Since the theme was set, I’ve been lucky enough to book a holiday to Seville and Malaga in sunny Spain, so I decided, quite simply, to base my holiday around those places, with a few general references to holidays/spain in general. Enjoy!

Final call for the playlist at gate 8…

Recycled Air by The Postal Service

Sunny Seville by Super Furry Animals

3am Spanish by Hockey

Spanish Sahara by Foals

From Africa to Malaga by JJ

I’m going to Spain by The Fall

Seville by Pinback

Mañana by Desaparecidos

Holiday by The Get Up Kids

Spanish Bombs by The Clash

Spanish Harlem by The Drifters

Jump in the Pool by Friendly Fires

Phew! It’s almost time for May’s mixtape, looks like I just made it…

Anyway, last month we had an amazing response to our Animal-themed mixtape challenge, with people going conceptual with the Chinese zodiac, people monkeying around and a whole host of people joining us to make mixes who hadn’t done previously; including Slick Nick and Vinny and Lauren.

This month, the theme has been suggested by Bob Flood. In light of the current lack of spring, sunshine, vitamin D or anything to make us feel remotely like the seasons have changed, he’s suggested we go on a musical trip with this month’s mix theme being:

HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS

So, take that theme and go nuts with it. Maybe you want to take us on a muscial journey to one place. Maybe to several of your faves. Maybe to somewhere you’ve never been but like the sound of. From Blackpool to Bali (or maybe Miami to Ibiza?), it’s totally up to you.

Do get involved if you like the sound of it, the more the merrier! It’s mixtaping for music’s sake and you can do it however you like, blog post, Spotify playlist, YouTube playlist. It can be as complex or as simple as you like, the only sort-of rules are:

• Stick to 12 songs
• Stick to the theme of holidays (however loosely…)
• Share your playlist with us on Twitter; use the hashtag #13for2013 and tag me @GemStGem or Tom @ThomHoops
• Finish your mix by the end of April, ready for the next theme.

I’ve already got a few high expectations for mixes based on my favourite submissions from last time. No pressure…

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for future mixes, send them my way.

Happy mixing!

Credit to Hipster Animals for the pic, I stumbled across their Tumblr when making my mix and now love everything on there.

The reason I chose this theme was that my chap Andrew and I used to spend hours playing The Animal Band Game. The premise of it is really simple, I’d choose a band with an animal’s name in, and then he’d have to come up with another. This saw us through many, many long drives and would often result in breaks of hours or days in between turns as we began to run out of acts, but then we’d be struck with the lightning bolt of remembering one and have to rush to tell the other person as quick as we could.

Hours of fun…

Anyway, that’s how I knew this challenge would yield some interesting results, because there are hundreds of acts, bands and artists with animals in their band name, let alone songs with animals in them or about animals.

After giving it some thought and realising I’d be unlikely to top the idea that Alan had for his mixtape, which worked through the 12 animals of the chinese zodiac, I have decided to dedicate my playlist to EDUCATION through the medium of the animal kingdom. And by education, I mean questionable facts found on wikipedia that may well, if quoted in future, get you disqualified from the pub quiz. Listen to the my animal mixtape playlist here.

GET READY TO GET SCHOOLED…

P.E.

1. I wanna be your dog – The Stooges

This song is on loads of films, but one film in particular springs to mind: Dogtown and Z-Boys. After uni I spent some time bumming around Venice Beach in California one day we went into Horizons West skate shop, which used to be the Zephyr surf shop owned by Jeff Ho. We went in so I could look for a present for my little bro, a keen skater. We ended up chatting to the chaps who worked there and subsequently spent the balmy Santa Monica evening drinking cheap californian wine on the little terrace at the side of the shop and messing around falling off skateboards. Also, the film has the word ‘Dog’ in the title, so it’s okay.

SCIENCE

2. Animal Nitrate – Suede

Wikipedia defines animals as:

“A major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa.”

The word “animal” comes from the Latin word animalis, meaning ‘having breath’. The song Animal Nitrate by Suede is a reference to the drug Amyl Nitrate, which is, presumably, inhaled. And one would have to be an animal to inhale said drug, so this song makes it onto the mix. Plus it’s a straight up indie banger.

