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These are links to some of the major sections in the mixtape collective.
  • Lists: Browse various lists that are generated by the loads of data we have collected.
  • Contests: Check out the latest contests, see previous winners, and find out how you can be a part
  • Music: Check out our ever-growing database of musical knowledge! Use it to find any artist, album, or track that has been entered since the birth of the site and rate and find detailed usage statistics.

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Tired of looking at the same old pages? Try checking out a random one, you never know what you might find...

Random!

Log Posting

The audiobiography game II.
By eric
1/05/07 08:14pm
Alright, kiddies, take off your headphones and listen. Or maybe just read. Either way...

The next mission, should you decide to play along is to find an artist/ album/ track in the database (probably by using the 'music' option on the left) and write a short personal story of a time in your life and how that song reminds you of it, relates to it, influenced it, etc. Next, copy what you wrote and leave it in a tag below, telling us the track, album and artist as well.

My example:

Love & Communication / The Greatest by Cat Power
Cat Power, probably my fourth favourite woman in the world (my mom, my girlfriend, joni precede her) took a stage at Coachella 2006 just after sunset and put on a simply stunning show. Dry and parched from the heat, the girlfriend and I leaning on each other from support, it was just shy of perfection.


So, delve deep into your brain-RAM, make a post on that song page and leave a comment here. We have badges to issue and will pick three random entries for a neat-o point bonus.

ROCK!

comments:

The Yay! Badge VIII badge
The Yay! Badge VIII
This confounding badge is bestowed to those who can truly realize the wondrous consternation and inhuman scintillance of the of the elusive 'YAY!'.
awarded on 2008-01-11

Level 25
New contest will be posted by the end of the week, kiddies.
1/17/07 11:54am
no badge
Level 6
This "contest" was started in order to buy time until a real contest starts again, right? Sure seems that way.
1/17/07 11:41am
The Yay! Badge VII badge
The Yay! Badge VII
This baffling badge is bestowed to those who can truly grasp the striking permanence and ungodly continuance of the of the elusive 'YAY!'.
awarded on 2007-08-27

Level 27
I enjoyed this contest. Thanks for enlightening me, everyone.
1/16/07 11:19am
The Yay! Badge VI badge
The Yay! Badge VI
This elusive badge is bestowed to those who can truly comprehend the colossal sophistication and the unfathomable, enigmatical origins of the elusive 'YAY!'.

Plus, 500 users. Hell yay!
awarded on 2007-05-16

Level 18
I echo your sentiment
1/16/07 04:32am
The Badge of Mystery badge
The Badge of Mystery
Huh?!? Where did this come from?
awarded on 2008-08-14

Level 26
YAY BADGES AND POINTS!
1/15/07 08:11pm
The One Year Anniversary Badge badge
The One Year Anniversary Badge
Issued to those who have stuck it out for a year here on MTC. What a long, strange trip, huh?
awarded on 2007-10-11

Level 14
P.S.
I really like the badge design for the autobiography contests. It reminds me of High Fidelity. Oh, John Cusak...
1/15/07 05:18pm
The One Year Anniversary Badge badge
The One Year Anniversary Badge
Issued to those who have stuck it out for a year here on MTC. What a long, strange trip, huh?
awarded on 2007-10-11

Level 14
Cap'n Derek's story actually might have been one of the coolest ones posted. Too bad it was too late to get the badge for it.
I like the autobiographies, but I don't know if we should get badges for doing it if it'll be more often, just because it really promotes narcissism...
1/15/07 05:16pm
Team Robot Member badge
Team Robot Member
Despite the fact that TEAM ROBOT was crushed like a Pabst can at a frat party by the might claws of TEAM MONSTER, you are still deserving of a badge... Loser.
awarded on 2006-10-18

Level 40
I disagree, Cap'n Derk, that is a very cool story!
1/15/07 05:04pm
The Level 10 Badge badge
The Level 10 Badge
Welcome to level 10! Credibility is just a few levels away.
awarded on 2007-01-31

Level 13
Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here"

I had actually mentioned this in one of my playlists. This story isn't really mine (I have lead/am leading a notoriously uneventful life), but I did cause something to happen. I was doing my weekly radio show at our college and put the song mentionned above as my closer. Thinking nothing of it, I locked up the booth and left. Once in the hallway, I heard someone running behind me and stop suddenly. Then I feel a tap on my shoulder, so I turned around and I see this girl whom I don't recognize (due mostly to the fact that I didn't know her) bawling her eyes out. So I'm all like "Are you OK?" and she proceeds to tell me that she adored the song and that it meant so much to her. She didn't go into details, and All I could think of doing was saying something along the lines of "Glad to oblige." Kind of put my faith back in people and good music.

