Radio Free Burrito: The Mix tape, Volume 1

As long as I can remember, my friends and I made mix tapes for each other. We'd grab stuff off the radio, record each other talking, tape tracks from records, and even grab stuff off the television.

A few minutes on the Internets revealed that I was not unique at all in this activity, which is as unsurprising as it is totally awesome.

I found myself in an empty house this weekend, and I became inspired by a midnight viewing of Videodrome to audio hijack some dialog from the film, drop in some of the weird audio I've scraped off the tubes in the last couple of months, and put it all together just like I did with those magnetic tapes so many years ago.

The audio levels are not as equalized as I'd like, but that's the way it was back then, too, so try to think of it as part of the charm, instead of an annoying technical failing on my part.

There aren't any show notes for this one, because we didn't bother to make show notes back in the old days. There are some titles embedded in the file, though, so you can imagine that they're scrawled on the TDK cardboard insert in blue Bic pen.

This was fun as hell to make, and I hope you like it. If you can spare a mirror, I'd be most grateful, because the file is quite large to preserve the audio quality.

• Mirror  (Thanks, herdivineshadow!)
• Mirror via MoronLife.com (Thanks, Clay!)
• Mirror on S3 (Thanks, Keith!)
• Mirror at Effluxity (Thanks, John!)

Torrents, from Brian May:

High (orig): http://athena.unearthed.org/torrents/radio_free_burritos_mix_tape_volume_one.mp3.torrent

Low (mono, VBR bit rate range 0-24, 5.6 megs): http://athena.unearthed.org/torrents/radio_free_burritos_mix_tape_volume_one-low.mp3.torrent

Download radio_free_burritos_mix_tape_volume_one.mp3

TRT: 32:30
Filesize: 29.6 MB (Yep, it's all music, so it's huge, even encoded at 128).

(Image via Make)

Comments

[ThemePark]

Wow, yeah, the old mix tape. I guess I started making them back in the mid 70's. I had a small black and white TV hooked up to a reel-to-reel tape recorder. I'd record theme songs from my favorite TV shows, dialog from all kinds of weird things. Then I'd record the washing machine run through it's cycles, mumble strange things into the microphone and the even tape the neighbors dog barking.
THEN, spend hours running chunks of that stuff down to my cassette recorder interspersed with as eclectic of a collection of music I could pull together
from my growing collection of LP's. I'm not sure my friends really understood what it all meant, but I did.

[herdivineshadow]

Mirror

[Clay]

Here's a mirror for ya:

Mirror Via MoronLife.com

It's uploading now, should be ready to go live in a few minutes...

Clay

[wolfger]

Now what would totally rock is if some geek with an old TDK cassette found a blank insert and scanned it, to make playlists. I think I've got one, but no scanner...

[nurbles]

At the risk of stirring a hornet's nest, could someone explain how a mix tape, as described, wouldn't be subject to the full force of the RIAA legal hammer? (And maybe others, since sources other than music were included.) Is there some inherent difference in the "mix tape" format that bypasses all the copyright protection? I assume that there must be some such ruling, else characters on shows on the WB network wouldn't be sharing mix tapes with each other, since WB is also a music company. However, it sure seems that there's little or no difference between making a mix tape (or CD or memory stick, these days) and just sharing copies of songs. Is the RIAA only upset about /network/ copying, but exchanging /physical/ copies is OK? That would seem to be the guideline based on recent WB episodes. If not, then it would seem that WW is inviting the RIAA into his life by admitting he shares mix tapes with friends and even worse...making a copy available for download.

Of course, if everything on it is public domain, creative commons, etc., then he's obviously in the clear.

Not trying to be mean or rude, just a concerned reader.

[Keith Veleba]

I remember the mix tape practice as well. Even made my wife-to-be a CD mix way back in old 1998 as we were dating.

Good times.

Mirror on S3

[Keith Veleba]

Whoops. Here's the corrected mirror link:
Mirror on S3

[SandieK]

I remember doing this a lot with the radio, tripping over odds and ends in my room to get to the 'record' button when I heard a cool song come on the radio. Then, of course, getting really mad when the DJ cut the song off much to early for my liking to jabber away or go to the next song.
I have no idea where my cassetts are now :(

[Wil]

Good points, nurbles, and I was cognizant of that when I made this last night. Everything on this tape is either public domain, or so old and out of print, it's not worth the RIAA's time to hassle me about it.

They're very busy destroying Internet Radio at the moment, you know.

And thanks for the mirrors, you guys! Awesome.

[John Bell]

Here's another mirror for you, if you can use it:

Mirror at Effluxity

[Shawn Powers]

Somebody should put up a torrent. Yeah, it should be me, what with me having the idea and everything -- but like everyone else that hasn't done it, I don't have the time right now. :) Maybe after it downloads I'll put it up somewhere.