ART

3. Fido, your leash is too long – The Magnetic Fields

I can’t be sure, but I don’t think Stephin Merritt is singing about late 80s pop culture character of minor note and 80s pop (drink, not music) Fido Dido.  Fido Dido came to being after some woman drew him on a napkin in a restaurant (I know, how did she come up with that masterpiece with such rudimentary materials?).

I think Merritt is actually singing about a dog. Unless the dog is a metaphor for his boyfriend. Or someone else’s girlfriend. Who knows, he might be. Fido Dido could be a girl. Is your mind blown, yet? Are you still reading this drivel?

MATHS

4. Chicken payback – The Bees

Included not only because of its awesome dance:

But also because it features chickens, piggies, monkeys, camels and donkeys. And because it’s talking about ‘paying back’, this is clearly your maths (or revenge) lesson for today.

ENGLISH

5. A group of…

Why is a raven like a writing desk? I don’t know, but what I do know is that a group of ravens, the birds off of goths and Alice in Wonderland riddles, are known as either an unkindness of ravens or a murder of ravens, according to our mates at Wikipedia. I am including this fact in here because I find it quite interesting, and also because it caused me to stumble across a song called ‘Murder She Wrote’ by Chaka Demus and Pliers.

Anyway, it would seem that Murder not only applies to ravens, but also to crows and magpies too. So, what to choose? Counting Crows? Sheryl Crow? No, I’ve chosen Magpie, by The Mountain Goats, thus killing two BIRDS with one (animal-based) stone.

HISTORY

6. I was born a unicorn – The Unicorns

Whilst I’m off on a tangent, have a song by the Unicorns, called ‘I was born a unicorn’. Before anyone argues that unicorns aren’t real, take a look at this piece of FACT that states that they were once real, but alas are no more, like Cadbury’s Spira or, indeed, said band The Unicorns.

PSYCHOLOGY

7. Funny little Frog – Belle and Sebastian

In which they sing about having an actual, proper relationship with a poster. I don’t know anything about psychology but I’m pretty sure that Freud et al would have a thing or two to say about that.

P.S.E.

8. Bear Hug – The 2 Bears

I’m not sure what they called this lesson at your school, but at Swinton Comprehensive School we had Personal & Social Education once a week, where the teacher would try to tell us about important things like having a wash, not taking drugs and refraining from becoming pregnant. I feel this song would fall under the curriculum of P.S.E. due to bear hug being a form of physical interaction that could be classed as ‘heavy petting’ down the swimming baths, so it would have been imperative that we recognised what this was so we could avoid doing this, bombing, running or having fun in or around the pool and thus not get chucked out.

R.E.

9. When Doves Cry – Prince

I always thought this video was set in a church, but it turns out it’s not, so it doesn’t really fit in with my R.E. lesson. It starts off in a bathroom with stained glass windows though, if that counts.

I.T.

10. Cutsman – Horse the Band

This is the only song I’ve chosen that has an animal’s name in the band rather than the song title, but I couldn’t leave it out. Not only is it an awesome song, it also samples 80s film The Wizard and talks about The Nintendo Powerglove and Cut Man from Megaman.

LITERATURE

11. Said the Spider to the Fly – The Paper Chase

For argument’s sake, let’s pretend that this song is about Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (and that the ‘montrous vermin’ in the book was either a spider or a fly), because I’m running out of lessons to cover. And also, this is a great song from a band that doesn’t seem to get a lot of love, but I adore them so wanted to share this with people, which is what mixtapes are all about, aren’t they?

FREE PERIOD

12. House of Wolves – My Chemical Romance

Because, why not. Wolves, rock opera, what’s not to like? You now have an hour to do with as you please, make sure you’re learning something from it…

There were loads and loads of bands I didn’t include which I could have; Frightened Rabbit, Foals, Wild Beasts, Bright Eyes (Rabbits!), etc. but I’m trying to mix up my mixtapes of late and include some stuff I wouldn’t normally put in.

Hope you enjoyed it, I went a bit off piste with the blog there, but I enjoyed it!

