Congratulations on receiving one of Barry's mix tapes. This tape contains 90 minutes of music but with proper storage, care and handling, will provide a lifetime of listening enjoyment.

Instructions: insert tape into any standard tape player. Play tape. Enjoy.

Caution: this tape may have been intended for use in specific conditions. It may be best enjoyed at night, in a car, with headphones, or played very loudly. Such information would appear with the liner notes. For maximum listening effect, reading the liner notes before playing the tape is strongly suggested.

Warning: the songs on the tape are non-negotiable. Exchanges are impossible. Requests will not be honoured. There was a plan involved in making this tape. Therefore, changes in the playlist and/or song order are not feasible without completely altering the mood and pacing of the tape.

Background: Barry has extensive experience in the art of mix tape recording, taping from a variety of formats and sources for over a dozen years. Therefore, he has spent nearly half of his life in this business! Each tape is personally compiled and manufactured by Barry himself. However, the music industry has evolved over the years, and Barry's style has evolved with it. He honed his craft by making tapes for himself, hour after hour in his bedroom. These tapes compiled the newest alternative and cutting-edge dance hits of the day, interspersed with classic songs for added variety and historical weight. In the early to mid 1990's, he shifted his focus toward producing tapes for others. Early mix tapes featured a minimum of artists, often with large sections of their albums. As Barry's music collections grew rapidly, there was a pressing need to feature more and more artists. Eventually, each artist was limited to one or two songs per tape, with very few exceptions. In order to fit in so many differing styles of music, the tracklistings were meticulously planned in advance. With only 45 minutes per side to work with, this ensured that songs were not cut off and more importantly, the songs flowed readily into each other. This was Barry's preferred method of working for many years, and many feel that his best work was done during that time period.

However, the era of detailed planning ended around 1998. Perhaps as a reaction to the rigidity of those working conditions, Barry shifted to a freer, more improvisational style. This shift occurred over many months. From this time onward, Barry's tapes were recorded with almost no premeditation. He would begin with a rudimentary idea, i.e. decide on the first song and the last, but nothing else; or start soft and build to something loud; and let instinct and emotion fill in the details. Like with a virtuoso who grows to understand his instrument better after years and years of performing, Barry had developed a prodigious familiarity with his prestigious music collection which no longer required his fatherly grooming as part of the mixing process. In the last year, he has taken this idea even further by experimenting with continuous mixes of ambient and techno music, although these are still in the development stage. Which brings us to the present: therefore, the tape which you hold in your hands was born out of one, improvised take. There are no overdubs. It is truly one of a kind.

Motivations: since you are in possession of this mix tape, you must be a very special person indeed. Each tape is personalized and made "ready to order". In other words, it was made specifically for YOU. Some examples include, but are not limited to, the following. You may be someone who adores and appreciates music similar to Barry's tastes, and the tape is designed to introduce you to music that you ordinarily would not get the chance to hear, or music that you would get the chance to hear but have not yet had the opportunity to do so. You may be a music lover with tastes different from Barry, and this tape will introduce you to music which is unfamiliar, so that Barry can communicate a little bit of what his musical tastes are all about. If you are female, there is a chance that you and Barry are romantically involved, if this is the case, the tape is likely a token of Barry's affection (a gift similar to the flowers or chocolates you may be accustomed to receiving from normal guys) and should be rewarded with a hug and a kiss at the very least. But in all cases, the tape will contain no music that you currently have, except for the rare case in which a particular song is needed to fulfill an exact purpose.

Suggestions: as previously mentioned, this tape is best heard under the recommended conditions. For example, if the liner notes recommend that the tape should be heard at high volume, it is strongly suggested that you do so. Low volume will still be pleasing to the ear, but like substituting margarine for butter, it will be missing an easily detectable nuance. In such a case, if high volume listening conditions are not available, you may want to hold off listening to the tape until such conditions do become available.

Enjoy your tape, and have a wonderful day (unless the tape is meant to be sad, in which case, have a miserable day. If you are unsure as to the proper course of action, consult the liner notes, or Barry himself). Again, enjoy! (-: (or not!) )-:

I'm reading a book about psychedelic music called "Kaleidescope Eyes" by Jim DeRogatis (who also wrote "Let it Blurt", an excellent biography of critic Lester Bangs). I've seen a couple of other books about psychedelia which focus on it's 1965-1969 heyday. DeRogatis takes a far more ambitious approach and covers it from the 60's right through to the '90's, from the Beatles and Stones through pretentious 70's prog like Yes and ELP, right up to shoegazing and ambient in the '90's. Even though conventional music history states that psychedelia died with the '60's, DeRogatis knows better. It didn't die, a scene, a culture can't just die, it morphs into something else and continues to evolve. After enough time has passed, the music has changed so much that its roots are not easily visible, but they are there. DeRogatis attempts to follow these roots, which is a difficult job to be sure, but this is the most accurate way to follow a "scene". That is the strongest point he can make: we shouldn't stand for books that cover a short period of musical history and make that period out as the "be all and end all", without adressing the manner in which the story continued. This is more of a problem than many people realise. Take disco, for instance. Most people think that disco was hot for a few years in the '70's and then it died abruptly, as DJ's stopped playing it, records ceased to be pressed, and Solid Gold was on TV one week and off the next, all because of Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey park or some other ridiculous reason. Disco didn't die, it slipped quietly from the mainstream, while wimp-rock balladry and English New Romanticism pushed up to the forefront. But you can't listen to early Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet and claim that there isn't a disco influence. Disco itself went underground, into the clubs in Europe, New York and Chicago, and re-emerged most famously as house, and without house there'd be no Eiffel 65 or remixes of Jennifer Lopez' latest single on your radio.

Punk suffered from the same malady, as people assumed it vanished from the face of the earth once the Sex Pistols broke up or between the Clash's "London Calling" and "Combat Rock". Once grunge hit big, there was a mass wake-up call to grunge's punk roots, as the world at large became aware of the existence of Sonic Youth and Husker Du. And thus, punk's story has been more truthfully told. But to suggest that psychedelia died, vanished in '69, or disco in '79 (or Britpop in '96, or Rave in '92, or shoegazing in '93, or ....) is pure myth, is misleading, and it is factually wrong.

To hell with mood-altering medications. Prozac -- whatever. The new in-drug is : Senor Coconut. Today, my own crappy mood was lifted by the good Senor and his Kraftwerk covers. It wasn't immediate, however. Moods can't be lifted at the snapping of one's fingers, just like you can't expect a frown to turn upside down at the sight of a clown and a sock puppet. Especially with me, because I consider myself almost immune to anything too outwardly happy or cheesy. So I almost turned off the CD when "Showroom Dummies" started up, for I assumed myself to be in no mood for any novelties. But there I was, thirty minutes later, grooving around the room to "Tour de France". Even now, I can barely believe that I fell for this. It's like hearing the punchline to a joke you've heard a dozen times, but being surprised at the end and laughing anyway. Senor Coconut vastly improved my day. Be happy!!