Lisztomania (Take 6)

Some of you still haven't received the 2015 mix CD but I wanted to post the track listing regardless as it's nearly Christmas 2016 (duh). International friends will get a double dose this year!

I give you: 

Swallow It Whole
Hunters & Collectors - Holy Grail
Santigold - The Keepers
Gang of Youths - Radioface
Courtney Barnett - Pedestrian At Best
Jarryd James - Give Me Something
George Maple - Talk Talk
Sleater-Kinney - No Cities To Love
CHVRCHES - Make Them Gold
The Weeknd - Losers
Jamie xx - I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times)
Meg Mac - Never Be
Daft Punk - Lose Yourself To Dance
Eurythmics - When Tomorrow Comes
Ella Fitzgerald - When I Get Low I Get High

Lisztomania (Take 5)

Now that the 2014 mix CDs have arrived safely (both locally and internationally), I can share the track listing with the rest of you!

For those new readers: every Christmas I make a mix CD that is usually a mix of new releases and old favourites. There are a few rules: I can't use anyone/any band I have used before, but side and solo projects are OK (for example: Glen Hansard has featured on the mix CD before but this year he appeared as part of The Frames). I usually try and include at least four or five Australian acts, although this year I failed woefully. And I try and avoid music that EVERYONE knows (let's say The Beatles or The Stones), and if I do include better known artists I try and avoid the big singles. But that's about it. 

Here is the 2014 mix CD, in all its glory:

REBELLION

St Vincent - Rattlesnake
Cold War Kids - Miracle Mile
New Order - Ceremony
Chrissie Hynde - Dark Sunglasses
Sky Ferreira - Nobody Asked Me (If I Was Okay)
Jungle - Time
The Frames - When Your Mind's Made Up
Total Control - Flesh War
Banks - Beggin For Thread
Ásgeir - Torrent
The Jezabels - Look of Love
Chlöe Howl - Paper Heart
Yazoo - Only You

Mix CDs from previous years can be found here, here, here and here.

Lisztomania (Take 4)

Like so many people, Christmas is all about the ritual for me. I'm not alone - my father adores decorations and usually has our tiny house overflowing with them, crowned by his spectacular lights in the front yard. (This is the part where I'd show a picture as proof, but my phone has a crappy camera and I don't own another one.) My sister has the endearing habit of running a trivia contest on Christmas day for our immediate family, trivia about...Christmas, no less. She buys prizes and everything. 

For what it's worth, I won this year, so I haz bragging rights. 

My ritual is known to longtime readers of this blog, the annual Christmas mix CD. Previous mix CD inclusions can be seen here and here.

This year's effort is outlined below:

Little Houses

Adam and the Ants - Stand and Deliver
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sacrilege
Haim - The Wire
Palma Violets - Best of Friends
Any Bull - Keep On Running
Poliça - Dark Star
The Griswolds - The Courtship of Summer Preasley
The Preatures - Is This How You Feel?
Vance Joy - From Afar
Jeremy Neale feat. Go Violets - In Stranger Times
Frank Ocean - Lost
Robyn - Dancing On My Own
Pulp - Common People
Patty Smyth feat. Scandal - Goodbye To You

Lisztomania (Take 3)

Most of you on the list have already received your Christmas mix CD (only several months late, but oh well....) and those of you who haven't (Nina, Rob and Ginger) should get it very soon. In the meantime I'm going to post the list of what went on last year's edition, because I'll probably forget if I wait any longer. 

For those of you new to this game, every year I put together a mix CD for close friends, both at home and abroad. The friends at home all (OK, almost all) received theirs before Christmas but I was pretty bad about getting the overseas ones out as international postage is a bit pricey.

There are a couple of rules: no using artists or bands I have used before, but side projects and solo efforts are OK. No covers. I like to include at least 5 songs from albums released in the year that's just passed, and I try and include several Australian acts. There's usually also a few classic tracks, mostly from the late 70s and early 80s because I just eat that stuff up. Live versions are always fun, but that's not a hard and fast rule. It usually works out at about 15 tracks each year, about an hour long in total, because I think that's kind of a perfect length for a CD. Maybe that's because my commute is about an hour long....

