Recently the mother of all indie music sites, Epitonic, relaunched.  This event had me digging in my back catalog for some of that early music that Epitonic turned me on to.  It, along with You Ain’t No Picasso, Sixeyes, My Old Kentucky Blog, and Gorilla Vs. Bear were the first sites back in late 2004-05 that I started to get into.  The reason I discovered these sites was because of…get ready…the Postal Service.  Yup.  At the time my wife worked at a hair salon where they had satellite radio.  She came home from work one day and asked if I had ever heard of this Postal Service band.  Nope.  So I did a little research internet style.  What I came to find out was it was made up of Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie (who I was familiar with) and Jimmy Tamborello of Figurine and Dntel, two I had never heard.  Searching for these sent me a little deeper into the net and eventually to Epitonic.  It was like the clouds parted and the sun’s rays lit up my transparent sky blue iMac.  There was a treasure trove of music I had not heard of before, so it was pretty exciting.  At this point in time I was still using a dial up modem (running that cheap $7.95 a month crap) so each download took like 15 minutes.  This made the writing actually mean something.  You couldn’t just press play and find out if you liked it.  You had to patiently wait for it, and if it wasn’t all that it would be a major let down.  Luckily most of the time it was not.  From there I spread my searches out and came across the other aforementioned blogs…and eventually I started my own.  So this mix here highlights some of those first songs I downloaded and loved (and still do love).

STREAM IT HERE / DOWNLOAD IT HERE

Tracklisting:

1. Adult. – Nite Life

2. Enon – Shave

3. The Harlem Shakes – A Night

4. The Color Bars – All Your Kitchen Ghosts

5. American Analog Set – The Only One

6. Toothfairy – Kicked Out Of The Band

7. Dios Malos – Feels Good Being Somebody

8. A Brief Smile – And So It Begins…

9. Lemon Jelly – The Staunton Lick

10. Capitol K – Pillow

11. I am Kloot – Morning Rain

12. Glasstown – Living And Forgetting

13. Happy Go Lucky – I hope i’ll never see you again

14. Ladytron – Playgirl

15. MK Ultra – The Dream Is Over

16. Nourallah Brothers – I’ll Be Around

17. Pas/Cal – The Bronze Beached Boys (Come On Let’s Go)

18. Pinback – Fortress

19. Quasi – Drunken Tears

20. The Silent League – Breathe

21. Out Hud – How Long

22. The Head Set – Last Call Doll – LOW

Towards the end of last year I got this strange notion to put together a mixtape.  I’d never done one for Pasta Primavera, and I thought it was about time.  At the same time I was setting some goals for the upcoming year – the first being collaboration.  There were so many blogs/people/artists that I had discovered over the last few years, and I wanted to work with them in some capacity to create something new.  Then…BAM.  I had another idea!  Remember chain letters?   You send a letter to a specific person, then they send it to someone else creating a lengthy chain of postage.  I thought it would be cool to do this with a mixtape.  It began a few weeks ago when I sent the starting track, Work Drugs’ “Third Wave”, to Mike from Dead As Digital.  It was then out of my hands.  His job was to listen to the track I  had sent, then respond to it by passing it along to a person of his choosing.  Time passed and the chain grew, until its final goal of 12 tracks was achieved.

Here’s the track listing:

1. Work Drugs – Third Wave (submitted by Laurent of Pasta Primavera)
2. Morgan Greenwood – Gourds Frozen Juice (Submitted by Mike of Dead As Digital)
3. Kuhrye-oo – Old Son (submitted by Tim of Smoke Don’t Smoke)
4. It Is Rain In My Face. – Fast As A Feather (submitted by Dave of Stadiums & Shrines)
5. Yojimbo Billions – Blowzy (submitted by Chris of Neon Musical Insight)
6. Ducktails – Don’t Make Plans (submitted by Jimmy of Head Underwater)
7. Sleep Good – Lemonland (submitted by Katie of Heavy Percussion)
8. Kohwi (feat. Mutual Benefit) – Hobbies (submitted by Eloise of verb/re/verb)
9. Hurt Valley – Monuments (submitted by Tyler of Flashlight Tag)
10. Gardens & Villa – Orange Blossom (submitted by Noah of Aurora Vibes)
11. Saldu – Last Summer Dream (submitted by Jarred of Life: Aquatic)
12. Saint Surly + Monster Monster – Send/Receive (submitted by Holly of East to West)

Download the full thing here.

Or stream it right here:

Thanks to all that participated…perhaps you’ll be apart of the chain again?