Mix Tape Friday: I Wanna Rawk!

We’ve been swooning and sobbing over love for the last two weeks. Always interesting — but I’m getting antsy. It’s time to rawk — and we’re bustin’ out the jams with alternative bands covering rock classics. (You know I love covers.)

Announcing the First Mix Tape Friday Contest!

And it’s an easy one: E-mail me the list of original artists for each of these forty songs. All winning entries go into the pot. If I draw your name, you win a chance to co-produce the March 14 mix tape. The e-mail address is on the navbar. Can you stand the excitement?

Loosen up those neck muscles, kids, because you’re getting ready to bang the head.

Dave Grohl :: Stairway to Heaven

Scissor Sisters :: Comfortably Numb

Of Montreal :: Suffragette City

Bryan Ferry :: Sympathy for the Devil

Stone Temple Pilots :: Revolution

Fishbone :: Shattered

The Flaming Lips :: Bohemian Rhapsody

The Cardigans :: Iron Man

Bauhaus :: Ziggy Stardust

The Ramones :: Time Has Come Today

Pearl Jam :: Baba O’Riley

The Replacements :: Jumping Jack Flash

Kristin Hersh :: When the Levee Breaks

The Decemberists :: Think About Me

Aztec Camera :: Jump

Seu Jorge :: Life on Mars?

R.E.M. :: Tusk

Lily Allen :: Mr. Blue Sky

Elvis Costello :: All You Need Is Love

Liz Phair :: Emotional Rescue

Everclear :: The Boys Are Back in Town

Buzzcocks :: Ballroom Blitz

Rage Against the Machine :: Street Fighting Man

Devo :: (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

U2 :: Radar Love

Sleater-Kinney :: White Rabbit

Ted Leo :: Dancing in the Dark

Soup Dragons :: I’m Free

The Cure :: Young Americans

Wilco :: Paranoid

World Party :: All the Young Dudes

Sheryl Crow :: Squeeze Box

The Stranglers :: All Day and All of the Night

The Hold Steady :: Against the Wind

Belle & Sebastian :: (Don’t Fear) The Reaper

Jay Farrar :: Like a Hurricane

Joe Jackson :: Oh Well

R.E.M. :: D.O.A.

The Pogues :: Honky Tonk Women

Oasis :: My Generation

Too jittery from contest excitement? Download the zip file and conserve that right-click energy.

These covers are interesting. Some are very true to the original, such as Jay Farrar’s “Like a Hurricane” and Joe Jackson’s “Oh Well.” Others, like Aztec’s Camera’s wonderful “Jump” (way before Nouvelle Vague and Richard Cheese) and Scissor Sisters’ “Comfortably Numb,” become an entirely different song.

I crack up every time I listen to R.E.M.’s "D.O.A." cover (performed at NYC’s Peppermint Lounge, Halloween 1983). As Michael says in the introduction, it’s probably the worst song ever written. It was my fav-o-rite song in eighth grade. Zandra Wonoski (didn’t every girl have a friend named Zandra in junior high?) and I thought we were so frickin’ cool listening to it — and I had the original and the live albums. Listening to the drumbeat slow as his heart slows and dies was just awesome … when you were thirteen in 1972.

I adore musicians who sing a lot of cover tunes — and Dave Grohl may win the prize as the most prolific and most brilliant. I have him covering everone from Creed and The Spice Girls to "Baker Street" and Prince — and I don’t spend much time searching for his songs. He’s so adorable. Show of hands of everyone who’s crushing on Grohl?

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Mix Tape Friday: The Class of '77

My thirtieth high-school class reunion is tomorrow night. Thirty freakin’ years since I fretted over every little thing I said, second-guessed every item of clothing I wore, giggled whenever a cute boy talked to me (okay, I still do that). I’m not going to the reunion, though, so we’re reunioning right here, right now, kids.

Now, here’s the coolest story ever to come out of my mix tape posts. I told dear friend HollyC — a fellow Class of ‘77’er — about this week’s mix tape while we chatted Monday afternoon. I mentioned I had written a paragraph stating I’d go to the class reunion if David C — one of my very favorite CHS boys — has RSVP’ed; we lost track of him nearly twenty years ago. Four hours later I got an e-mail from that very same David C, who has Googled me and found my blog that evening. And I've spent the rest of the week e-mailing and catching up with the boy. Isn’t that the best? Blogs and Google rock.

The punk and new wave movements kicked off during my high school years. I love those early albums by The Ramones and The Clash and Patti Smith, and they made a big impression on me during high school. But for me, those years between 1973 and 1977 were all about good ol’ rock. And so that’s all we’re featuring today — no Stevie Wonder or K.C. & The Sunshine Band, no Fogelberg or Captain & Tenille. I shook it up a bit with some classic rock covers of songs released between my freshman and senior years.

