11 September 2016: JJC Mixtape Archive 1 – First (Worst) Mixtape

I just finished a new mixtape, but I’m not going to release it until the Record Show hits No. 200 on the disco jams list. Not for any reason except that it will give you a window during which you can catch up with every other mixtape I’ve ever made and/or worked on. Ten years’ worth of memorizing routines and/or cut and splice. Mostly, though, ten years’ worth of fun. To start, we’ll reach way back in the archive and dredge up the first mixtape I ever made.

JJC’s First (Worst) Mixtape
October 2006

Why did I think I should make a mixtape with my Radio Shack mixer a mere four months after I bought a second turntable and decided to be a DJ? I’m kind of an idiot. And the needles were worn out, and the computer whose microphone input I recorded through was glitchy, and a few records skip, and the beats match poorly or not at all, and the songs drop at odd places, and the tracklist is weird, but stringing records together was what my new friends in Philadelphia were up to, and I wanted to get down. They taught me the “start slow and get faster” method that I employ on this mixtape and pretty much always, still.

I think I recorded two takes of this mixtape, and this is the second one. I don’t remember exactly what I thought about it when I finished, but it must have been something like, “Good enough; let’s get it on MySpace.” I do remember listening to it a lot after I put it out in the world, regretting a lot of the mistakes, and loving every single tune. I listened to it again yesterday, and my position is largely unchanged.