So there you have it. Feel free to make your own animal-themed playlist and share it with us via Twitter using the #13for2013 hashtag.

This month, we wanted to keep things simple so the theme for the mixtape is:

ANIMALS

So your mix can be:

• Songs about animals or with the names of animals in them
• Songs by bands with animals in their name
• Songs related to animals
• A list of songs about one particular animal
• Or go conceptual and come up with your own (animal-related) version…

Go wild! (boom boom)

As usual, stick to 12 songs. If you feel inclined, write a blog post about it too – they always make for interesting reading, I love seeing the thought process behind mixtapes.

About #13for2013
The concept is simple, you make 13 mixtapes for 2013, one created each month based on the chosen theme (I’m hoping they introduce a 13th month at some point this year…). These are created by whoever wants to get involved as shareable playlists on Spotify, YouTube, etc. and then shared via Twitter and blogs. Previous themes have included A Time and a Place and The Best of Your Best.

If you have any suggestions for future mixtapes, let us know!

When you post your mixtape link on Twitter, use the #13for2013 hashtag on Twitter then follow that and you’ll hopefully get a few mixtapes back in return to listen to. Tag me in the posts too, because I’m nosy: @GemStGem

Happy mixing!

Queen – I want to break free

I come from a musical mishmash background, my dad loved punk, ska, Bowie & Hendrix (this must be in my genes and to this day I think is a good argument for nature vs nurture), my mum loves 70s disco, motown and soul and my step-dad Steve loves Queen. Being one of five kids, my ma and Steve spent ages trying to keep us all entertained of a weekend (and did an amazing job!) and a big part of that involved driving to parks or the coast for days out, accompanied by a soundtrack of Queen. We also had a phase of all signing along to Celine Dion’s Think Twice, shouting out ‘Nononono!’ from the back of the car, so that always made it into the mix but for the sake of your ears I left it out. I since went on to fall in love with My Chemical Romance, and my Queen-based childhood probably had a lot to do with that.

Shampoo – Trouble

This was the first single I ever bought, on tape, from Woolworths in Mexborough; also known as Sexy Mexy, the one-time teenage pregnancy capital of Europe and my birthplace (those last two points aren’t related, by the way”. I got the bus there with my friends Becky and Louise from school one Saturday in first year of school and with £2.50 burning a hole in my pocket, I rode the 296 bus back home with Trouble by Shampoo on casette and a wella colour mousse jangling about in a carrier bag. I played the tape to death, in between recordings of Emma Scott’s alternative show on Hallam FM.

Sleeper – What do I do now?

When I was younger, my younger sister Laura and I spent virtually every moment that we weren’t at school with my older cousins, Shelley and Ryan. My cousins got satellite TV well before anyone else I knew and we’d spend hours hanging out at their house, watching MTV, listening to Ugly Kid Joe, Aerosmith, The Cranberries, Nirvana and Guns ‘n’ Roses. Then, as we got a bit older, they started to get into indie, buying Oasis, Blur, Stone Roses, Suede and Ash records. That was when I really fell in love with music. I remember getting a record token for my birthday from my auntie and going to HMV with my cousins and buying The It Girl by Sleeper. I played the record to death and know all the words off by heart, having spent many a night moodily pouting in my attic bedroom, pretending I was Louise Wener. This song was my favourite off the album and I still play it now. Great indie pop.

Less Than Jake – All my best friends are metalheads

Less Than Jake was the first gig I ever went to, as in a proper gig with no adult supervision and no clue as to what to expect. That probably explains why I was trampled to the floor within seconds of the show starting, having gone to the front. However, some nice ska types helped me up and it turned out to be one of those amazing nights that sort-of pours cement into a mould of how you’ll spend your next few years.

Inspection 12 – Secret Identity

When I (finally) passed my driving test, after five -yes, five, attempts, one of my best friends Ian made me a tape to play on the deck of my Corsa. This was a mix between the New Found Glory’s ‘From the Screen to your Stereo’ and various Inspection 12 records. This song always reminds me of bombing down the Parkway from Rotherham back to Sheffield on summer nights with my windows down, singing at the top of my voice, trying to hit the harmonies (and failing).

