Sverige är orsaken

I know it seems like I've abandoned making mixes but every once in a while one comes together on my long commute to work. This one is for driving, dancing and gritting your teeth when you're stuck in traffic.

Sverige är orsaken loosely translated means, "Sweden is the reason." It's a phrase I use with a friend of mine which means creating a reason to do something when there isn't really a reason at all.

So whatever your reasons are, please enjoy.

Mail Mix: A Mix for Stephanie

 

So, for this to make sense, you have to understand me and Stephanie. I have known Stephanie for longer than I have been friends with her. Basically, we each knew the other existed, seeing as our social circle is pretty much all the same people, but we're both shy and it wasn't until her boyfriend Nabeel (not shy) suggested that we should be penpals because we both have typewriters and it would give us an excuse to use our beloved machines and would obviously lead us to become awesome friends who geek out about all things mail and typewriter related. I gotta hand it to Nabeel. His plan totally worked. 

Stephanie is hands down my favorite penpal ever which is made extra awesome by the fact that I get to see her in real life quite often as well. Letters from Stephanie almost without fail will include a poem (or three or five) she has come across and typed up (not photocopied) for me to have. Sometimes they have little English professor type notes on them like, "Read this one aloud!" I am making a book of these poems.

So, obviously the theme is "mail," and now, hopefully, the reason for that theme is obvious as well. So the track listing is typed up and "mailed" with an air mail envelope I bought on etsy. I dug through my collection of stamps to find ones in denominations that corresponded with the track numbers.

And yes, I collected stamps at one time. Voraciously, in fact. I've recently re-embraced this part of myself that I'd lost for a while there. Anywho, all the tracks have to do with mail or the post office or typewriters. I was pretty thrilled to find that many tracks in my collection that fit the theme.

I have for the past few springs, made a spring-themed mix which I typically share on my other blog. I will again celebrate the coming warm weather with a mix and I will share it here this year because, I mean, this is my mix tape blog. It only seems right.

Anti-Apathy: A Mix for James

Made this mix for my brother James.

I made a book out of vintage graph paper I picked up at a garage sale this summer, using the techniques from the almighty How To Make Books.

I made a simple envelope for the disc out of some cardstock printed with braille. You can't see it in these pictures, but it's there and believe me, it's cool. I stuffed all of it into one of Tristan's bass string packages. (Trade secret: Bass string envelopes are the PERFECT size for a disc and booklet. Befriend a bass player and you'll be set.)

Inside was the track list and a story, of sorts.

 

I like books that are interactive. Things can be removed, put back in, additions can be made... The illustrations are part of the story but they can also all be removed, in various ways, without damaging the book itself.

Meet me, circa 1993. Rolled up pants? Check. Minnesota Timberwolves jersey? Check. Wicked cowlick? Check. And there's James, helping me with homework. Now he's all tall and witty and I can make him mix tapes. I like that.

If Only We Still Used Tapes - A Mix for Nate

So, I started out as usual. With a big mess. I have an entire set of drawers packed to the gills with... well, crap. Paper ephemera, odds and ends of things I've found on the ground, in garbages, things that have been given to me...

My process is usually something like this:

1. Rummage
2. Dump items selected from rummage on floor
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until satisfied
4. Start gluing stuff together
5. Formulate thoughts about how project should go together
6. Curse process
7. Finish project
8. Wash glue out of hair (Oh, my love/hate relationship with Mod Podge)

So for this packaging, I used a digipack from a Steve Burns (Remember Blue's Clues?) album which I painted white and then covered with sheets from a hymnal. I stabbed a hole in the center and attached the brad through the tag thingy. That's a vintage carnival ticket on the front.

I hand drew the little tape picture and affixed it under the tag so you could swing the tag up and get the rest of the title.

I tried to keep with the same theme for the back. Vintage carnival tickets, swinging tag, etc. Those are Joe Pug lyrics there. If you haven't heard his song Hymn #101, I don't think you've lived.

Inside was covered with more hymnal paper and a bit from Where the Wild Things Are. The tracklist was typed on a card and tucked inside the envelope.

Nate is directly responsible for rescuing me from main stream music. He introduced me to hardcore, ska, post-hardcore and my beloved twothirtyeight. (He came back with that last band on a tape he got from Cornerstone one summer.) He took me to my first indie rock show, protected me from countless mosh pits and will go down in my personal history as one of the most influential people in my life, ever. I'm really lucky that 11 years later, we're still friends. And he still introduces me to new music.

Thanks, Nate.

Resurgam - A Mix for Dustin

Remember that mix I was working on earlier?

 

Epic mix project: Completed.

 

See that there? That's right. It's a flash drive hidden in a hollowed out book.

 

I made a giant mess.

 

I took a copy of Jane Eyre and followed the directions here to seal the pages. After that was done, I cut away the pages so the flash drive containing the precious mix could sit comfortably inside Chapter 1. Library cards and pockets were ordered from The School Locker. The pocket was glued to the inside front cover and I typed the track list on the card... Finished it off with some yarn and a tag and voila. Done.

This was one of the most fun mix projects I've done - I confess I stole the idea from my band mate Ryan, who proposed to my best friend Jess by hollowing out a journal and putting the engagement ring in it... I was trying to think of other ways to transfer music files other than just a plain old CD and I figured for a special project, a flash drive was the perfect thing. If you buy a bunch of them at once, it's less expensive and if you're a hard core mixer, it opens up a whole new realm of possibilities as far as doing artwork and such.

So yeah. He seemed to like it, so I'll count this one a success. 

Epic Mix Project Progress!

This is, by far, my most in depth mix project. It has not found its way to its recipient yet, however, so until then, you only get this:


Yep, that's a box cutter I'm wielding there. Bet you didn't know that I used to stock shelves at a grocery store, did you? I also drove a fork lift. No lie.

There's Something Worthwhile Here: A mix for Steve

So, it was my brother's birthday. I got him a hat that makes him look 1940's swell and I made him a mix.


I used a polaroid I took of some fields outside of our parents' town, peeled off the outside and wrote the mix title under the plastic overlay.


I affixed the polaroid to the outside of an envelope I made using a template traced from a pre-existing envelope I had laying around... the vintage paper is from a scrapbook that used to be our Grandma Ada's.

Older Doesn't Mean Wiser: A Mix for Dustin

Alright! So! Here's my first posted project. This was a mix I made for my friend and band mate Dustin way back in December of last year:


This is a leaf I picked up off the sidewalk in Chicago last fall while we were all hanging out. I pressed it and then hand-sewed it to the front page.

I took two postcards to use as the front and back covers of the booklet. I had just finished reading How to Make Books and so was inspired to learn how to do this simple book binding stitch. I used vintage carpet thread I had laying around. The booklet is made of vintage paper, typed up on my '58 Royal Typewriter.



Here's the cover made out of the vintage post card and a page torn from an old hymnal.

I was really proud of this mix... it's one of my best, I think. Sometime I'll do a top five mixes of all time... This one is definitely on it.