Sorry, folks, if you wanted a cool story, you'll have to look elsewhere.
1/15/07 04:16pm
Team Robot Member badge
Team Robot Member
Despite the fact that TEAM ROBOT was crushed like a Pabst can at a frat party by the might claws of TEAM MONSTER, you are still deserving of a badge... Loser.
awarded on 2006-10-18

Level 40
Yeah, we should have ones with different themes, and also have the mixtaping contests running as well. Thanks for doing all this Eric and Coreysprague. This whole site is just wonderful!
1/15/07 03:43pm
The MTC Romance Badge badge
The MTC Romance Badge
A gift for the romantics.
awarded on 2007-07-17

Level 17
I really like this game, we really should do it more often.
1/15/07 02:36pm
Mixtape Potpourri I: Second Place badge
Mixtape Potpourri I: Second Place
Way to wager it all and still come back to be second place. Uncanny!
awarded on 2006-12-30

Level 17
Sorry, I meant: I love you mySQL 'ORDER BY RAND()'.
Anyways, I liked this alot! So the answer is yes!
1/15/07 02:12pm
Mixtape Potpourri I: Second Place badge
Mixtape Potpourri I: Second Place
Way to wager it all and still come back to be second place. Uncanny!
awarded on 2006-12-30

Level 17
I love you eric.
1/15/07 02:07pm
The Yay! Badge VIII badge
The Yay! Badge VIII
This confounding badge is bestowed to those who can truly realize the wondrous consternation and inhuman scintillance of the of the elusive 'YAY!'.
awarded on 2008-01-11

Level 25
Congrats to Rover, galaxiepi and chimp_and_zee for winning the bonus points. No, no, don't thank me, thank the good ol' mySQL 'ORDER BY RAND()'.

Thanks for playing guys, this was a lot of fun -- should we do this more often?
1/15/07 02:05pm
The Yay! Badge VIII badge
The Yay! Badge VIII
This confounding badge is bestowed to those who can truly realize the wondrous consternation and inhuman scintillance of the of the elusive 'YAY!'.
awarded on 2008-01-11

Level 25
From here on out, consider this contest closed. Badges have been awards. Random points to three lucky people will be awarded shortly. I'll update shortly.
1/15/07 01:59pm
The Audiobiography II Badge badge
The Audiobiography II Badge
Awarded to those who chose to share another scene from their own lifes. Consider this a 'thank you' from the Collective.
awarded on 2007-01-15

Level 10
Psycho Killer /Talking Heads
O.K. The year: 1979 (long before many of you were born). The place: Marina del Rey, California. The scene: A summer night in a 1973, yellow International Scout, with the top off. Two people madly in love. Probably over the legal blood alcohol limit. Fairly softly they mumbled thru the verses until the chorus!!! Then, at the tops of their lungs, they belted out the words... driving become secondary to singing and dancing and the "ya ya ya ya" part!! It seems like yesterday... 27 years later, still madly in love... they smile and remember that night when ever they hear that song :) (the names are withheld to protect the innocent and the madly in love... but if that song comes on, look around... we'll be the ones smiling).
1/14/07 03:22pm
The One Year Anniversary Badge badge
The One Year Anniversary Badge
Issued to those who have stuck it out for a year here on MTC. What a long, strange trip, huh?
awarded on 2007-10-11

Level 14
Hahah.
My buddy Jake is what some would call a chick magnet. He's attractive, got a good body, funny, the kinda guy. And he plays guitar, and chicks love that. But, he is one of the worst singers ever. Seriously. He started playing and singing 'Creep,' and it just killed us. I wish you could hear it. Oh man, it's bad. But it's so funny, 'cause girls still love him. That night a girl said he should never sing again and should just stick to playing guitar...but she still slept with him.
1/14/07 12:38pm
The MTC Romance Badge badge
The MTC Romance Badge
A gift for the romantics.
awarded on 2007-07-17

Level 17
Towering Above the Rest / Creep / Radiohead

I actually haven't thought about this song for a number of years. I was really hooked on it the first year of middle school but after that it pretty much faded out of my mind. But this year [my junior year of high school] it happened to come back up.

