Perhaps you noticed I've been out of the mixtape game for the past several months. Honestly, it was getting to be more of a chore than a fun diversion, so I decided to take a break–which has made me extra ready to compile my second annual year-end mixtape! For those of you who weren't around last year, I keep a smart playlist on iTunes that tracks what music I've added to my library over the past year and how much I've played it. At the end of the year, I compile a playlist of new-to-me songs that have made their…

This month's theme was partner request, so I put together a playlist of songs representative of artists from my top played list that my partner didn't know. Normally I would mix it up a little more, but I wanted each set of songs to sound like a little EP. It would have been too long if I had done four songs for every band, so I threw in a few singles from the bands lower on the totem pole to round it out.

Enjoy!

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By Spoon:
1. Utilitarian
2. Anything You Want
3. The Underdog
4. The Infinite…

This was a mix I did for a friend in our local mixtape club. I was having trouble coming up with a theme until I thought (during the McCartney concert last weekend) why not a cover album of all McCartney songs? So here it is.

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1. Drake Tungsten - Let Me Roll It!
2. The Judybats - Love in Song
3. The Black Hollies - Heart of the Country
4. Virgos - Maybe I'm Amazed
5. Nick Cave - Let It Be
6. Matthew Sweet - Every Night
7. Gomez - Getting Better
8. The Broken West - Eat…

Sat 15 Aug – Paul McCartney - The Green Concert

So, this won't be a long entry. I don't have any photos to post, and the setlist is too long to reproduce here (if you're interested, it's here. 34 songs! Two encores! Unbelievable.)

Mostly, what I want to say is that it was like a surreal dream come true. I really, truly thought that I would never get to see him live. It seems like something that only a person with serious time and money at their disposal would be able to do (not to mention a person living several…

The theme this month was "questions and answers," which made this a particularly fun mixtape to put together. When the challenge primarily involve title themes, I often discover stuff I've never listened to while combing through my library for appropriate songs. This month I seem to have unintentionally put together a kind of hapless lover's FAQ. I hope you enjoy! As always, click on the pic to download.

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1. The Strokes - Is This It
2. The Redwalls - You'll Never Know
3. The Apples In Stereo - Can You Feel It?
4. Feist - I Feel It All…

This month's theme was "dancing naked," and while I have never actually danced completely naked (that I can remember) I do appreciate the greatness of stepping out of the shower and putting on some raucous music while you get dressed for a night out. Thus, I feel like I captured the feeling pretty well on this mixtape.

Click on the pic, download, and enjoy!

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1. The Spencer Davis Group - Gimme Some Lovin'
2. Jet - Skin and Bones
3. The Whigs - Technology
4. The Clash - Train in Vain (Stand By Me)
5. Wreckless Eric - Whole…

For once, I'd say this theme needs no explanation.

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1. Little Cream Soda - The White Stripes
2. Cigarettes and Alcohol - Oasis
3. Peanuts - The Police
4. Cheap Wine - What Made Milwaukee Famous
5. Tylenol - Ben Kweller
6. Tasty Fish - Spoon
7. Eggplant - Train
8. Shaking Sugar - Wilco
9. Chips Ahoy! - The Hold Steady
10. Milk and Money - The Fratellis
11. Strawberry Wine - Ryan Adams

I just wanted to write a quick note to anyone who likes my mixtapes to say that I have redone all of my previous posts which were eaten by the draconian last.fm spam policy, and all of the links should be working now. Access to over a year of mixtapes has been restored!

If you are interested but don't feel like wading through all my journals, here's a handy link to all my downloads:

http://tinyurl.com/dn8oah

MIght I also suggest that if you like what I do, you can subscribe to my journal via RSS using the link below (I personally…

The Monthly Mixtape theme for April was interesting: choose a photo or other work of art and base a mixtape around it. After a lot of thought, I realized that one of my favorite works of art, Arnold Böcklin's Isle of the Dead would be the perfect subject. Each song refers to an aspect of the painting, and I think the overall mood reflects it pretty well. Hope you enjoy!

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1. M. Ward - Dead Man
2. Midlake - Golden Hair
3. Feist - The Water
4. Spoon - The Ghost of You Lingers
5. Band of Horses -…

I realized this month that I haven't just made a mixtape of my current favorite songs in, I kid you not, about two years. The theme this month wasn't that great, so I decided to just go ahead and do a mixtape of what I've been listening to lately. All but two have been chronically stuck in my head over the past month; "All Along the Watchtower" is included in tribute to the series finale of Battlestar Galactica a couple of weeks ago, and "The Curse" is a new song I got to hear Josh Ritter perform at Center Stage…