Mixtape #26: Goodbye Space Ladies

This is it, folks. My final contribution to Everybody Taste. I started this site in February of 2009 and over the years I've written roughly 1,200 posts. Everybody Taste started as an outlet to share music and work on my writing while I worked at a general interest magazine. It was never about quantity of material but, hopefully, quality. This little one-person site has led to a handful of amazing opportunities: interviews with the best bands in the world, articles published in magazines, countless new friends, and even a little record company, Analog Edition. But in the words of the band Christmas Island—whose song is featured on this 26th installment of ET's mixtape series—"I'm already 29 and running out of time." Technically, I'm 28, but I'm ready to make a mark or two on this bat-shit-crazy world before it completely passes me by.

This summer I tied the knot with my best friend, and now I'm set to open a market and coffee shop in the Fall called Little Red Fox. It's going to take every moment of my waking life to make this endeavor work, so I'm going cold turkey on the endless search for new music for a stretch. But if you're ever in DC, please stop on by for coffee, a beer, fresh homemade grub, and of course, all your favorite music. And Analog Edition isn't going anywhere just yet, so if you can, please keep supporting the label and the fantastic bands on it. In my absence, please also proceed to get your musical kicks via these consistently inspiring, tasteful, and wonderfully passionate folks: Aquarium Drunkard, Rollo Grady, We Listen For You, Castle Face Records, Burger Records, Father / Daughter, Mississippi Records, Italians Do It Better, and Woodsist. Now, here it is, ET's final mixtape: Goodbye Space Ladies.

Side A

Vic Godard & The Subway Sect - "Stop That Girl"

Brenton Wood - "Baby You Got It"

Hunx & Hix Punx - "Dream On (Little Dreamer)"

The Jags - "Back of My Hand"

Richard Swift - "The Bully"

The Rock*A*Teens - "I'm Your Puppet"

Sonny & The Sunsets - "Dark Corners"

Alex Chilton - "Hey! Little Child"

The Who - "The Kids Are Alright"

Side B

Alex Bleeker & The Freaks - "Who Are You Seeing?"

Bodies of Water - "Like A Stranger"

Christmas Island - "Twenty Nine"

Beaut - "Goodbye Judy"

Wyatt Blair - "Girls!"

Tomorrows Tulips - "Casual Hopelessness"

Damien Jurado - "Mountains Still Asleep"

The Blue Rondos - "Little Baby"

Chris Bell - "You and Your Sister"

Download:

Goodbye Space Ladies

or

Stream on 8 Tracks

Wyatt Blair :: Banana Cream Dream

The time I devote to Everybody Taste these days is negatively impacting the forthcoming brick 'n' mortar retail food market I plan to open in the Fall. So if I'm writing here—instead of working on something far more important to my future well-being—it's because I can't fucking control myself: I've been moved by the power of rock 'n' roll, and my music nerd instincts are compelling me to immediately share it with you. The power-pop currently racing out of the brain of Los Angeles-based and Orange Country-bred musician Wyatt Blair is that inspiring force and it's all sugary excitement, throaty Marc Bolan swagger, and thunderous hip-twisting foot-stomping power-chord fun. Blair, who's toured alongside the likes of The Lovely Bad Things and Peach Kelli Pop and released an EP called Peach Colored Pussy, works equal parts humor and melody into each of his charmingly simple and infectiously malted pop confections. Blair's newest release, Banana Cream Dream, is out now on cassette from (who else) Burger Records with a forthcoming vinyl release due out on Resurrection Records. From the uproarious muted-guitar hum of "Girls!" to the swinging blues and stutter on "Sweet Operator (Talkin' On The Telephone)", the songs on Banana Cream Dream are so instantaneously uplifting and savagely simple that it's nearly impossible to escape the fun. This summer, whether you're cruising a dark highway, swatting away mosquitoes and crushing beer cans on a back porch somewhere, or simply doing the dishes alone in the kitchen, please pop in this record and proceed to shimmy, head bang, and pogo forth all that is wonderful, sweet, and forever satisfying about a fresh new slab of boogie-friendly rock 'n' roll.

Buy Banana Cream Dream digitally from the band. Get the tape from Burger.