One of the lost arts of being a radio DJ is the art of mixing records. Nothing too pre-planned, mind you — just starting with a song, and flipping through the stacks to find the next song that would (hopefully) sound great next to your previous pick. Back in the ’80s and ’90s when I would make mix tapes, I would pick maybe two songs to start off the mix. One I had the first two songs set, I would cue them up on the turntables, hit “record” on the cassette tape player, and start mixing away. The challenge during these mixes was to find the right combination of songs in real time. I knew that I had roughly four minutes to find the next song while the tape was recording or else I would have the proverbial “dead air” on the tape — and that would suck. Sometimes the mixes would turn out really great, and other times the mixes had a few “Awww yeah” moments, but were overall uneven efforts. I would learn from these tapes as to what makes for a good mix by doing what any self-respecting homebrew DJ does: play them in the car for friends and watch their reactions.
And while it’s not really possible to duplicate the cassette tape mixes from back in the day, I have to say that I really tried to for this mix. I had two songs that I started with on my music player. And while one was playing, I hunted for other songs that would round out the mix. And even though there isn’t a stated theme to this mix other than “random sample,” I think there’s a wistful desire to hear more off the cuff mixes from radio jocks — something that ain’t gonna happen in the age of pre-programed radio. (more…)