To set the stage for you youngsters out there, my high-school years looked very much like Dazed and Confused. In fact, I saw it for the first time with the sister, and it felt to us like a documentary of our lives. We could match someone from the CHS halls with every character in the movie.

And, yes, we really dressed that way.

Okay, enough of the reminiscing. Let’s get to the reason why you’re here: the songs. I got a bit too excited pulling these tunes — to the tune of sixty songs plus five bonus tracks. I hope you spend your afternoon air-guitaring all over your office.

Let’s rawk — seventies style!

Boston: Foreplay/Long Time

Golden Earring: Radar Love

Electric Light Orchestra: Do Ya

Bruce Springsteen: Tenth Avenue Freeze-out

David Bowie: Young Americans

John Lennon: Whatever Gets You Through the Night

The Sweet: Ballroom Blitz

Steve Miller Band: Jungle Love

Rick Derringer: Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo

R.E.M.: Toys in the Attic (Aerosmith cover)

Mother’s Finest: Piece of the Rock

The Rolling Stones: Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)

Deep Purple: Woman from Tokyo

The Allman Brothers Band: Southbound

Eric Clapton: Motherless Children

Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band: The Fire Down Below

Warren Zevon: I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead

Lou Reed: Sally Can’t Dance

Foo Fighters: Carry on My Wayward Son (Kansas cover)

Bad Company: Bad Company

Manfred Mann's Earth Band: Blinded by the Light

David Essex: Rock On

Average White Band: Pick up the Pieces

Gary Wright: Love Is Alive

Elton John: Benny and the Jets

Queen: Killer Queen

George Harrison: Dark Horse

Bachman-Turner Overdrive: Takin' Care of Business

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Gimme Three Steps

Fleetwood Mac: The Chain

Stories: Brother Louie

Roger Waters feat. Van Morrison, Rick Danko + Levon Helm: Comfortably Numb

Nazareth: Love Hurts

Neil Young: Like a Hurricane

The Eagles: Wasted Time

Ozark Mountain Daredevils: Jackie Blue

Bob Dylan: Tangled up in Blue

Doobie Brothers: Black Water

Steely Dan: My Old School

Atlanta Rhythm Section: Georgia Rhythm

Little Feat: Oh, Atlanta

Mott the Hoople: All the Way from Memphis

Gregg Allman: Don’t Mess up a Good Thing

Foghat: Slow Ride

R.E.M.: Smoking in the Boy's Room (Brownsville Station cover)

Wings: Jet

The Who: Slip Kid

Ringo Starr: Back off Boogaloo

T. Rex: I Love to Boogie

Heart: Crazy on You

Sleater-Kinney: More Than a Feeling (Boston cover)

Kiss: Rock and Roll All Nite

Led Zeppelin: D'yer Mak'er

War: Low Rider

The Minus 5: That Smell (Lynyrd Skynyrd cover)

Wilco: (Don’t Fear) The Reaper (Blue Oyster Cult cover)

Head East: Never Been Any Reason

Marshall Tucker Band: Fire on the Mountain

Joe Walsh: Rocky Mountain Way

Peter Frampton: Do You Feel Like We Do

“Do You Feel Like We Do” was special to the CHS class of ’77, as it was nearly our class song. The little ditty some of our classmates (including moi) wrote barely edged it out in votes. Thirty years later, I wish Mr. Frampton’s classic had won. “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road” — probably nominated by RCofCHS — was fourth in the voting. We were one classy class. But I’d rather be naughty that traditional with “We Will Never Pass This Way Again.”

Don’t have thirty years to download all this classic rock? Your one-click (well, three-click) access to the zipped tunes are waiting for you here, here, and here.

Southern rock, of course, was big in our school halls. Not much of that genre has held up in my world, except for Allman Brothers, but I included some of the tracks I still enjoy. And I’m noting with pride that “Freebird” ain’t on the list.

The Pep Rally Playlist

Our marching band kicked aural ass. If you went to high school in the 1970s, your school band may have played these — but I bet our marching band played ‘em better than yours. I hope HollyC is grabbing the nearest pompoms, Janice is using her broom as a flagpole, and Renae is fingering faux valves. If only Pete Royal was still around to crash those cymbals.

Deep Purple: Smoke on the Water

Santana: Oye Como Va

Grand Funk Railroad: We’re an American Band

The Edgar Winter Group: Free Ride

Chicago: Dialogue, Part 1/Part 2

Yeah, I know everyone played Chicago back then. And the three classmates I still keep up with requested “25 or 6 to 4.” But “Dialog Part 1 and 2” was the first song I marched to during my flag corps days, so it holds a special place in my nerdy, sentimental, flag-twirlin’ heart. I can still march a turn to this tune. If only I had a flagpole handy …

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