At the beginning of this year I happened to make friends with a foreign exchange student from New Zealand. He has a pretty odd taste in music, to say the least. We became pretty good friends and sometimes he would skip out of class to come visit my friends and I during lunch. One day my friend whitney and I are sitting eating lunch in the normal place, and one of my other friends comes to join us with a guitar in hand. He begins to fiddle around with it, playing some random songs. And then Harry [friend from New Zealand] comes around the corner and joins us. He asks guitar-friend if he knows how to play any Radiohead songs. So guitar-friend begins to strum "creep" very quietly and harry hums along with him. Then a couple more friends come around the corner and sit with us. They realize what guitar-friend is playing and begin to hum also. Another person, hears our humming and comes to join. In the midst of all this humming my friend Harry begins to sing the words. Now, don't get me wrong, Harry is a great guy, but man, he cannot catch a note for the life of him. But there he is in the middle of all these people, singing his heart out, eyes closed and everything, and I can't help but smile. Then I start singing too. Before long everyone is singing. People are stopping the hallway because they are confused as to what is going on. And all together, we don't sound half bad, really. And just as the song ends the bell rings for lunch to end. We take a quick glance at each other then quietly disperse. Harry walks away humming it to himself.

This comes up again about a week before Harry leaves. Him and some of our friends were going on a vision quest and on night two of this, they had taken to singing songs together but the only song they actually knew all the words to was "creep" by radiohead. So if you can picture a bunch of half-brain dead teens sing-mudering radiohead in a soggy van, you can probably realize that that was difficult to be in the middle of.

Also, I use to call him a creep all the time. Because he was one. And still happens to be so.

The end.
1/14/07 12:36am
The Level 10 Badge badge
The Level 10 Badge
Welcome to level 10! Credibility is just a few levels away.
awarded on 2007-03-07

Level 13
Experimental Jet Set! Hell yes.
1/11/07 08:27pm
The Festivus '08 Badge badge
The Festivus '08 Badge
Frank Costanza:

"Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way."


Festivus For The Rest Of Us, MTC 2008
awarded on 2009-03-07

Level 28
Teen Age Riot/Sonic Youth/Daydream Nation

The first Sonic Youth I actually paid attention to, other than hearing snippets of Dirty Boots randomly. I first heard the song on the box set "Left of the Dial: Dispatches from the 80's Underground", starting my love for SY.

When I sat, put the headphones on and listened to Daydream Nation, I almost shit myself at how amazing it truly is. In an album full of highlights and career-defining heroics (guitar and drum-wise), this always seemed to stick in my brain for the longest.

I was (beyond description) excited to see Sonic Youth live last year at Bonnaroo. Sunday, 6:30 finally came, and they took the stage. Going through material from Rather Ripped for the most part (duh), I kept wanting to hear them play Teen Age Riot. Towards the end of the set a guy standing beside me (about encore-time) yells, "TEEN AGE RIOT, SONIC FUCK!", and I smiled big, thinking, surely, they will play it.

They didn't, but they did do Expressway to Yr. Skull with Stephen Malkmus (which was extremely cool, I'll admit), I still felt (slightly) betrayed that they didn't play anything from Sister or Daydream Nation, not even fucking Schizophrenia. Goddammit, if I had heard Schizophrenia live, that could almost make up for them NOT playing this song.

"It better work out
I hope it works out my way
'Cause it's getting kind of quiet in my city's head
Takes a teen age riot to get me out of bed right now"

Small town Arkansas life, rare to find a Sonic Youth fan, and when I do.. I gleefully discuss the genius I find in all of their albums (even NYC Ghosts and Experimental Jet Set have their moments, admit it), but always revert back to Teen Age Riot.

I love Thurston Moore, and I totally made contact with him, Kim and Lee.

I think Kim digs me?
1/11/07 07:10pm
The Yay! Badge VIII badge
The Yay! Badge VIII
This confounding badge is bestowed to those who can truly realize the wondrous consternation and inhuman scintillance of the of the elusive 'YAY!'.
awarded on 2008-01-11

Level 25
Just a heads-up, the contest will be closing this coming Monday (1/15), so get your audiobiographies up in this thread!
1/11/07 05:19pm
The Audiobiography II Badge badge
The Audiobiography II Badge
Awarded to those who chose to share another scene from their own lifes. Consider this a 'thank you' from the Collective.
awarded on 2007-01-15

Level 13
The Cure // 10.15 Saturday Night // Boys Don't Cry

As the firstborn of young parents, I didn't listen to normal kids music growing up. I remember my parents listening to Morrissey and The Cure while we drove around Rhode Island in beat-up VW Bus giving peace signs to other VWs. I remember my mom singing this out loud, getting me to sing to the "drip drip drip" like some sort of goth-pop version of Isty-Bitsy Spider.