Signed,
Lazy One

[JordanG]

I actually just wrote a really short story a couple of months ago about mixtapes. Its available here if anyone's interested.

[netbob]

I am so into this. I remember listening (dating myself) to a Cal State Univ Northridge comedy radio broadcast in the 70's that started with Night Train and ended with They're Coming to Take Me Away Ha Ha. I loved that show and this mix tape reminds me of that. Keep 'em coming!
- Long time reader first time poster.

[todd]

I've been making mix tapes, and later CDs, for years. For the last 10 years or so I've made one "Monthly Mix" at the beginning of each month. I can put on, say, May 1999, and instantly remember what I was listening to at the time -- and from there connect to all sorts of other memories.

[jerrell]

Great mix tape Wil, really enjoyed that, thanks ;)

[Roadkillkid]

Hey Wil. Your post brought back some good memories of great mixtapes made for bad girlfriends when I was growing up. You might want to check out Thurston Moore's book "Mix Tape: The Art of the Cassette Culture". I think you'll like it.

http://www.amazon.com/Mix-Tape-Thurston-Moore/dp/0789311992

[caitlen315]

I can't remember where I originally read about it, but I wanted to mention the International Mixtape Project.

http://internationalmixtapeproject.com/

I would have joined, but I know myself - I'd make 2 or 3 really great mixes and then I'd get too busy or I'd just forget to mail anything out. (Although they say it's ok to keep sending the same mix out.) For anyone who's really into it, it sounds like a great idea.

[Scratch]

Listen to me now in the name of Jesus... that is one HELL of a mix.

Consider that tape in the first slot of my cassette case. (aka Playlist 1 on my iPod).

Thanks Wil!

[ExGeekDogTrainer]

Now that's hawesome! Yeah, me, too (to much of the above) - I'm listening to it for the third or fourth time, and my wife (and now staff) look at me funny everytime they walk through the office :-) I've been away from WWdN:iX for far too long, but it looks like I came back at the perfect time. But looking back at the entries, I couldn't have missed. . .

[ExGeekDogTrainer]

Oops - forgot to mention that I am sorely tempted to submit a Bat Phone secret number guess ;-}

[Bitt Faulk]

nurbles: 17USC1008, from the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, says that non-commercial copying by consumers of digital and analog musical recordings is not copyright infringement. However, 17USC1003 provides for a 3% levy on blank digital audio recording media which is kicked back to the recording industry. That's why there are those blank "music" CDs at the store. They have had that 3% collected on them. You may also be interested in reading Frank Zappa's testimony to Congress about the PMRC, in part in regards to the then-current 99th Congress' HR2911 attempt to put the same tax on blank cassette tapes.

[DWStrauss]

I did a mix tape for my wedding in (cough cough) 1977. Reel-to-reel tape, it was. This year I tracked down a lot of the original recordings and redid it on CDs and mp3's for our 30th anniversary.

[dowdyk]

Did you see the televisionwithoutpity episode summary about the pathetic Scott Baio show? It has a little (though not particularly flattering) reference to you Wil.

http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/portal/site/TelevisionWithoutPity/menuitem.766266d5c663f366b180b41045001d30/?vgnextoid=02f1d1cc7d3f3110VgnVCM1000006dc1d240RCRD&vgnextfmt=default&ShowName=Mondo%20Extras

By the way- love the site. I've been reading for a couple of years but haven't ever posted a comment. I suppose this is a rather inauspicious debut.

[nurbles]

bitt faulk: I wonder why we don't hear more about that ruling when we hear about RIAA insanity. I suppose that RIAA should just get 3% of all of the money spent on memory. After all, a casette tape is rerecordable, so in principle it would seem to be the same as memory, no? And before the quality of a casette is mentioned, remember it is a magenetic medium, just like a floppy (remember those?) so we could have put MP3's on casette, too (just like I do now with CD-Rs for use in my car stereo).

It sure seems like Napster, et al simply make the legal [according to bitt faulk's references] mix tape/CD concept a bit easier (here's everything I own, as a single huge mix tape, take the tracks you like...) to pick and choose for your own remixes. Or does that law only allow ONE pass, as it were? Perhaps one is NOT allowed to pick selected tracks from various mix tapes, from various friends and create a new one for new friends...

But this has nothing to do with Wil's excellent mix tape. So I'll stop now, but this sure sounds like it might be worthy of a more widespread debate.

[Mike Wood]

Takes you back listening to that. I half expected Adam West and Burt Ward to give out an email address instead of 'postcards only'.

I used to make mix tapes on really crappy but well loved portable cassette players in the early 80s, I even used to record my voice on a Dictaphone I borrowed from my parents and tried to get it then recorded on cassette interspersed DJ like with radio recorded tunes.

You get some funny looks driving down the road with your mix blaring from the speakers. w00t

Mike