Let the mixing begin.

To quote Rob from the book:

“To me, making a tape is like writing a letter — there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with "Got to Get You Off My Mind," but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs and...oh, there are loads of rules.”

Official Groups

They have been randomly generated, and they are as follows. Once again, I want to aver that I assigned a number to each member and then randomized the sequence. I had no selective preference about the order or placement of anyone. If any of you are not amenable to your position, please indicate and we can work something out.

Group 1:
Enigma Machinist
Vincent
Jan Wan 4t
Approx. mixtape due date: APRIL 15th (it is a tall tall order, but you are up to it)

Group 2:
Gillz
Captain Admiral
Chaucer Arafat
Due Date: May 15th--how 'bout our best fertility tracks? Rites of Spring and such?

Group 3:
Shamus
Isopraxis
Teacher of Fruit
Due Date: June 15th--some emancipation tracks perhaps?

Group 4:
Sweetface
Ibid
Wajok Weiß
Rice
Due Date: July 15th--break out the John Philip Souza!

Ignore my stupid quips. But lets try to have mixes postmarked by the ides of each month. I will assemble the addresses and send each of you an email so that you might have a destination for your mixtapes.

Time!

We are lacking one person. I am going to move forth, tomorrow evening, and generate a schedule. For anyone who wants to investigate my method for randomizing a schedule, please go to Random.org and make sure you are ok with its randomness. It is a great site, and it is good to finally have a valid reason to use it.

I am going to assign each member a number (1-13) and then generate them to create 3 groups of 3, and 1 group of 4. I vow, with bog and all his holy angels and saints as my witnesses, that I will go with the first random number sequence I am given.

If anyone has any misgivings about this method, please speak. I will post the teams on either Thursday night or Friday morning.

Dye A Log

Let us talk. Some items...

1) Teh Blogggg

I think everyone's status on the blog is set to admin. Feel free to post. This is for everyone.

2) The Mixes (once they begin)

We need to discuss a schedule for mixes. My thought is, depending on how many members join, that we break into teams. Lets suppose we have 12 members. I was initially thinking of 6 teams of 2 (and I use "team" strictly in the sense of "a collective of members who create mixes in the same month"--there is no mandate to collaborate or anything of the sort). Okay, so, 6 teams of 2 would allow everyone to create 2 mixes per year. This schedule offers ample time for digestion of the mixtapes, which I find is necessary. By my way of thinking, being bombarded with 5 or more mixtapes is rarely good. HOWEVER, I also realize that the concept of mixtape clubs is a sort of indirect narcissism. It is a selfish act, creating a mixtape for someone else--it gives as much if not more pleasure to the creator than to the recipient. It's a blatant "look at me!" mechanism, and I think the more often we produce mixtapes, the more involved people will remain. I was in a mixtape club before this one (a club whose name I can't mention) and I think part of the reason that it fizzled out was because of how spread-out the schedule was. There were 2 people a month who created mixes, and if they failed to do so, many people didn't feel rewarded enough to contribute the following month. So, I propose that we do the following: arrange the schedule so that we would each be creating a mixtape every 3 months or so. Either 4 teams of 3, or 3 teams of 4. Please chime in on this.

3) Content

We can't limit any content. Everything is fair game. Everything. I hasten to insert the caveat that, perhaps if something on our mixtape could be seen as strongly offensive, we might want to offer a disclaimer before guild members listen. I don't know a lot of you, and I can't gauge your sensitivities. I really have no sensitivities, aside from cats in renaissance clothing, so I don't mind what goes on, but some people might. Even if it is Frou Frou's "Let's Go" (sorry Troy). It all has to be fair game, that is the guiding ethos of the guild.

4) Aesthetics

I mentioned that I was a member of a mixtape club prior to this one. I think another reason that it went under was that there was a subtle game of one-upsmanship with regards to the decoration of the mixtapes. No kidding. People kept trying to make more hip and exciting designs to accommodate their music. Some of it was really good, because it bolstered the theme of the mixtape. But I don't think we should impose any rule stating that we have to decorate our mixtapes. We can mail them in a clear jewel case with no identification whatsoever, if we feel like it. If we want to hand-draw the Harlem Globetrotters on the disc and encase the case in Astroturf, that is fine too. The guild knoweth no limits.

My goal is that, by Sunday, membership will at least be finalized enough to where we can get the first 2 or 3 months schedule hammered out, and I can randomize a schedule for the guild. Please post your thoughts below, and once again, if you have yet to do so, send a reliable physical mailing address to trainsmoke@gmail.com. I will collect them all and redistribute them to everyone. Also, a few of you have suggested friends, to whom I have extended invites. None of them have enrolled yet, so please encourage them to do so. If they need me to resend the invite, I will, but weez gots to be swift on this. Lets get moving.

Ready.......break

Here Here, I Hold the Conch...Currently

Established rules of the mixtape club:

1) 'Mixtape' will be used heretofore as a single word, not two words with a hyphen.
2) The word 'mixtape' will refer to compact discs containing musical arrangements, spoken word, or whatever the creator deems necessary for the overall zeitgeist of the mixtape in creation.
3) Members, when designated, will be responsible to create and distribute a mixtape to every other member of the guild.
4) Members will offer their candid comentary on the audio files received, and they will offer said commentary in the comments section of this Web Log, or "Blog," or even "Weog."
5) Members will maintain the utmost rigor and punctuality with respect to mixtape distribution as to encourage rewards for fellow guild members.
6) Members will refrain from including Sufjan Stevens on their mixtapes, as he is not pleasing to the ear.
7) Rules are subject to change through democratic processes.

Sky me, boyeeee!