Busted – Crashed the Wedding

Before you start, can I just say that I don’t do irony. Nothing I do, or like, is ironic. It’s because I want to do it, or because I genuinely like it. This extends to Busted, and fortunately, also extended to my amazing housemates (mostly Cath) when I lived at 109 in Sheffield. I was trying to think of songs I could put in here – amazing musical moments from Corporation, songs that my friend Greg put on a tape for me that I listened to until the tape wore out, songs from bands that my friends and I were either in or putting on at the Cricketers Arms. However, I couldn’t decide which to choose, so you can have this one, which pretty much epitomises the very height of the sort of thing Cath and I spent three years getting up to. This is a photo of one of the rock concerts we put on for ourselves in my bedroom one night (roping in her workmate to be our reluctant audience of one). What larks.

Pavement – Range Life

When I was 22, I went to America and hired a car with my three best friends and just drove around for the summer. I picked up two records from Amoeba Records in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco (I wanted more, but couldn’t carry them). One was Analphabetapolothology by Cap’n Jazz and one was Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain by Pavement. The four of us took turns driving up and down Big Sur and around Northern California and when we weren’t listening to California by Phantom Planet, I played Range Life pretty much on repeat until we got to the East Coast and we switched it out for a Warped Tour compilation. This song still takes me back to golden days of drinking neat whiskey in pool halls in Santa Cruz, huddling together against fog around the bay in San Fran and kicking through surf at sunset with my best friends.

Saves the Day – Shoulder to the Wheel

I was desperately racking my brains trying to decide which song best summed up the period of 2004-2007 that marked the golden years of Juvi Hall and Hospital (Hozzy) Radio, two of my favourite club nights ever that not only spawned a whole scene in Leeds but delivered a whole set of amazing friends and good times, and was one of the deciding factors in me moving to Leeds. I was torn between Weezer, Hot Water Music, Braid, The Promise Ring… The list goes on. Brilliant people, brilliant times.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Date with the night // Phil Collins – Easy Lover

I had my quarter-life crisis (!) throughout 2007 and into 2008 where I spent a great deal of time thinking I was in Skins/Party Monster and dressing like I was Cyndi Lauper and flitting between Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and London in search of the next party. Warehouse Project and, to a greater extent, Razor Stiletto were pretty much my reason for living during that time. I’d spend the entire week planning my outfit, finding out about pre and after parties, arranging meet-ups, rummaging in charity shops and making mix tapes and then the whole weekend partying, or embarking upon party-related adventures. I listened to Yeah Yeah Yeahs, DFA, Klaxons, Soulwax Daft Punk, LCD Soundsystem and Justice all year long. Loads of mental stuff happened that year and I don’t regret a single second of it. At the end of Razor Stiletto, if you were still alive, they would always play you out with Easy Lover by Phil Collins. To this day, that song still makes me miss those dancing days and Date with the night just embodies that marvellous messiness that coated everything around that time.

Vampire Weekend – M79

When Andrew and I first got together, I remember driving around a lot in his old Fiesta that had a broken Bass button on the stereo, listening to Vampire Weekend in the sunshine. We spent a lot of that summer sitting in parks, doing nothing but enjoying each other’s company. Neither of us had an iPhone back then so it was a screen-free summer of just getting to know each other, sunbathing, eating icecream and rolling around Chapel Allerton like we owned it. Heady and lovely and this song always takes me back to that time.

Frank Turner – Eulogy

When I worked at an Ad Agency in Leeds, I had such an amazing team. We were a tiny digital enclave and liked to pretend we were in a band called The Digits. Anyway, we had a great time playing music as loud as we could get away with under the excuse that we were ‘creative’. We spent a lot of time listening to Baywatch, Brand New and playing a game that called for us to select a band based on some code that my friend Chris wrote. One of the songs from this time period that really sticks out for me is this one, and in particular, the line ‘On the day I died I’ll say at least I f*cking tried.’ That made me want to give London a go and take a leap into the unknown – it scared me to think I might spend time in the future talking about the time I almost did this or that. I just wanted to do it, so I did.

And here we are.

What are you twelve songs that take you to a time and a place?

