Mixtape 225 • I Got Heaven
If you’re looking for subtlety and innuendo, keep looking because Mannequin Pussy is out of stock.
If you’re looking for subtlety and innuendo, keep looking because Mannequin Pussy is out of stock.

A very quiet night, perhaps everyone is hunkering down for the leap day. Featured is IDLES, who all look like they could recommend a good IPA, and also would be willing to kick my ass for thinking so. Tonight featured more than our usual ration of covers, starting with a not-unlikely take on Beck’s “Loser” and following up with takes on tracks originally made famous by Muppets and Devo.
The Boo Radleys are eager to share their sweet shocking intensity and it will instantly lift your day.

No pan flute, no washes of synthesizer textures, just Olivia Jean doing her best impression of a land-bound siren and kicking up the octane in the Enya original to unsafe levels. It’s a hot summer so far, with lots of great releases crowding the older stuff out of the playlist, and it shows no sign of letting up. There’s a new album from the Boo Radleys (it’s been a while!), and I am obsessing over motorik sounds from Orange Drink and Motor!k. It’s far more than will fit on a single cassette, unless you get one of those ultra-long ones that your car deck will eventually eat up.

The Cadillac engine roared with naked abandon behind the driver. It was the familiar rumble of the seven-liter-plus workhorse, but its power was unleashed on a propellor instead of a bulky automatic transmission. At the airboat’s prow, the tracker kept an eye on the reeds that protruded in clumps from the murky water. Barely audible on the comm link were the strains of some forgotten psychedelic blues. A promising glint along the mangroves gave hope they had found the downed satellite. It turned out to be the stare of a brooding twelve-foot alligator, unwilling to leave the scene. The search continued.

The keypad beeped softly as the astronomer keyed in the coordinates. It was deepest darkest night on the altiplano, the stars above an unfamiliar configuration for those born to northern skies. The physicist tapped their pencil against their favorite clipboard (the metal one), the coffee-stained papers clipped to it showing the revised calculations for the Hole In The Sky. Over the tinny intercom, hacked because both had forgotten to bring a speaker, a particularly ironic song choice began to play, making them instinctively share a knowing glance.

The driver felt the leads tremble under their hands. The navigator clung resolutely to the sled, keeping an eye on the white horizon of the Wexford hills as they put some miles between themselves and the Monongahela. The only sound besides the rushing skids on the snow and the panting of the dogs was a faint crackle of song leaking from the driver’s earpiece. The heist had been a success; behind them, a net filled with silver Mylar balloons trailed and bobbed in the generated midnight wind.


Did Jeff Rosenstock manage to find an unrecorded Ramones song? "Beating My Head Against A Wall" sure sounds like it, and that is 1,000% a compliment.