work well together.

I made a playlist from Rolling Stone's 74 best albums of 1974, choosing a favourite song from each record in descending order without considering beforehand what the songs would sound like side-by-side. There were at least four transitions that amused or surprised me, whether by comparison or contrast:

Van Morrison "I Believe to My Soul" >> Aerosmith, "Seasons of Wither"
Blue Öyster Cult "Subhuman" >> Funkadelic, "I'll Stay"
Millie Jackson, "The Rap" >> Leonard Cohen, "Is This What You Wanted"
Eno, "Put a Straw Under Baby" >> Betty Davis, "He Was a Big Freak"

I also hadn't noticed that I put "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Louisiana 1927" together.

Sort of the opposite of a segue, but I did once start a power-pop mixtape with XTC's "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" (which starts with the sound of Andy walking into the studio, plugging in his guitar, and starting to play) and ended it with Splitsville's "Sunshiny Daydream" (which ends with the sound of someone walking out of the studio, whistling).

1994 mixtape: there's a pause in Sabotage by The Beastie Boys at about 1'38" (link), and I added a bit of movie dialogue from The Story of Star Wars record - the scene where Luke is looking through a scope at 2 banthas, then the music swells dramatically as the sandpeople shriek and surprise attack him (link). The sound of the sandpeople shrieking and hooting then fades back into the guitar kicking in as Sabotage continues. I can still hear it in my head. Gives me chills. Proudest mixtape moment.

Since the tape is packed away in a box somewhere, I decided that a good use of my time was to recreate Sandpeople Sabotage. (just the bit described - not the entire song)