Reblogged from Swashbuckling Stuff:

So, it was with great gusto that I got stuck into this year’s mixtape challenge with my musical twin, Tom. We’ve been doing mixtape challenges for almost two years now (woah), and this year we’ve also hopefully drummed up at least a couple of other people to get involved in our set of 13 mixtapes that we’re planning to make this year as part of #13for2013. Everything needs a hashtag nowadays. If you’re up for getting involved, leave a comment or say hello on Twitter @GemStGem and we’ll let you know what the next challenge is.

Anyway, so the first challenge of this year is The Best of Your Best, where I suggested choosing 12 tracks by your favourite artist or band to illustrate to the world why you love that act so much. The hardest part of this for me was choosing my favourite band. Yes, like everyone else, I have a selection of about ten bands that I always, always go back to, but I wanted to choose one where each song could mean something to me and that I could share with other people. I didn’t want to choose a band where the songs I love by them mean things that I wouldn’t want to put on a blog, and other bands were my absolute ‘my-heart-is-bursting-I-love-you-so-much’ favourites at one time, but they might not have stood the test of time.

I think everyone has bands like that, bands that you loved like your high-school sweetheart, bands with which your relationship was an intense, fleeting holiday romance, bands that you broke up with and couldn’t listen to again, bands that feel like coming home when you put them on. But only a few bands, acts or artists – like friends or lovers – really make that impact that means you know they’ll stay with you forever.

Which is why I chose Pulp as the band to build the Best of Your Best playlist from.

I love Pulp for loads of reasons. They were one of the first bands that I remember noticing as a kid, emerging into my teenage years, blinking as the bright lights of Britpop exploded across Top of the Pops. Sleeper were the gateway drug of my 90s indie education. I bought The It Girl with a voucher from HMV one Christmas and spent hours pretending I was Louise Wener in my bedroom, singing along to Nice Guy Eddie. I soon discovered Blur, Ash, Suede and Pulp and couldn’t get enough of that lovely indie stuff. Babysitting meant I could buy CD singles from Wooolworth’s (and the cassette of 1977 by Ash) and I scrabbled borrowed copies of Blur and Suede albums from my older, cooler cousins.  Backstreet Boys posters on my bedroom walls were replaced slowly (although the Spice Girls remained) with pictures of Tim Wheeler, Damon Albarn and a mini-shrine to Jarvis Cocker. And when he jumped on stage at the Brits in front of Michael Jackson, I remember having a stand-up argument with a friend which resulted in us not walking to school together for a week because I insisted on his status as an indie legend. Then came cord flares and charity shop-shopping and my trips to the Steel City became more and more frequent.  I never did manage to rock a pair of NHS glasses, but not for lack of trying.

Skip to the end…

Anyway, cut a long story short – move to Sheffield, fall in love with Sheffield, move to Leeds, miss Sheffield and spend lots of time back there dancing to Pulp in nightclubs, go to Barcelona and bump into Jarvis Cocker as he wanders around:

Move to London and go to a very excellent club night called Scared to Dance where they PLAY PULP SONGS ALL NIGHT. And that brings us to here.

In an idea taken from this excellent post on Tom’s blog about his Idlewild playlist, I’ll break down why I chose these songs.

Here’s the tracklisting:

1. Glory Days

I love the line in this song that goes “When you’ve seen how big the world is, how can you make do with this?” which basically summed up my idealistic youth’s mindset of getting out and going far. I made it as far as Ecclesall Road, but that suited me just fine.

2. Cocaine socialist

Jarvis accused the Labour party of ‘trying to be hip’ (a crime, for sure) back in 1998 and then wrote a song about it as a B-side to ‘A Little Soul’. It’s a great song, not least because it sounds like a reworking of Glory Days, tainted by politics. I like the fact that, despite being a staunch Labour voter, Jarvis didn’t want to get involved.

3. Do you remember the first time?

Do you? Everyone loves this song. It gets everyone up dancing, and I’m sure it’s been the soundtrack to more than a few first times doing one thing or another. This song reminds me of nights out in Sheffield with wonderful Sheffield golden uni-era folk like Rosy, Liz, Cath and Heather and always puts a smile on my face.

