OLD MAN MIX TAPE.

The Wintry Mix. The Roll Down Your Window Mix. The Songs That Make You Say HYMN Mix. The Music to Build a Deck By Mix.

I’m in a Seasonal Mix CD Swap. The mix CD is the offspring of the ubiquitous mix tape of the’80s. You still see some of these on the side of the road with their intestines spilled out. But, I got asked by my friend Luke to be in this CD swap with nine other people. It’s an honor because I’m 40 and everyone else is like 25. I’m not sure how I got in, but I must be pretty cool.

The first question a few of us had was that of music piracy: Is it legal to copy these songs and distribute them to a bunch of other people? The justification came down to this: if you liked the songs you heard, buy them. If you didn’t, dispose of the disc. I’ve kept to that deal. Honest.

Here’s how the Seasonal Mix CD Swap works: Every quarter—every season—of this past year, I’ve sent out a mix of songs I’ve been listening to, or that fits a theme, to nine other people. Mostly people I don’t know. Mostly they’re from Missouri. I live in Illinois. And then we each have gotten nine CDs in the mail. That’s like 180 songs. I suspected that since it was mostly Missourians that I would be getting 180 jug band songs a quarter, but it really hasn’t been the case. It has really been almost too much, though. I confess to just skimming through sometimes, but there are some real gems.

I’m glad to be in the Swap because at my age I’ve stopped looking for the flavor-of-the-day bands, so I see my music options dwindling. I assume that if the artist is under thirty they have nothing worthwhile to say to me, so I don’t bother. But, the people I listen to are pushing 50, maybe even 60 and 70. And several have even died. Johnny Cash most recently. But some more lesser-known artists like Mark Heard and Gene Eugene. Of course, that means no more records from them. And no more music for me. So, it’s good to have mixes from younger folks who are aware of younger more diverse artists. And it’s good for me to share some old man music, like T Bone Burnett. And Lucinda Williams. Sam Phillips. Sister Rosetta Tharpe. And Mark Heard. Don’t tell the rest of my Swap, but I feel like I’m bringing them culture.

This all sounds snotty, but I blame it on the mix tape era in which I was raised.

It’s easy to spit out a music mix these days. Just fire up iTunes, click a few boxes and then the “Burn CD” button. But back in the day of cassettes you had to: 1.) advance the tape past the lead (that short strip of white plastic that attached the tape to the reel; Maxell brand cassettes were hands-down higher quality than Memorex); 2.) hit the “record” and “pause” buttons at the same time on the tape deck; 3.) set the recording levels; 4.) drop the needle in the groove of the LP; and then 5.) quickly de-press the “pause” button; 6.) repeat 10 times; 7.) pray to God the last song on Side ‘A’ didn’t go longer than the amount of tape left; lastly, 8.) meticulously write out each song and artist on the 2” x 3" cassette insert.

Next, turn the tape over. Repeat steps one through eight.

So, if you were gonna make a mix tape back in the day, it was serious business. A part time job. Giving someone a mix tape was a power move that meant you were either gonna bring the musical hammer down on the recipient to show how cool you and your music were (summed up by the t-shirt that reads: “Your Favorite Band Sucks”). Or it was a power move that meant you were infatuated with the recipient (like how in junior high I once sat and over-dubbed the name “Sandy” 15 times into my cassette tape of the Billy Joel song “All for Leyna”. It sounded something like this: “There’s nothing else I can do, ‘Cause I’m doing it all for clunk, screee, [insert pre-pubescent “Sandy”], screee, clunk .; I don’t want anyone new, ‘Cause I’m living it all for clunk, screee, [insert pre-pubescent “Sandy”], screee, clunk .” Why I never captured Sandy’s heart continues to be a mystery.).

So, of course, as a product of the ‘70s and ‘80s, I approached the CD mix swap as a competition. Subconsciously I desired to crush all others’ attempts at music mixes. But, I soon found that I carried around some scratchy LP attitudes in this clean digital world.

The first CD mix I sent was a plain silver bullet with a list of tracks. Ka-blam. Bring it, sucka. The nine discs I received, however, were pieces of artwork. There were handmade CD envelopes, some with original, playful illustrations. There were clever titles, like the Daniel Boone vs. Abraham Lincoln Mix, the Road Trip Mix, the High-Low Mix, etc. Silly youngsters. They’d get serious as soon as they heard my ultimate mix.

But the next quarter it was the same. Luke even made a CD mix of unorthodox renditions of hymns that included Andy Griffith and Faster Pussycat. He didn’t care if it was mostly silliness. It was more of a communal experiment.

I was shamed by their attitudes.

My fellow swapees saw this as a community endeavor, not a battle of the bands like I did. They seemed to believe that they were sharing a piece of themselves, inviting me into their lives a bit. One Swap member even e-mailed us all recently, “I’ve never met most of you guys, but I feel like I know you through the mixes. If it isn’t too weird, it would be cool if we could all meet.” Well, it would be too weird for me, but isn’t that what music is supposed to be--a medium that pulls people together? Somewhere I missed that, but I saw it clearly in the Swap.

As the year went on I couldn’t wait to get the flood of CDs from Luke, Lisa, Jonathon, Jay, Tobie, Felicity, Christine and Tom. I confess to even liking some of the bands they introduced me to like G. Love & Special Sauce, Feist, Gogol Bordello, and Peter, Bjorn & Whoever. I even bought some of their songs. In this year-long experiment I became a little less snobby about music. I did less skimming. Of course, my music is still superior to everyone else’s, but I confess a warm appreciation and a slight infatuation for these nine mostly strangers. I feel pretty cool to have been invited.