The Nightstar Zoo

In these days of CD burning, a lot of people have begun to make their own custom mixes. (Yes, they did it with tapes too, but CDs are easier and less time-consuming.) The most common type of mix I've encountered is the Cruise Mix - something to listen to while driving.

What's your current cruise mix? How long have you had it? how often do you change it?

_________________
"Vox populi? Vox humbug!"
- William Tecumseh Sherman

My current mix:

Cruise Mix v7.0, July 2004

1. Badfinger - No Matter What
2. Doobie Brothers - China Grove
3. Edgar Winter Group - Alta Mira
4. Warren Zevon - Excitable Boy
5. Blues Traveler - But Anyway
6. James Gang - Walk Away
7. Counting Crows - Mr. Jones
8. John Mellencamp - R-O-C-K in the USA
9. Eagles - Take it Easy (live) (the only song to appear in some form on every mix since 1.0)
10. Blues Traveler - Canadian Rose
11. Dexy's Midnight Runners - Come on Eileen
12. Buggles - Video Killed the Radio Star
13. Tenacious D - Wonderboy
14. Supertramp - Goodbye Stranger
15. Warren Zevon - Werewolves of London
16. Barenaked Ladies - It's All Benn Done
17. Jimmy Eat World - Authority Song
18. Bruce Springsteen - Glory Days
19. Beatles - Two of Us (from Let it Be . . . Naked)
20. Warren Zevon - Lord Byron's Luggage
21. Bob Seger - Against the Wind.

This mix is notable for the relatively young average age of the music (it has more songs from the '80s and '90s than any mix yet), and for the absence of Jim Croce.

I tend to make a totally new mix every three months or so, with a llot of fiddling in between (E.G. version numbers like 3.2 or 5.6, to name a couple of particularly successful ones). An old mix isn't retired until it's physically worn out. If I really liked it, I'll make a new copy.

_________________
"Vox populi? Vox humbug!"
- William Tecumseh Sherman

Well, I've got a tape player in my car...
I have several tapes. One Iron Maiden mix, one rock oldies, a few random, and one tape I made for driving.
However, as those are all in my car, I can't list the songs. But it's mostly songs that have a fairly high adrenaline level rating, to keep me awake ;)

Hmm, when I'm alone in the car, I tend to listen to audiobooks. Or NPR News.

When I've got people with me, I listen to a variety of things from plain ole prolefeed (the radio) to new age, to German industrial...


Currently I'm in Hour 11 of the audiobook version of Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" and thoroughly enjoying it. Next on the audiobook list: Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"

_________________
Fandemonium 2010 -- No Boundaries.
http://www.fandemonium.org
Friday - Sunday, August 6th - 8th, 2010
Nampa Civic Center - Nampa, Idaho (Only 20 minutes from the airport!)
(Idaho: It ain't just potatoes anymore.)

Any tape left in a car long enough inevitably becomes a Queen tape.

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

How true. How terrifyingly true.

I make custom mixes for the gym - I need really high-energy stuff to get me going in the morning (I go at 5:30). Here's Gym Mix #4:

Lostprophets - Make A Move
Thrice - Identity Crisis
Drowning Pool - Sinner
Story Of The Year - And The Hero Will Drown
Yellowcard - Way Away
Ataris - All You Can Ever Learn
Spitalfield - Stolen From Some Great Writer
Juliana Theory - Bring It Low
Thrice - The Abolition of Man
Disturbed - Conflict
Lostprophets - ...And She Told Me To Leave
Count The Stars - Taking It All Back
Ataris - Broken Promise Ring
All American Rejects - The Last Song

This one's a little emo-heavy (it's also the only one where I bothered to put the song names on the label) - most of my other ones have more metal/nu-metal/etc. and less emo on them, and usually at least some older stuff.

BTW, if you start singing certain lyrics under your breath at the gym, you can really freak people out. I didn't realize I was doing that one day, and got stared out really strangely when the song got to the part about "buring right beneath your wrist, begging for a razor's kiss, to free it from your skin." Not as bad as the day I was singing Marilyn Manson's "mOBSCENE" at work without realizing I was singing out loud, but pretty close.