On The Road Mix (Part 1)

After yet another long hiatus, I thought that I'd make another post on my poor old blog. A little while ago I put together an annotated travel mix for my friend Kindra, and I've been meaning to repost it online when I got the chance. It ended up being one-part discography and one-part audio biography. Since my focus was on representing the music that I've listened to most in life, it's more or less the standard fare. Still, check out the first of three parts here and let me know what you think! (I'll put up the next part tomorrow):

Track listing:

1. Wild Night, Van Morrison - Tupelo Honey
2. Flathead, The Fratellis - Costello Music
3. General, Dispatch - Bang Bang
4. Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison
5. Gallows Pole, Led Zeppelin - III
6. Graceland, Paul Simon - Graceland
7. The King of Carrot Flowers pt. One, Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
8. Dashboard, Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
9. The Great Escape, We Are Scientists - With Love and Squalor
10. Fireworks, yOya - Nothing to Die
11. California Sun, Ramones - Leave Home
12. Power of Moonlite, Tiger Army - II:Power of Moonlite
13. Blue Orchid, The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
14. Way Out, Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
15. Shotglass, Caitlin and the Shotglasses - Caitlin and the Shotglasses
16. Homelands, Brad and Ethan - Live Recordings, Etc.
17. Barton Hollow, The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow
18. The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing, The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

Annotations:

1. Wild Night by Van Morrison on the album Tupelo Honey. I've actually never been huge into Morrison, and I can't really remember when I downloaded this album. Probably when I picked up a bunch of Jimi Hendrix and similar classic rock; it just seemed the thing to do. This single is fantastic, but I think some of the other songs on the album lack the happy energy of Wild Night.

2. Flathead by The Fratellis on the album Costello Music. The Fratellis are such a happy little Ska band. They're great at having a driving sound that is still quite classy. I picked them up from a photographer friend of mine, Leah, down in Eugene. Nowadays she's living in Prague! Can you imagine that? She and I would just hang out at her house swapping photo books and record albums, chatting about one thing or another. Cool chick. And at one point she dumped a bunch of awesome music onto my laptop. Hurrah!

3. General by Dispatch on the album Bang Bang. Dispatch was one of those bands that carried me through my freshman year of college. My roommate Ryan was huge into them, and it didn't take me long to start to obsess as well. General was one of those songs that hits all the sweet spots for me; it's a story song (based on the Civil War!) that has some great lyrics and some stirring melodies. It's a favorite with everyone who's heard the band, I think. I almost got a chance to go see the band live once, but it never panned out. Too bad!

4. Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash on the At Folsom Prison album. The Man in Black! Cash was so great. His life story is quite interesting, and I think that they did a decent job of retelling it in Walk the Line. I've been listening to him for years. He has another couple of songs that I like a bunch too: The Legend of John (later in the album) and The Man Who Couldn't Cry on the American Recordings album. Great stuff. But Folsom Prison is the most iconic, and this song is the best at showing it off. Cash played at many prisons during his life, but it was this one in Folsom, California that really kick-started his career onto the national stage. Good thing too.

5. Gallows Pole by Led Zeppelin on the III album. Zeppelin! Continuing the prisoner motif of Prison Blues, Gallows Pole is one of my favorite Zeppelin songs. It follows a pretty classic three-part story format, which I love, but it's Jimmy Page's fantastic voice coupled with the twanging guitar that really propels this song into greatness for me. There used to be a great Zeppelin cover band here in Corvallis called Stairway Denied, and they had some of the best covers I've ever heard. The lead singer absolutely nailed Page's vocals, and also had good looks and the long rocker hair. They've since broken up, but I'll bump into him here in town and have to resist gushing over a Corvallis celeb.

6. Graceland by Paul Simon, on the Graceland album. Though I do like Simon and Garfunkel, the sheer amount of overplaying of them by my friend Arielle caused me to cast out for this album. I played it a bit, never really latching on, and then one day I came home from an epic backpacking trip into Eastern Oregon and turned this on and everything clicked. Instant travel song favorite. The rest of the album is fine, but it is really this single that I am most enamored with. Hopefully some day I won't feel as burnt out on The Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel. :p

See part two here and part three here.