4. Death goes to the disco

A bit of an older track, but still rings of why I love Pulp – they’re kitsch without being ironic, I love the keyboard in this and the way it manages to sound like a disco in a Sheffield WMC, but with the abstract concept that the grim reaper will be popping in for a dance before going out to his shift where he must shove your loved ones off this mortal coil.

5. Sheffield: Sex City

Forget New York, forget Paris, when it comes to doing the deed, there’s nothing like the back drop of Park Hill Flats and the prospect of an early morning stride of pride to the Supertram to get home after the night before to get you in the mood. I love Candida Doyle’s accent in this and the fact that Jarvis picks all the rubbish places in Sheffield and makes them sound sexy. It’s a heady blend of romantic realism, kitchen sink poetry and electronica.

6. F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.

Another injection of spoken word here. The way the song jumps from barely a caress in the verse and bridge to a punch in the chorus gets me every time. Most Pulp songs sound like they could soundtrack a film, but  this one more so than others. I’ve got some really good memories of this song and I’ve definitely sat and sang my heart out to the chorus:

“Why me? Why you? Why here? And why now?
It doesn’t make no sense no. It’s not convenient no.
It doesn’t fit my plans but I got that taste in my mouth again”

7. Mile End

Not only a brilliant pop song, when I first moved to London, this song was pretty much my life. We were living in Bow in East London temporarily and househunting desperately and I listened to this song every time I went to the gym (incidentally, it was in Mile End), where I’d look out of the window and run on the treadmill, facing the very flats that Jarvis was singing about. I was thankful that the flat we ended up finding was not a mess alright…

8. Bar Italia

Continuing on a London theme, I do want to go to Bar Italia in Soho, but I love this song more for the fact that it reminds me of a time where the lyrics:

“If we get through this alive I’ll meet you next week, same place, same time”

Have never been more applicable. One of those times in your life that you wouldn’t go back to but had an amazing time whilst you were there. I used to love going out to Razor Stiletto in Sheffield and met such an amazing group of people there, had some of the best nights of my life and learnt a lot about myself and who I am. Bar Italia just manages to capture that last bit of the night when you know it’s coming to an end but you don’t want it to finish.

9. Pencil Skirt

Classic Jarvis, I love those ‘ah’s in the chorus. Sheffield seduction at its finest.

10. Babies

One of my all-time favourite songs, ever. I’ve had so many great nights dancing to this song and the story in it is heartbreaking, beautiful and real all at the same time. I get a warm feeling in my chest everytime I hear Babies.

11. Common People

As in Tom’s mix, I’m not going to leave out the hits just to be hip. Far from it, I have been known to lean on barriers all day and heckle bands with ‘Sack this, play the hits’ (see also: Leeds festival 2007). So, here is Pulp’s masterpiece single in all its full-length glory. I love it because it was us, it’s where we came from, it’s two fingers up at the poshos from uni, it’s rejoicing in drinking cooking lager and knowing how to get by on a fiver a week and still have a good time. It’s a glorious, messy, beautiful ode to being young and having no money and I bloody love it. And I like doing the dance, too.

12. Like a Friend

This is definitely up there in terms of favourite songs. I love everything about it, the lyrics, the honesty, the build-up of the song, the guitar – it breaks my heart and makes it soar all at the same time. A love song if ever there was one.

And that, my friends, is it. My first #13for2013 mixtape is done.

Let me know your thoughts!

Reblogged from Swashbuckling Stuff:

Coming soon…

I stumbled across this Etsy shop, The Entropy Trading Company, who have some amazing posters featuring quotes from books and films. My favourites so far are:

And this, which is my favourite (despite the American spelling). I love the clean design and the typeface is awesome. The arrow also reminds me of the arrows you see at some old tube stations, like Whitechapel. I found this via Dismount Creative, but unfortunately, the poster is no longer available.

I really want some neon/fluoro lettering, although I haven’t come across one that I definitely want yet. I do have a Pinterest board for this wish that I’m collecting ideas on, so if you spot anything good, link me up.

Right, time to go get those picture frames!