You can see the CDs I made in other years here. 

2012 - A World Elsewhere

Billy Idol - Dancing With Myself

Peaches - Showstopper

Can - Mother Sky

Morrissey - The Last of the Famous International Playboys

Bertie Blackman - Mercy Killer

Alabama Shakes - Be Mine

Ball Park Music - Coming Down

The Kills - Pull A U

Cat Power - Cherokee

Clubfeet (feat. Chela) - Heartbreak

Goldfrapp - Number 1

The Naked and Famous - No Way

Lisa Mitchell - Bless This Mess

Something for Kate - Eureka

Paul Kelly - Cradle of Love

Lisztomania (Take 2)

I thought it might be worth posting the mix CD playlists from the years I've been making them. This also serves as an electronic reminder of what I used and when. For the record, the 2009 mix CD is my favourite and the one I would leave completely as it is. 

The annoying thing is when you pick a track from an artist or band and then the next year they put out an even better album and you can't use them because of the stupid rules (please see Gotye, Sia, Sarah Blasko and Glasvegas, just for starters). Admittedly they're my stupid rules, but even so. (Refresher: I can't use artists or bands I have used previously. But solo and side projects are OK.)

2005 - Welcome to the Programme

Midnight Oil - Read About It

Clouds - SoulEater

George Harrison - What Is Life?

Kings of Leon - Wasted Time

The Cops - Cop City Music

Eskimo Joe - Girl

Mercury Rev - Funnybird

Blind Joe Johnson - Long Gone Train

Patti Smith - Free Money

Ryan Adams - To Be The One

PJ Harvey - Send His Love To Me

Neil Young - Old Man

Sarah Blasko - At Your Best

Beck - Lost Cause

Garbage - Silence is Golden

Radiohead - sulk

Modest Mouse - Float On

Ed Kuepper - Everything I've Got Belongs To You

2008 - This Page Has Been Intentionally Left Blank

Glasvegas - Flowers and Football Tops

David Bowie - Rebel, Rebel

Interpol - No 'I' In Threesome

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Today's Lesson

The Smiths - The Boy With The Thorn In His Side 

Ladyhawke - Magic

TV on the Radio - Golden Age

Augie March - One Crowded Hour

Elbow - Grounds for Divorce

The Cranberries - Linger

Edith Piaf - Milord

Elton John - Funeral for a Friend (love lies bleeding)

Sam Cooke - Wonderful World

2009 - Attic Language

Glen Hansard and Marketa Iglova - Falling Slowly

Sia - Day Too Soon

Björk - Big Time Sensuality

Hilltop Hoods - Chase That Feeling

The Pretenders - Kid

M.I.A. - Boyz

Arcade Fire - Intervention

Gillian Welch - Everything Is Free

Florence + The Machine - Cosmic Love

The Presets - Yippyo-Ay

The Clash - Should I Stay Or Should I Go

Whitley - Head, First, Down

Phoenix - Lisztomania

The Polyphonic Spree - Light & Day/Reach for the Sun

2010 - You Rule (So Hard)

INXS - Just Keep Walking

La Roux - Bulletproof

Iggy Pop - The Passenger

Washington - Navy Blues

Kanye West - All of the Lights

Gotye - The Only Way

Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks

Daniel Johnston - True Love Will Find You In The End

Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can

The Walkmen - Juveniles

Paul Dempsey - Bird In A Basement

Grinderman - Palaces of Montezuma

LCD Soundsystem - Home

Nina Simone - I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free

2011 - something something madness

Sweet - Blockbuster

Wilco - I Might

Herman Düne - Tell Me Something I Don't Know

Sparkadia - China

Psycho Killer (live) - Talking Heads

College feat. Electric Youth - A Real Hero

Emma Louise - Jungle

The National - Runaway

Avi Buffalo - Where's Your Dirty Mind

Foster the People - Call It What You Want

Yolanda Be Cool and Dcup - We No Speak Americano

Tame Impala - I Don't Really Mind

Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way

Austra - Spellwork

Eddie Perfect feat. Iain Grandage - Back To Life

and it continues....

