Tag: Mix Tapes

Mix Tape Recorded From Radio, Mostly In February 1982

I have been a bit remiss lately, while writing up my forty years on series, about the early 1980s, in the matter of sharing my soundtracks from that era.

Two mentions of “taping” while in London, having a rare weekend away from Keele, in mid February 1982 made me reach for my spool catalogue and unearth the material I can be sure I was taping at that time. Music from chart shows and similar, which bear tell-tale dates.

An interesting mix, you might say. I make no apologies for my eclectic taste (or lack thereof) at that time.

Oh, the synthesisers!

Only a few of these would make my early 1980s playlist, were I to make one of those up for a forty years on party…not that we do parties any more, post pandemic. A theoretical, hypothetical early 1980s party.

For calligraphically-challenged readers unable to read my handwriting above, below is a version of the above list transcribed:

  • Showroom Dummies, Kraftwerk
  • I Travel, Simple Minds
  • Stick It Where the Sun Don’t Shine, Nick Lowe
  • Poison Arrow, ABC
  • Trouble, Lindsay Buckingham
  • Had Enough, Earth Wind and Fire
  • Cardiac Arrest, Madness
  • Easier Said than Done, Shakatak
  • Senses Working Overtime, XTC
  • Love Plus One, Haircut 100
  • The Model, Kraftwerk
  • Golden Brown, The Stranglers
  • A Town Called Malice, The Jam
  • Micky, Toni Basil
  • Fool if You Think It’s Over, Elkie Brooks
  • Say Hello, Wave Goodbye, Soft Cell

Hopefully most of the following YouTube embeds will still be here when you get to this piece, if you fancy hearing one or more of the tracks.

Mix Tape Recorded Just After My First Term At Keele, c28 December 1980

Top of the bill – Elvis Costello. Braunov, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I recently published the playlist (mix tape) of contemporary popular music I recorded just before I set off for Keele:

Mix Tape Of Popular Music Around The Time I Started Keele, circa 1 October 1980

Now (around its 40th anniversary) I am publishing the mix tape I made over the Christmas holidays to take back to Keele with me after my first term.

There were some gems but also some dogs on my pre-Keele list. Let’s see what one term at Keele had done to my charts-scraping mix-tape-making taste. It is mostly stuff I was hearing a lot during that Autumn 1980 term at Keele, plus one or two late in the year releases. Here is the list and below a link to each track.

  • Clubland, Elvis Costello
  • Hungry Heart, Bruce Springsteen
  • If You’re Looking For a Way Out, Odyssey
  • Same Old Scene, Roxy Music
  • Enola Gay, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
  • I’m Coming Out, Diana Ross
  • Just Like Starting Over, John Lennon
  • Banana Republic, Boomtown Rats
  • Embarrassment, Madness
  • To Cut a Long Story Short, Spandau Ballet
  • Do You Feel My Love, Eddie Grant
  • The Tide is High, Blondie
  • December Will Be Magic Again, Kate Bush
  • Do Nothing, The Specials
  • Too Nice To Talk To, The Beat
  • Runaway Boys, The Stray Cats
  • Ant Music, Adam and the Ants
  • De Do Do Do De Da Da Da, The Police
  • Stop the Cavalry, Jona Lewie

I think this December 1980 playlist/mix tape is a higher quality list than the October one – fewer out and out embarrassments anyway. Except for Embarrassment, obviously, which is itself not an embarrassment in my view. Simon Jacobs will certainly approve the first one on the list.

Back in 1980 I would not have been seeing the videos. I doubt if I even got to see Top Of The Pops by that time. So I must say I am quite surprised by some of the garments – especially in the jumper and tank top department – in the above vids. I especially commend to you Andy McCluskey’s tank top in Enola Gay, Terry Hall’s jumper (indeed all of The Special’s jumpers) in Do Nothing and of course Tony Hadley’s bizarre upper garment – a tunic of sorts – in To Cut A Long Story Short. If only I’d had dress sense back then.

Mix Tape Of Popular Music Around The Time I Started Keele, c1 October 1980

I have already written up the week I spent “training” to go to Keele:

A Week Of Serious Training For University Life Ahead Of Heading Up To Keele, 28 September To 4 October 1980

At some point during that week, I will have made up a mix tape of current popular music.

In less frenetic times, I would record the odd song or two or a few, while listening to the chart show every few weeks. These were frenetic times, though. I had just finished working for BBYO all summer (living in at Hillel House most of the time) and was soon to go off to Keele University.

So I recorded quite a lot of stuff from the radio during those few days off. Initially, that would have been recorded onto the Sony TC-377 reel-to-reel tape recorder (see photo above). But as I knew I planned only have a cassette player with me at Keele, I then copied said recordings onto a cassette.

