The Fertile Crescent mix

Gearbox here with another carpool mix; this time under the mega-theme of Geography. When this mega-theme was announced, we let Brogger choose first because she always does the first mix under the mega-theme, but miraculously she didn't choose "The Fertile Crescent" as her theme to work with, so I snatched it up before anyone else thought of it (*note the sarcasm). The result is a mix of music from the countries that now occupy the space of the "cradle of civilization" - Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, and Israel. I know what you're saying - "Ahem, what about Iraq?" Well, I found it quite difficult to find great songs from Iraq that fit with the feel of the mix. The majority of the songs come from Turkey, simply because so much awesome music came out of Turkey in the '60s and '70s, and it was artists like Ersen, Selda, and Erkin Koray that I was thinking of when I decided on the theme in the first place.

I should also note that the mix begins with a library music track that features a stereotypical "Middle Eastern" sound, because I thought that it would provide a nice juxtaposition to the full-on guitar rock that was actually being produced in the region at the time.

01 The Ebbinghouse Sound - Turkish Delight

02 Alpay - Seni Dileniyorum

03 Selda - Meydan Sizindir

04 Erkin Koray - Karli Daglar

05 Baris Manco - Gönül Dagi

06 Metin Alatli - Cayda Cira & Intermezzo & Lorke

07 Grazia - Rampi Rampi

08 Ersen - Metelik

09 Gökcen Kaynatan - Beyoglunda Gezersin

10 Onder Bali - Karni Buyuk Koca Dunya

11 The News - From the Moon

12 Omar Khorshid - Rahbaniyat

13 Soli - Music Negar

14 Mahmoud El Esseily - Salam Ya Baladi

15 The Parvarim - Scarborough Fair

*The cover art is a photoshopped version of a Baris Manco 7inch. You can listen to this mix by clicking HERE!!!

Options Class - DANCE!

Under the umbrella theme of High School Options, I chose "Dance". The choice was inspired in part by the request of another carpooler to make a Jukebox mix; the dance theme lends itself well to '50s/'60s pop tunes. The mix itself is heavily weighted in those two decades, but it also travels into the '70s and '80s near the end, mainly because there were Michael Jackson songs and video game crossovers that needed to be added to the mix.

*Trivia* This is the first carpool mix to include a band from Greenland (The Eskimos)

*Trivia* My favourite dance name? The "Uncle Willie" (track 20)

01 Boris Karloff - The Peppermint Twist

02 The Magics - Zombie Walk

03 The Ran-Dells - Martian Hop

04 The Boss-Tones - Mope-itty Mope

05 The orlons - wah-watusi

06 Edd Byrnes - Square Dance for Round Cats

07 Les Megatones - Megatwist

08 Annette - The Clyde

09 Gene & Wendell - The Roach

10 The Mod Moppets - Mexican Hat Dance

11 Frito Lay - The Frito Twist

12 7-11 - Dance the Slurp

13 Kong Ling - South Pacific Twist

14 The Fabulous Echoes - Dancing on the Moon

15 Eskimos - Mr Twist

16 Gianni Morandi - Go-Kart Twist

17 Boris - Hully Gully Holiday

18 The Shandells - Go Go Gorilla

19 Bunker Hill - The Girl Can’t dance

20 The Daylighters - Oh Mom Teach me how to uncle willie

21 Ikettes - Camel Walk

22 The Beagles - Indian Love dance

23 Sly & The family stone - dance to the music

24 archie bell & the drells - tighten up

25 the heyettes - do the fonz

26 jean jacques perrey & daniel longuein - kartoon square dance

27 the jacksons - blame it on the boogie

28 Stepping Tones - I want to dance like michael jackson

29 Buckner & garcia - do the donkey kong

30 Lou Albano - do the mario

I was searching up dances pretty obsessively for a few weeks, so I decided to include some other dances on the comp's cover:

Someone could easily also do a mix featuring 30 variations on the Twist.

Get a copy of this mix HERE

Welcome Back! The Great Carpool Challenge Rides Again!

Why hello loyal followers!

After a wonderful summer holiday, we are pleased to once again be bringing you our carpool mixes. We've made a few changes to the format of our weekly challenge, but I'll let one of the guys explain how it works.

I, once again, had the honour of putting together the first mix of the year. We chose the collective theme of "Options Classes" (ie. the optional classes that students can select at Maples) and each picked one. I selected "Fashion":

The Fashion Mix
1. Fashion - David Bowie
2. Brand New Shoes - She & Him
3. Raspberry Beret - Prince
4. Bedouin Dress - Fleet Foxes
5. The Hardest Button to Button - The White Stripes
6. Hand in Glove - The Smiths
7. Brass in Pocket - The Pretenders
8. Short Skirt, Long Jacket - Cake
9. The Dress Looks Nice On You - Sufjan Stevens
10. Undone (The Sweater Song) - Weezer
11. Dress Up In You - Belle & Sebastian
12. Short Shorts - The Royal Teens
13. Fashion is Danger - Flight of the Conchords
14. Kurt Cobain's Cardigan - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
15. Autumn Sweater - Yo La Tengo

Get dressed here!