Flash forward to years later, I'm a fresh faced angsty teen of 17 and The Cure are on tour. Due to some sort of foolish teenage logic, I decide not to go since my boyfriend (not a Cure fan at all) can't afford it and would be upset if I went without him. The day before the show, he calls from his friends house to inform me he's actually going. I cry. I cry because I'm dating scum and I might never see my favorite band live. The next morning, my mom wakes me up before the sun and tells me to put on my boots and a nice dress. Confused, I follow cause honestly, you wouldn't like to see my mom mad. She's a true redhead. She takes me outside to my Jetta, (another VW!) where she's pasted a sign in the back window that says: "CURIOUSA FESTIVAL OR SUICIDE!" and shows me two tickets she bought for us. I am forever in love with that day.

I saw The Cure with the woman that would play "Lullaby" on headphones to her pregnant belly, the only person who knows how long I loved The Cure and the person who gave me my fascination with music. We sang 10.15 Saturday Night on the highway at the tops of our lungs.
1/11/07 09:20am
The Yay! Badge VI badge
The Yay! Badge VI
This elusive badge is bestowed to those who can truly comprehend the colossal sophistication and the unfathomable, enigmatical origins of the elusive 'YAY!'.

Plus, 500 users. Hell yay!
awarded on 2007-05-16

Level 18
The Verve - The Drugs Don't Work

This is something of a two part story, so bear with me.

Back when I was like, 13 or something I was in a band with a good mate of mine and he had this acoustic song book, and we used to go back to his after band practice and just try and sing all the songs that we didnt know in the most innapropriate manner possible. I played this song as a sort of bluegrass thing if I remember. It was really fast and just silly. This was probably the style I done all the songs in at the time.

Fast forward to me being 16. This was a wierd time for me, I got creepily obsessed with this girl, and it was her birthday and she wanted to do something wild, so my best friend at the time got her sister to buy some vodka and a group of them got really drunk. We were all waiting for them to come out with us to some under-18s club thing (that I always hated, but whatever, being sociable is better than being a grouch) and they just didnt turn up, but my friend calls me and she's hysterical and asks us to meet them where we find this other girl is blacked out and totally pale. She gets her stomach pumped and I have to take my friend home to her sisters flat, where I cant get back from so I spend the night there aswell.

While there, some mix cd was playing in the background and "The Drugs Don't Work" came on. At the time, I was lying in a bed hugging my friend trying to convince her it's not her fault. It's the only time I've ever heard th song, but I really couldnt bear to hear it again. We stopped talking almost straight after that night, and I've never figured out why.
1/08/07 03:26pm
The Level 21 Badge badge
The Level 21 Badge
You're finally legal! Huzzah! We all know you've been boozing since you were 13, but don't worry, we'll keep quiet.

Now, get off the damn computer and go hit up the bars.
awarded on 2007-07-25

Level 24
Little Room from the album White Blood Cells by The White Stripes

Once upon a time I went to Cancun with a few of the lads. On our first evening we were ejected from the Presidente Intercontinental and took up residence at the Sheraton. We destroyed our livers each night, and then struggled to regenerate them under healing powers of the Mayan sun. For some reason we bought whistles, which -- time and again -- brought forth a Brazilian-style call and response from the sweaty crowds of the various thunderdomes. We dined on the finest street tacos available at four AM in the seedy heart of downtown Cancun. We did things that we were, at once proud, and not proud of. We climbed to the top of Chichen Itza and dreamt in the shade of a pyramid. We convinced girls to write in red lipstick across their bare chests the message "Wish you were here" for a friend who could not make it. All this we did. But perhaps the most fun occurred when the four of us hijacked the stage at the Hard Rock Café and sang all fifty seconds of "Little Room" before we were escorted to the door.

