Nostalgia

Recently (and by recently, I mean the past few months), I've been really missing the weirdest thing, something that I thought I would never miss... highschool. More specifically the middle 2 years. Why? I hated highschool. I considered it a waste of my time, and still do now. So, now why am I missing it so much? I have a theory. I think thats because those were the years where all of this pent up creativity that I've had for years finally started to make its way out.

Anyway, the other night I left my TV on while I fell asleep. As I was sleeping, I was awaken by some very familiar... jazzy sounds... followed by dialog I almost know by heart. Cowboy Bebop was on. And since then, I got really nostalgic for a specific part of highschool.

The mix CDs I was making and distributing around school (mainly to friends). I think I talked about 'em before on here, but never in great detail. A friend of mine in 10th grade that I idolized (a little too much, who turned out to be a fucking hack) made a mix CD part way through 10th grade with some killer anime songs and videogame remixes on it (especially from Street Fighter 2). I really liked it as it brought out the nerd in me, and back then, anime was only beginning to become sociably acceptable (after the explosion of POKEMAN and Toonami), and listening to videogame tunes wasn't common (though I had been secretly doing it for years, but I'll explain that later). After he made a second one, I decided I had to start making my own, which was the beginning of several series of mix CDs that I started making. I guess I'll do this in a list form.

May 2001, October 2002: Roger's Mix - This one was the first, and was pretty similar to what my friend was doing at the time. Just a mix of various videogame and anime tracks that I threw together for my own benefit, not really to distribute it (though I did later when I re-released it). However, this was orginally a mix tape, not a CD. I didn't have a burner back then, so I used the tape deck on my boombox to record from CDs I already had.

I mainly took tracks from the games I had at the time. See, back then, Playstation and Saturn games sometimes had their soundtrack available on disc, so that all you had to do was throw them in a CD player. I mainly took tracks from 2 of my favorite videogame soundtracks ever: Jet Moto, and Alien Trilogy. I also added tracks from a homemade Gundam Wing soundtrack a friend of mine made, and tracks from the other friend's mix who was the inspiration for the disc. If I remember right, I did make a copy for that friend, and he commented that he liked how I used some of his tracks.

About a year and a half later (October 2002), after I had a CD burner, I remade it into a CD and added additional tracks (packaged it as a special edition! lol)... though most of the added tracks were radio-played songs. I dunno why I did that, probably just because I liked them, or felt they went with the flow, but I didn't like throwing in songs people knew well, and only did it if I felt it fit the flow or theme. Unfortunately, this practice became common later on, especially in the last Roger's Mix, but I'll talk more about that later. I also took out the tracks from Air Combat because I didn't have the disc anymore and couldn't find the songs anywhere. Another thing added was CD art... and I didn't like the art on this too much. It's just a blurred pic of me in a dark room smiling. I was more creative with the other releases. The last thing added was a short intro track with me saying "This is it... the very beginning... It all starts here." Reason for that? I was trying to be artsy-fartsy about the whole thing and impress a girl.

Tracklist (Original Mix Tape)
1. Alien Trilogy - Xenophobia
2. Apoptygma Berzerk - Fade To Black
3. Gundam Wing (Friend's homemade soundtrack) - Night Of Fire
4. Jet Moto - Ride On
5. Air Combat - Track 2
6. Gundam Wing (Friend's homemade soundtrack) - Heero's Dream
7. Air Combat - Track 5
8. Alien Trilogy - Respirator
9. Street Fighter 2 - Guile's Stage (Live Band Remix)
10. Street Fighter 2 - Ryu's Stage (Live Band Remix)
11. Megadeth - Duke Nukem Theme
12. Dick Dale & Stevie Ray Vaughn - Pipeline
13. Green Day - Last Ride In
14. The Jerky Boys - Bad Tomatoes
15. Primus - Tommy The Cat
16. AC/DC - The Jack
17. Metallica - Orion

Tracklist (CD Special Edition Re-release)
1. The Beginning (Intro Track)
2. Alien Trilogy - Xenophobia
3. Apoptygma Berzerk - Fade To Black
4. Gundam Wing (Friend's homemade soundtrack) - Night Of Fire
5. Jet Moto - Ride On
6. Gundam Wing (Friend's homemade soundtrack) - Heero's Dream
7. Jet Moto - Epic
8. Alien Trilogy - Respirator
9. Street Fighter 2 - Guile's Stage (Live Band Remix)
10. Megadeth - Duke Nukem Theme
11. Street Fighter 2 - Ryu's Stage (Live Band Remix)
12. Dick Dale & Stevie Ray Vaughn - Pipeline
13. Green Day - Last Ride In
14. The Jerky Boys - Bad Tomatoes
15. Primus - Tommy The Cat
16. AC/DC - The Jack
17. Filter - Take A Picture
18. Coldplay - Trouble
19. Metallica - Orion

Next post - Roger's Mix 2.0: Funny Fucking Special Edition