Weather Remix - STORM FRONT

Here is my (Gearbox's) remix of the weather theme, originally tackled by the Lifeguard. The merry month of May was "cover someone else's theme", so I chose this doozy, mainly because it could house many many 5 STAR songs in my collection. In fact, below I've put an asterix beside my 5 STAR picks:

01 TV Theme - Chico the Rainmaker*

02 The Rokes - When the Wind Arises*

03 Philamore Lincoln - The North Wind Blew South*

04 Electric Banana - Grey Skies

05 The Left Banke - There’s Gonna Be a Storm

06 Mike Vickers - Rain

07 The Kinks - Rainy Day in June

08 Linda Perhacs - Chimacum Rain*

09 Mike Vickers - Thunder and Lightning

10 Marc Bolan - Dawn Storm*

11 A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Our Change into Rain is No Change At All

12 Waskerley Way - Rain Subsides

13 Dantalian’s Chariot - Sun Came Bursting Through My Cloud*

14 The Poppy Family - Beyond the Clouds*

15 The Pastels - Windy Hill (Cornelius Remix)*

16 Roger Roger Ensemble - Running With the Wind

17 Brian Wade & Dave Cook - Windsurfer

18 Girlsareshort - Chase That Rainbow*

19 Free Design - Kites are Fun*

20 The Rolling Stones - She’s a Rainbow

21 Andy Kim - Rainbow Ride

22 The Grasshoppers - When the Sky is Clear, When the Water’s Clean

Of course, the songs without asterixes are also great...but you don't hafta take MY word for it, download it HERE.

CP Challenge: Fruits!

Funny story: 2 weekends ago my brother and I were in the garage installing a garage door opener, and I put on this mix while we worked (I occasionally force my kid brother to listen to my weird music). Needless to say, it's not really "beer & manual labour" music, but it is upbeat and fun, and this was a sunny day, so why not. Now beside the garage, there happened to be two other dudes putting in a garden bed on our lawn. When the fourth track came on, the younger of the dudes came in to the garage and said, "This is really good, what is this?" For some reason I couldn't bring myself to say that the song was called "Fruity Flutes", so I started into a long, awkward explanation/apology about how this was a mix CD about fruit, and this track was from a library record, etc. etc. When I was done he just shrugged his shoulders and said "Yeah, cool" and went back to his hammering. It was refreshing to run across another dude that was secure enough in his masculinity that he could appreciate promotional kid's music from 40 years ago...and now that I'm looking at the tracklist again, there are quite a few songs directed at kids on this mix. I guess kids and fruit just go together.

01 The Wiggles - Fruit Salad intro

02 Hawaiian Punch - Fruit Juicy

03 Freckle Face - I got 51 Freckles

04 Reg Wale - Fruity Flutes

05 Glazer & Tripp - Why are Bananas Picked Green?

06 Edd Kalehoff - The Big Banana

07 I’m a Chiquita Banana

08 Hoosier Hot Shots - I Like Bananas, Because They Have No Bones

09 Banana Splits - Doin’ the Banana Split

10 Electric Banana - Alexander

11 Legay - The Fantastic Story of the Steam Driven Banana

12 MIA - Ba-na-na Skit

13 Video Kids - Gimme That Banana

14 NES - Banana Title & Gameplay

15 Adam Green - Apples, I’m Home

16 Toby Twirl - Toffee Apple Sunday

17 The Lemon Pipers - Blueberry Blue

18 Jolly Ollie Orange - Laugh Laugh Laugh

19 Billy Hayes - Oranges, Smoranges

20 J. Trombey - Sliced Orange

21 Lefty Lemon - Why I Left Baseball

22 The Move - (Here We Go ‘Round) The Lemon Tree

23 Loudmouth Lime - Hello Hello Hello

24 Mike Sammes - Limehouse Blues

25 Harpers Bizarre - Raspberry Rug

26 Rootin’ Tootin’ Raspberry - A Cowboy Named Fauntleroy

For the cover I image searched "Carmen Miranda" and up popped this guy: http://www.graemebowman.com/

Classic.

Experience the fruity fun HERE

Spring Cleaning

As the title would suggest, the following mix was inspired by the changing of the seasons (more in theory than in practice at the time). So, for your listening pleasure, here is the Spring Cleaning Mix:

1. The Story of "The Rite of Spring" Pt. 1
2. Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most- Kat Edmonson
3. Springtime is the Season - of Montreal
4. Love Goes Home to Paris in the Spring - The Magnetic Fields
5. Spring 2008 - Architecture in Helsinki
6. The Story of "The Rite of Spring" Pt. 2
7. Month of May - Arcade Fire
8. Hummingbird - Imaginary Cities
9. The Story of "The Rite of Spring" Pt. 3
10. So Fresh, So Clean - OutKast
11. Keep It Clean - Camera Obscura
12. Coming Clean - We Are Scientists
13. Dance Yrself Clean - LCD Soundsystem

Clean up here.

Greatest Hits: The Senses

So, one morning as we were carpooling to work, we decided it might be fun to do a "greatest hits" series of carpool mixes where the pooler could pick a previous theme of their choice, and do their own version of it. So, here is my "senses" mix. As the previous pooler who worked on this mix mentioned, it was hard to find songs about the sense of smell! Anyway, from my point of view, this mix sounds like a good one. I can't put my finger on it, but if it was food, it would taste, and smell like something wonderful!

The Great Carpool Challenge Greatest Hits: The Senses
1. Pinball Wizard - The Who
2. I saw her standing there - The Beatles
3. Lookin' out my backdoor - CCR
4. Don't look back - Boston
5. Looking for a place to happen - The Tragically Hip
6. Eat my brain - Odds
7. Taste - Phish
8. That Smell - Lynyrd Skynyrd
9. Listen to the Music - The Doobie Brothers
10. (Listen to the) Flower People - Spinal Tap
11. Can't you hear me knocking - The Rolling Stones
12. Hear about it later - Van Halen
13. Oh What a Feeling - Crowbar

Listen to it here!