Mix The Rare

There is this book "Mix Tapes" by Thurston, you know, Thurston Moore, from Sonic Youth. I picked it up from a shelf in some library up in Montreal, the image of the mix tape kind off drew me in. I started reading and he was going on about this ace mix tape that he made in the 1993, and he got me thinking about tapes. Not too many people use them nowadays, with iPods, and MP3, and play lists... So it got me thinking, well I'm sick of writing all these pretentious essays, and such. I don't even know man. I really don't even know. I needed to do something before going crazy, so I started scribbling some songs in this notebook, and it got me thinking.

So?

I've always loved mix tapes, or just CD mixes, and I want to talk about something that doesn't kills me. So this is my column take or leave. A mix tape or rare song, and then by Friday the poem of the week. Maybe I'll write about people, and maybe I'll barely write sometimes, but here, take or leave.

Today? As the opening entry I really should talk about B sides, and hidden tracks and such. I won't, 'cause we all know what that is about. So I'm gonna go with my feeling and talk about one odd song.

One song, yeah, just one.
Providence, by Sonic Youth.

Personally it is one of my favorite songs, why? It's generally odd, it is not the kind that you'd just listen to for the heck of it. Daydream nation is a very conceptual album, in some ways, you can see it as a story being told. "Providence" the track eight of this magnificent album is supposed to just be a recorded phone conversation. It's not. Its one of those songs, that really could mean anything, even if there is a said meaning for it.

"Claudius! I'm downstairs in your nearest window... if you're up...
pub 'phone booth... if you're up...(I get tense) [Beep]"

[Mike Watt]
"Thurston! Watt! Thurston! I think it's ten thirty, we're calling
from Providence, Rhode Island. Did you find your shit? You gotta
watch the motin' Thurston, your fuckin' memory just goes out tha window.
We couldn't find it in the van at all, we wonderin' if you looked in
that trash can. When we threw out that trash, man, was the bag in
your hand, did you dump it? Call later. Bye."

You hear the guitar amp over heating and then piano notes on the back. Like its played on the dread of the night, some sort of city night filled with inside silence. The city crashing, moving, exploding as it always does, around and around, and maybe there is a little flat on the East Village, with Thurston's tapes, and amps. And maybe he is smoking one lonely cigarette whilst listening to the recording machine, and who knows? But perhaps the message is repeated over and over in the quiet of the flat and the noise of the city.

And maybe, just maybe, it makes sense. It's not supposed to make sense, because it's just a phone call no one picked, but somehow among "Hey Joni" and "Candle" it just makes some sense. It's not a legend like "Yesterdays" or any of that, no. It's the track eight of a band that often plays the guitar with toothbrush, take or leave. It's something worth of a side B.

And B stands for bizarre.