Every time I hear that song I know I was a rock star for just under a minute.
1/08/07 03:26pm
The Bronze Badge badge
The Bronze Badge
Wow, one of your mixes is doing swell in the ratings! But remember, Bob Dole did 'swell' in the primaries...
awarded on 2007-02-17

Level 18
Get Me Away from Here I'm Dying - Belle & Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister

Just thought I would share a little anecdote about something that happened to me while listening to this track

If Your Feeling Sinister had just come out, and it was on pretty heavy rotation in my car stereo at the time. The time was about 2.30 in the morning and my friends and I had decided to stop and smoke some pot. Our place of choice for the deed was located at an old abandoned harbour that sits at the bottom of some sea cliffs. The road down to this harbour was nothing more than potholed dirt track dangerously close to the edge of the cliffs and it took at least 5 minutes to get from top to bottom, driving very carefully, we liked this spot as we could see cars coming down the cliffs and we had plenty of time to dispose of any evidence before any nosey police cars could show up. We very all nice and stoned, chilling out listening to the music, when one of my friends noticed a cars headlights coming down the road, one quick look later we decided that it couldnt be a police car as the lights were round and all of our police cars had square lights, so we assumed that it was other people either doing what we were (its a popular spot) or maybe a couple looking for a quiet place to get it on. So we relax again. couple of minutes past till my friend notices that it isnt acutally car head lights, its a couple of policemen shining flashlights in our car windows. All of our head swung round; we panic expecting to get busted, but to our surprise we see the cops shake their heads and walk away...........

Everytime I listen to this song; I can remember that like it was yesterday.
1/08/07 01:46pm
Team Robot - First Place badge
Team Robot - First Place
A special badge for the first-place winner of the fabled robots vs. monsters mixtape contest. As my boy Johnny 5 would say, "Robot Team kick your ass, Robot Team Kick your face, Robot Team kick your balls into outer space"
awarded on 2006-10-18

Level 28
You Are A Runner and I am My Father's Sun / Apologies To the Queen Mary by Wolf Parade.

i'd put the timing to about a year ago, i was infatuated with the guy i had met through some mutual friends of ours. we started "haning" out a lot before he had to go back to school in new york.. i did the stupid thing of wasting money on a plane ticket to see him during spring break last year in new york. well, not entirely stupid as i still had a good friend, just stupid in the sense that we wouldnt be "an item" for much longer.. but, he had a tendancy of turning me onto new music, and wolf parade was one of those bands.. we played this song quite a few times, but it wasnt until we were over that the song gained it's true meaning to me. all men are runners, getting away as fast as they possibly can.
1/07/07 10:18pm
The One Year Anniversary Badge badge
The One Year Anniversary Badge
Issued to those who have stuck it out for a year here on MTC. What a long, strange trip, huh?
awarded on 2007-10-11

Level 14
Damien Rice/O/The Blower's Daughter
Yes, I did it: I sold out and chose a song for a girl.
Senior year, State Thespian Conference, Alicia. She was interesting, gorgeous, talented, likable...you know what I mean. Just one of those girls you are drawn to.
After meeting, we talked every night for quite a while, about really important things (our faith, our pasts) and really stupid things (our favorite desserts), and we really had something. Unfortunately, she lived in Troutdale, and I in Medford. So, sadly, I had to let go. It was hard. She was really one of those girls that wasn't just a crush, but aroused new feelings in me, feelings of a different kind than I'd known before.
I heard this song for the first time around the same time I was going through that with Alicia. I heard it on the 'Closer' soundtrack. It's a song about loving someone and not wanting to let go, in a movie about losing love, at a time in my life while I felt like I was losing love.
To this day, I still think The Blower's Daughter is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard.
Voilà.
1/07/07 07:54pm
The Patton Badge badge
The Patton Badge
Driving Lamborghini's and sipping on martinis. This badge is for those who express their love of Mike Patton through mixtape.
awarded on 2008-08-07

Level 27
Retrovertigo // Mr. Bungle

November 6, 2004: Ashland, OR

Earlier in the week, I had met a boy, who some of you know and love, named Tallon. We started talking because of myspace (which is vomitous and embarrassing, I know, but I'm trying to be truthful here), and made plans to have coffee together. After a couple hours of talking about music, laughing, and making cutting remarks about each other over coffee and beer, we decided to make plans for the weekend. Fast forward to Friday night. I had invited some of my friends over to meet this boy, who I was pretty sure would be my perfect mate, and we had put away a serious amount of booze before his arrival. He enters with three more bottles of liquor, and hilarity ensues. We talk, laugh, drink ourselves into oblivion out on the front lawn, arguing over which superhero would beat up another, making out like high schoolers (yes we did. I remember dammit) and being totally ridiculous. I end up getting too plastered and need to be carried up to my room. I tried to be suave. I believe the line was, "Get in my bed," which my friends made fun of me for saying for quite some time. I woke up the next morning and he was gone. I straggled over to my housemate's room to ask how the night had ended, seeing as I had gracefully blacked out, only to hear that Tallon had ended up messing around (in the living room, in front of everyone) with my friend Anna... the dirty sluts! I was fairly disgusted and admittedly upset. Oh well. Another one bites the dust... until I hear a tap at my front door. "I forgot my CD player," mumbles a sheepish Tallon, and after some awkward conversation and chattering we decide to hang out later that night. As friends, and nothing else. For serious. I go about my day, cleaning the house from the alcoholic romp from the previous night, listening to a pretty sweet mix I'd made of Mike Patton and other lovely artists. Tallon arrives while I'm finishing up the dishes and sits down. The track ends and on comes Retrovertigo. To my surprise Tallon gets up and starts singing along. I looked at him and at that very moment fell foolishly, hopelessly, crazily in love. After a date of Three Rivers Indian Cuisine (sick) and picking out ugly sweaters at the Dollar Tree (yes, they had fucking sweaters that day), we decided we were just meant to be. It's been over two years since that night, and although we are no longer together (but who knows - things are always changing, it seems), he is still my very best friend and favorite person. We've been through some crazy shit. Far crazier than I'd ever imagined I would put up with or stick through... but that should have been expected, seeing as a month into our relationship he discovered that I was the "drunk girl" who had broken into his old roommate's house on Halloween (and my friends and I discovered what had actually become of me on Halloween seeing as I'd blacked out and disappeared). Regardless... this is our song. I will never be able to listen to it without thinking of the times we've had together, and of how lucky I am to have met such a talented, creative, perceptive, loving person. Most of our friends think we shouldn't associate with the other. Rather, most of our friends violently hate the other... we have no one to blame but ourselves. But there is some romance -- some real love and care -- that goes on between us. And that's what this is all about.
1/07/07 02:39am
Team Monster - Third Place badge
Team Monster - Third Place
If Godzilla had fur and was called Godzilla-Yeti and could breathe fire, that be you. Welcome to third place on the winning team.
awarded on 2006-10-18

Level 16
STEREOLAB : REFRACTIONS IN THE PLASTIC PULSE

THOSE THAT SHALL BRING DOWN THE GLORY VS. THE HATE PROCEEDED ON THAT FATEFUL DAY. MY JOURNEY TO THIS PLANET WAS COLOURFUL AND SEVENTEEN MINUTES OF EARTH TIME. NEVER SHALL THEE FORGET. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THIS MIGHTY BREEZE. SEEK LIGHT. SEEK DARK. SEEK LEEKS.
1/07/07 12:11am
The Yay! Badge IX badge
The Yay! Badge IX
This astonishing badge is bestowed to the MTC brethren who can truly conceptualize the wondrous spectacle and mind-altering ramifications of the of the elusive 'YAY!'.
awarded on 2008-08-17

Level 14
Rebel Prince - Rufus Wainwright (from Poses)

My first celebrity crush, I think. I don't know if I was attracted to his voice or his face more, but I definately still harbor some intense feelings for this man. He led me to my first boyfriend a few years ago, and that was a lovely time in my life. We made out a lot and spent a lot of time in my room naked and showering. I remember the first time I met him, we both thought the other was a lot taller than we assumed they were. Eventually we broke up, mainly because he thinks my friends are too smart for his liking and they treat him like he's stupid, and because he bored me a lot when I asked him what his favorite things were (all he could think of was "books."
We're pretty good friends now. Every once in a while we meet up and end up kissing or trying to rekindle what we had, only to regret it the next day and tell the eachother that we don't want to be together, and it won't work. This is a funny thing for me. Basically, in the end, he wasn't the kinda guy I was looking for. Rebel prince he was not. Maybe one day I'll find one.
1/06/07 05:57pm
Team Robot Member badge
Team Robot Member
Despite the fact that TEAM ROBOT was crushed like a Pabst can at a frat party by the might claws of TEAM MONSTER, you are still deserving of a badge... Loser.
awarded on 2006-10-18

Level 40
Glory Box (Dummy) Portishead

Just before Christmas in 1994, there was an explosion in my abdomen. Shit was leaking into my system as a result and I was in bad shape. I had four surgeries in five days, and at one point my family was called to the hospital as they felt I only had an hour or two left to live. I survived that day, but the prognosis was not good, and my doctors decided that if I were to have any chance of survival, they should keep me in an induced coma so that my body had some chance to begin to recover. I was under for around a month, and when I did slowly come to I found myself immobile, unable to talk, totally reliant on life support machines. I had about seven weeks in all without any significant movement. I had to learn to do so much from scratch, I actually had to learn to breathe by myself again, which was strange. There were people to help me walk, talk, eat again, but muscle tone and motor functions were not the only things that needed work. I was lost.

Music had always been vital to me, like oxygen. I listened to it, made my living from playing it up to a point, it was always there. In the weeks and months after my hospital release I was so far removed from my previous mostly happy life, and music just seemed to remind me of all I was missing. For the first time in my life, I could not concentrate on listening to music, in fact doing so would only make me resentful. Concentrating on anything was pretty tough. For most of my days I would just sit in front of a constantly on but mostly ignored TV. Therapists and nurses would come in and out, and another day would disappear. I didn't have the strength to even pick up a guitar let alone play it. Music was lost to me, life seemed lost for me, and all the time if I thought of anything, it was to ask "Why me?"

One evening, the TV was on and I momentarily glanced at it. Jools Holland's Later was on, a UK showcase for live music. The sound I was hearing was different from anything I had ever heard, yet the component parts were familiar. There was a guy scratching on two decks, a guy with synths, an older man playing guitar and wringing out these bluesy licks which were at odds with the rest of the music yet complimented it all perfectly. I was being drawn in. Then, there was this fragile waif like woman with an alarming jazzy voice crying "Give me a reason..." and I thought, yes! It took a while for me to realize why I was crying myself. I was having an emotional response to this new music, having a positive reaction to a new experience for the first time since I became ill. Music was reaching me again. As Portishead lurched toward the end of "Glory Box" I understood that more of Beth Gibbons lyrics were ringing true. "This is the beginning of forever and forever..." The next day, I asked someone to go get me the album Glory Box was on. I played and played that album. This was not a miracle cure, but it was a turning point. I had at last felt something good that I would not have felt if I had not of survived. It would take two more years of surgery and rehabilitation for me to be able to re-enter the world on anything like my own terms, but it was a start.
1/06/07 03:47pm
Mixtape Potpourri I: Second Place badge
Mixtape Potpourri I: Second Place
Way to wager it all and still come back to be second place. Uncanny!
awarded on 2006-12-30

Level 17
My Friend / Groove Armada

More than four years ago, I moved from a quiet little town in the flemish campine to the big city of ghent. I was only twelve back then, but I left behind more than I thought I had. This song always reminds me of the good times I had in that little town with my best friend Lieke. We went rollerblading every single evening under the chestnut trees behind school, and we played the same titanic-boardgame over and over again. I could talk about anything with her.
I thought things would settle down after a while in this new city. But they didn't. Even now, as I am writing this I realize it, I never fit in. I don't have any really close friends, and I'm not as happy and careless as I used to be. Big city mentality doesn't do anytihng good for me. I was younger back then, but it feels like I aged 10 years the moment I left there. I thought we used to listen to this song sometimes together, me and my friend, but my sick mind may have made that up. It makes me sad and melancholic.
1/06/07 02:31pm
The MLK Badge badge
The MLK Badge
Because Civil Rights rock (and roll).
awarded on 2009-03-07

Level 27
"Jumper" by Third Eye Blind

This is a relatively recent, kind of fun story. I have this friend, a boy, who I have gotten rather close with lately and on whom I have a very, very big secret crush. It's almost ridiculous, but we have so much fun together that I don't think I'd actually want anything more than friendship out of it.

Anyways, the story with this song is we were walking around trying to think of songs from the 90's that we both knew the words to, which is kind of difficult because he doesn't really listen to the words to a lot of songs. We're at the mall and I'm pushing him around in a shopping cart when we start singing this song at the top of our lungs, just bellowing it. We're behind Nordstrom's when a security guard comes up to us and says, "Can you please get out of the cart and just walk?"

We're both going through this whole rebellion thing, especially when influenced by each other, and we'd actually just had a run-in with some other security guards a few days before (that incident involved being on the roof of a movie theater and I scratched up my leg quite badly trying to get down).

Anyways so he got out of the cart, and the security guard drove his little car around the corner. We laughed a little and he got back into the cart. We resumed singing the song.

However, when we made it around the corner, that same security guard was waiting for us. He drove toward us as if about to give us a lecture, but we weren't having it... my friend jumped out of the cart, and we bolted through the door of Macy's, running and shouting through the perfume department and startling the old ladies getting their makeovers there. We ran through two stores before we stopped, winded, and resumed singing the song.
1/06/07 02:09pm
The Audiobiography II Badge badge
The Audiobiography II Badge
Awarded to those who chose to share another scene from their own lifes. Consider this a 'thank you' from the Collective.
awarded on 2007-01-15

Level 6
This Woman's Work-Kate Bush

I had a very hard time with the pregnancy of my son Joseph. My husband and I had been trying to conceive for over and year. I had miscarried about three months before conceiving Joe. When I was 28 weeks along, everything that could go wrong did. I had to be sent to the hospital to be induced. I remember looking at my husband Steve's face as they loaded me into the ambulance to go to the hospital. (We live an hour from the hospital.) He looked like he was fighting back the tears. He sat by me holding my hand the whole time I was in the maternity wards ICU. After Joe was delievered he was rushed off to the NICU. Where he stayed for two and half months. Steve went down to the NICU with the doctors and came back crying. I thought that something had happened. Steve never cries. Steve told me how scared he was to be in the NICU and that he never felt so helpless watching them work on Joe. Steve is normally very stoic and very strong. I had never seen Steve so emotional or cry during that time.

Today our son Joseph is a happy four year old. I would love to say that he is perfectly healthy, but he isn't he has asthma, allergies, autism, and cerebal palsy. But to be honest I would not change a thing about him. It is what makes him him!
1/06/07 01:54pm
The Badge of Mystery badge
The Badge of Mystery
Huh?!? Where did this come from?
awarded on 2008-08-14

Level 26
'And It Stoned Me' by Van Morrison
This past summer I went on a trip to Lake Shasta in northern California with a group of friends from college that I hadn't seen in ages. The first day/night on our houseboat it was just myself and 4 guys before the rest of the group joined up with us.
As we set sail from the marina that afternoon, I popped in a mix I had made specifically for the trip and climbed to the top deck with a cold bottle of Hefeweizen to lay out in the sun. It was a perfect, hot summer day, and as I was laying there this song came on. All of a sudden the boys-- regular stoners, might I add-- broke out into song.
"Oohhhh the water! OOOH-OHHHH THE WATER!"
I peered over the edge down at them and they were gesturing toward the lake, smoking, and drinking with giant smiles on their faces.
I just smiled to myself and quietly sang along.
1/06/07 12:27pm
The Yay! Badge VIII badge
The Yay! Badge VIII
This confounding badge is bestowed to those who can truly realize the wondrous consternation and inhuman scintillance of the of the elusive 'YAY!'.
awarded on 2008-01-11

Level 25
Well done guys. Keep 'em coming, y'all.
1/06/07 01:56am
TEAM 97 -- Team Badge badge
TEAM 97 -- Team Badge
BREAKING NEWS: Team 97 slays Team 07 in fatal mixtaping battle. More news at 11.
awarded on 2007-06-17

Level 23
"It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" by Boyz II Men

In 7th grade a friend of mine was shot and killed on Halloween night in his house by another 7th grader. I was basketball teammates of them both. I got the news the next morning via a phone call from a friend. Apparently the two were messing with a shotgun when it accidentally went of from point blank range. I was silent as I was being told this on the phone. When I hung up, it finally hit me and that's when the tears started. This was the song that they played at his memorial service, held right inside the gym at center court. Every time after that day, whenever this song came on the radio or anything, it was hard for any of us that knew him.

R.I.P. Tony Razoto
1/05/07 11:12pm
The Yay! Badge IX badge
The Yay! Badge IX
This astonishing badge is bestowed to the MTC brethren who can truly conceptualize the wondrous spectacle and mind-altering ramifications of the of the elusive 'YAY!'.
awarded on 2008-08-17

Level 36
It's Gonna Be (Alright)/The Mollusk by Ween

After getting in our first fight in our apartment (and our first actual fight ever), I found my lady and I to be getting it on. I, for some reason, had this album playing on the ole iTunes. Thats right, humping to the Ween Classics, "I'll Be Your Johnny on the Spot", "Mutilated Lips", and the always awesome "The Blarney Stone." Then as everything "got done", this song was playing. I looked over at my love and she was crying. "Is this a 'good cry' or 'bad cry'?" I asked. "This song is about breaking up!" She declared unhappily. I shrugged my shoulders, and changed the song to "Head Over Heals" by Tears for Fears (why, Ill never know), and went to take a piss. Something wasnt right. "Hey babe, I think your period started!"

Epilogue: I was sadly reminded of this incident when, a year and change later and across the Pacific Ocean from each other, we broke up over the phone. I kept finding myself saying "It's gonna be alright", every time she would say something about her future in a pessimistic way.
1/05/07 09:17pm
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