P.S. - When the internet dropped out while the mentor and I were chatting on Skype he sent a message on it saying 'your voice sounds very peculiar'. 

I think this is what the kids refer to as an 'epic fail'. 

Lisztomania

Every Christmas I make a mix CD. It’s a list of what’s been keeping my head above water all year, as music is my life blood. I try and include a handful of classics and a strong showing of new releases. I also try and include quite a few Australian artists, especially given that I send the yearly effort to quite a few people overseas. (I don’t know why that is so important to me, but it’s the policy of my favourite radio station to play 40% Australian music. We can get kind of parochial here.)

There are some rules. I can’t use artists or bands I have used previously, but side and solo projects are OK. And I try and add some new people to the list of those receiving it every year. That’s basically it. But it’s a list that I start compiling in January. I’m not saying I write anything down but it’s something I think about a lot. Usually at work while doing something mindless or on a long train trip. (I take a lot of long train trips, I’ll be talking about that at some point. Oh, you say, I can’t wait for that effort.) I get excited about a song that helps me get through the day and I derive pleasure from the idea that someone else will hear it because I sent it to them. And maybe it will help them get through a bad day too.

These are the two lists I think about, every now and again, all year:  what’s on the CD and who’ll be getting it. Most people write lists for the store, for what they want to get done over the weekend, for what they’re packing to take on vacation. I don’t do that. I work from memory 99% of the time. The only reason I have a calendar is to keep track of the weddings for which I am booked and nothing else. I swear this doesn’t mean that I forget social or work commitments or neglect to do things – I don’t. I just find it works for me.

I’ve always had a fantastically good memory and most of the time it’s great because it has allowed me to skate academically and get away with stuff at various jobs. But it creeps people out sometimes, that I remember personal plans and details; occasionally I have to pretend to forget stuff, particularly early on in friendships or other relationships. It’s as though we are wary of anyone actually paying attention to what we are saying and remembering it.

This is a time of year when a lot of people make lists. And certainly several of my favourite bloggers have talked about lists a lot this year. Some of them embrace them wholeheartedly and others reject them as being frightening and limiting. I don’t have a life list and I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions. I’m the sort of person who wants to start over almost every day so making a list once a year doesn’t really suit me.

But I’ve talked already about this coming year and what it means to me. This is the year I want to find out what I can do intellectually and I want to develop a work ethic where my studies are concerned. It doesn’t help that the academic year here is the same as the calendar year, there are bigger and yet fewer chances for us to talk ourselves into things at which we will fail a couple of weeks into January. I am dreaming big for myself for the first time in a very long time.

So if I was making a list, it would be a very short one. I want to work harder and I want to be more adventurous. It’s as simple as that.

I’m not very good at venturing outside my comfort zone. I’m someone who gets attached to places and people and even to just ordering the same thing off the menu at my favourite couple of places. You’d think that someone who clearly loves ‘the same’ would have a better work routine when it comes to study but I am an appalling procrastinator of the worst variety. I will leave it as late as I possibly can and then put it off some more. The problem is that this is a really terrible thing when combined with my illness and my anxiety, an untenable situation for me when taking on such a confronting and difficult study schedule. And I want to rise to the challenge.  

I am finding that if I work a few hours every day I can keep the panic at bay, or mostly at bay. This probably comes as no surprise to just about anybody else the world over but it comes as one to me. Work consistently and the rewards will follow. The excitement I feel at researching and writing this incredible project is still there, and I hope it stays with me until October, I’m going to need it. I guess what I’m saying is that this year is a balance of being adventurous and being a hard worker. Just two things on the (mental) list for what comes next.

Lists. I guess I haz them after all.

P. S. - The Phoenix song from which this post derives its name. It's also on the 2009 CD, the best one I think I've ever put together.