By Spencer. Great bands still make forgettable songs. And forgotten songs, sometimes, can still be pretty damn great. For this edition of The Mixologist, I’m featuring some lesser-known tracks from some of the best bands of the 90s. Some of them were singles that tanked. Some of them were album tracks that were wrongly overshadowed. Some were B-sides that only saw the light of day among the true fanatics. Whatever the case, these are songs that deserve your love, and hopefully when heard in a different context, they’ll get the audience they deserve. Continue reading
S&N Mix
The Mixologist: Spin The Bottle
By Spencer. Bartenders used to be “bartenders” — now they’re “mixologists.” So it’s appropriate that we devote an edition of The Mixologist to the joys of alcohol.
Like a lot of benders, it starts with a headache (“Hangover”) followed by a rallying cry (“Let’s All Go To The Bar”). There’s tall boys (“Cheap Beer”), hard stuff (“One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”), bottles of the finest bubbly (“Pink Champagne”), and even a brown bag special (“St. Ides Heaven”). And because it happens to the best of us, it closes with the usual questions (“Why Don’t We Get Drunk And Screw”), consequences (“Too Drunk To Fuck”), accusations (You only kiss me when you’re “Drunk”), and grand exits (“Lived In Bars”). All in all, it’s an entire night out in just sixteen songs. Continue reading
The Mixologist: Summer At Night
By Spencer. Summer nights are for dancing past dark, the heat clinging to your skin while the music beats and sways. They’re for driving along the cliffs at sunset, the last shreds of light hugging the horizon. They’re for bonfires on the beach and quiet nights on the patio with a cold beer and the ones you love. They’re for waving your arms side to side and shouting out the words with a few hundred complete strangers.
Summer is finally here, and S&N Mix 2 celebrates with a slew of 2014 releases handpicked for hot, sweaty nights. Continue reading
The Mixologist: Songs About Girls, Vol. 1
By Spencer. For our inaugural mix on S&N, we start in the same place as all those mixtapes we used to make back in high school: with a bunch of songs about girls.
Those were the days when a snippet of a lyric so perfectly described the way you felt about someone that you were just sure it was speaking directly to you. And those are the songs that stay with you a lifetime – long after that person you thought you’d never stop loving is just a pleasant memory.
Each of these songs is about someone. And while I include them each with someone particular in mind, the beauty of it is that a couple of them might just spark a memory of your own particular someone? Continue reading
Shadows & Noise 