Quite laborious stuff.

Here is the list of recordings I made at that time:

  • Masterblaster Jamming, Stevie Wonder
  • I Die You Die, Gary Numan
  • Don’t Stand So Close, The Police
  • Don’t Lose Your Temper, XTC
  • Best Friend, The Beat
  • I Wanna Be Straight, Ian Dury and the Blockheads
  • Baggy Trousers, Madness
  • Give Me the Night, George Benson
  • Searchin’, Change
  • Oops Upside Your Head, Gap Band
  • Tom Hark, The Piranhas
  • Eighth Day, Hazel O’Connor
  • Feels Like I’m In Love, Kelly Marie
  • One Day I’ll Fly Away, Randy Crawford
  • What You’re Proposing, Status Quo
  • Stereotype, The Specials
  • Misunderstanding, Genesis
  • Fallout, Data
  • Fashion, David Bowie
  • Army Dreamers, Kate Bush
  • Mad At You, Joe Jackson
  • All Out of Love, Air Supply
  • I Got You, Split Enzz
  • Another One Bites the Dust, Queen
  • Amigo, Black Slate
  • Disco, Ottawan

In truth, I wouldn’t be choosing many of these for my Desert Island iPod now. I can try the slightly lame excuses that I hadn’t really been paying that much attention to the chart music that late summer/early autumn and that I will have made up this tape in a bit of a rush, possibly with more willingness to pad out the tape than usual.

Anyway, to the extent that I am able, below are links to public domain versions of each of the above, so you can decide for yourselves, if you can be bothered. In any case, I’m sure some readers will be curious enough to want to listen to some of the recordings.

The play list starts brilliantly…and ends.

Gosh, that was quicker and easier than making up a mix tape, by a long, long chalk.

Mix Tapes From Around The Time That I Left Alleyn’s School, Late May To 28 June 1980

Possibly Christine by Siouxie & The Banshees is the pick of the mix

Ahead of a virtual gathering of the Alleyn’s “Class of 1980” in January 2021, I have decided to share the mix tapes I made right at the end of my time at Alleyn’s School.

Rohan Candappa and Nick Wahla have asked questions for that gathering, which I answered here:

The Day I Left (Alleyn’s) School, 27 June 1980

One of those questions, around “what would you do differently?” might be answered in terms of the choice of music. Or would it?

I have recently (late 2020) enjoyed replicating and sharing the mix tapes I made in the autumn of 1980, around the time I started Keele University and the mix tape I made at the end of that first term at Keele:

Mix Tape Recorded Just After My First Term At Keele, c28 December 1980

Those have led to some debate. Perhaps my “end of school” mix tapes will similarly cause some discussion. At the very least, I imagine they’ll spark some memories. Chart music was part of the soundtrack of many of our lives back then.

Effectively I recorded two batches right at the end of my time at Alleyn’s. One batch around the Whitsun long weekend (end of May 1980) and then another batch right at the very end – late June – mostly the weekend after the ‘A’ levels I’d guess.

Here’s a list of the first batch – the May 1980 batch:

  • Messages, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
  • Dance, The Lambrettas
  • Breathing, Kate Bush
  • I’m Alive, Electric Light Orchestra
  • Teenage, UK Subs
  • Let’s Go Round Again, The Average White Band
  • Over You, Roxy Music
  • The Bed’s Too Big Without You, The Police
  • Theme From M*A*S*H, M*A*S*H
  • We Are Glass, Gary Numan

Here is the list of the late June 1980 batch:

  • Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime, The Korgis
  • Christine, Siouxsie and the Banshees
  • The Scratch, Surface Noise
  • New Amsterdam, Elvis Costello
  • Who Wants the World, The Stranglers
  • Play the Game, Queen
  • Breaking the Law, Judas Priest
  • Let’s Get Serious, Jermaine Jackson
  • No Doubt About It, Hot Chocolate
  • Funky Town, Lipps Inc
  • Crying, Don McLean
  • Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please, Splodgenessabounds

Given the amount of time I spent in The Fox On The Hill in that last Alleyn’s week, the final recording on that list comes as no surprise. (Although for sure I’d have been drinking bitter, not lager). Anyway, I don’t think “Two Pints…” will make it onto my Desert Island Discs list. Frankly, I can’t see any of the above making that list. Christine’s a great track, as is New Amsterdam. There’s some good stuff, but it’s not my best mix tape, that’s for sure. I was kinda busy with other stuff at that time.

Anyway, here it is, as a playlist of YouTubes: