As I went through some of the bins of CD’s and tapes and assorted stuff of Dalton’s stuff his father let me take from the storage shed I found 2 in particular that brought a smile to my face.

“The Hospital Mix”

I created this for Dalton in June of 2005 after he had a heart problem and had to have some equipment installed. He was in the hospital for like a week and took several weeks to recover. After that, when we sat quietly playing chess, I could hear it ticking. That he saved it since then made me glad.

It was just a slap together mix of stuff I was listening to at the time. So it is as much an archive for me now, as it was as an amusement for my hospital bed ridden friend.

The cover picture is of a diagram of the heart. Where normally the lines point to parts of the heart and they are labelled, like ventricle, aorta, etc. I changed them to be the titles of the music I had enclosed. I thought it was funny. Labelled “The Hospital Mix” at the top and “For Dalton” at the bottom.

He labelled it “Heart Surgery CD From Mike”.

You can see the interesting juxtaposition of bands that I put together. I hope it gave him some relief from the boredom of lying there for so long. He kept it. I treasure it now.

The other CD was one that he created that I had digitally, but never had a physical copy.

“The Lost Tapes”

This was a collection of tapes that Dalton and I either made, or acquired that were special in one way or another, all collected in MP3 format on one super disc. He scanned the cover picture from the J-cards and actual tape in the case of “Headbanging Hacky (Punk)”.

This CD is irreplaceable. Not only for the music, but for what the music was for us.

The inside of “The Lost Tapes”:

His Bonus note is classic.

The picture of him is in his off campus college room. He looks so young. Jim Morrison looks on over his shoulder.

There are 9 tapes collected here. They are…

1) Headbanging Hacky (alternately known as Headbanging Hacky (Punk) ) which was a collection of music that we would listen to when we played, you guessed it, Hacky Sack. It was full of stuff that we were listening to then, anything fast and hard and alternative and a lot of tracks pulled by Dalton from shows he recorded back then from WORT in Madison. We would listen to this over and over again.

2) Headbanging Hacky II was a reworking of Headbanging Hacky (Punk) with some songs swapped out for new stuff that was getting our attention. It is the penultimate collection to hacky to. Trust me.

3) Best Of Cruelest Cuts was a tape of songs that Dalton recorded from a WORT show by Tanya Hyde called “Cruelest Cuts” that featured less that appropriate songs. Most of which would offend at least someone. He liked to listen to stuff that was out there, and while not all of this is my bag, it certainly reminds me of him. This was huge for him. He had several versions and some songs from here are on almost all of these tapes.

4) Parental Guidance was another collection of inappropriate music. These were interspersed with snippets from the Mr. Hell show, also on WORT. This show featured a DJ that had a voice changer that made him sound slowed down and deep, a little demonish, but like a friendly demon. Classics. We used this warning of his on many many tapes.

5) Madtown Music was a tape that was made by Mr. Hell. He mentioned on his show that if you brought a blank tape to the WORT studio, he would dub you a copy of this collection of music. Of course we took him up on it. We were so stoked when they came in the mail. It was SO cool. Mr. Hell made this!

6) Alternative Compilation was a collection of what Dalton considered the best alternative stuff around. It has the honor of being the only copy I have of the song “Vices” by Tar Babies. It is also interspersed with snippets and sound bites from various shows recorded by Dalton. There is Dial A Curse, Your Brain On Drugs, Lease Breakers and other classic sound bites from our history.

7) Alternative Music For Beginners (Made For Jonelle In College) was a mix made specifically for his college girlfriend. It was a tamer, but no less alternative collection. There is Sinead and Romeovoid here. Tread carefully.

8) John Zorn Radio Hour. I think I have written about this before. John Zorn, saxophonist for Naked City and crazy composer did a show that they played on WORT. Not really knowing what it was going to be, it was a total fluke that we recorded it, because it basically changed our life. This was an hour long show of John Zorn playing songs that impacted his life and that he thought everyone should hear, including tracks from his band then, Naked City. It literally blew our minds. I got heavy into Naked City and all of John Zorn’s work, including the Masada and soundtrack work and Painkiller (pre Naked City). We used a lot of snippets of him talking on several tapes, and it was the start of us using the phrase “it totally took my head off” to describe how good something was. It’s a very interesting show. Here talks about his band Naked City:

9) Lacrimation Compilation. This last tape was a join effort. For a while we decided that we would make mix tapes around a theme. This one was all about crying. I pulled some songs from my collection and Dalton some from his and we put this together. It’s awesome. Robert Plant, James Brown, Cynics, Bob Mould, Prince, Pixies, Pere Ubu, Van Halen… man, this had it all.

Incidentally, I think this may have been the inception point for the Follow The Title game that I am playing now with friends.

Further incidentally, a subsequent collection of songs about Weather was scrapped halfway through when the song from The Cure “Prayers For Rain” didn’t copy correctly 3 times in a row. We said f-it and went out and listened to “Headbanging Hacky II and played some hacky out back of my townhouse.

I have the video to prove it.