Mix Motivation

I was motivated to make mixes by various things over various times but the one overriding factor probably was my regular road trips back and forth between Buffalo and Philadelphia several times a year beginning in the mid 70's and still going on. I hated fumbling with the radio for 8 hours. Albums were OK but I really wanted constant variety and control over what I was listening to.

I made hundreds of mixtapes throughout the 80's including our own wedding in 1980. I also did wedding tapes for my brother in law. His wife was Polish and wanted some polkas on the mix for her older relatives. I had one memorable sequence where the polka music was blaring and the old Polish folks were all dancing.  The polkas led to Elvis Presley doing All Shook Up and the dancing continued. Suddenly Brand New Cadillac by The Clash was playing and the elderly Polish people were still dancing. My new sister in law was amazed that her aunts and uncles were dancing to The Clash at her wedding.

I made mixes for parties too and during my bar DJ days I sometimes had mixes as backups to play if I needed to be away from the sound booth for any amount of time. I occasionally would record a set of music to a tape.

Then burning CDs came along and the mix making process moved from the tape recorder to the computer.  Playing a CD in a car for the long trips was a primary motivation to convert mixes from tape to CD.

The Art of the Mix online group was another motivation to make more and better mixes. Later I was putting them up on MixCloud and then eventually on Spotify.