mixtape (january 2010)

(Wide awake on) wayside overestimations
Wire “Mercy”
Joy Division “The Sound Of Music”
The Fall “Fit And Working Again”
Public Image Ltd “Public Image”
Delta 5 “Mind Your Own Business”
Gang of Four “Damaged Goods”
Devo “Girl U Want”
Scritti Politti “Skank Bloc Bologna”
The Desperate Bicycles “Grief Is Very Private”
The Talking Heads “Memories Can’t Wait”
New Order “Ceremony”
Josef K “Revelation”
Pere Ubu “Final Solution”

Tell her what’s possible/all-day derision, is: Just when I remarked to a friend that I’m not finishing this non-definitive postpunk mix, something comes along to piss me off enough, providing enough bile for completion. Several things that “inspired” this: Simon Reynolds’ impossibly cool Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-84 of course (what a book); re-watching Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette recently (a tad unfairly maligned, maybe); crappy freelance wages and the sweltering, ever-pretentious frustrations of being, ahem, “generally unemployed” (or “positively unemployed”). The icy grandeur of Wire’s “Mercy” is an attempt of letting you in on all you need to know about postpunk in six minutes; or watch me jumpstart and wail along to David Byrne’s “these memories can’t WAAAAAIT”.