DJ Shaxx Presents: Planet Mixtape

Last night, in an unknown karaoke bar on the edge of a small town in America, I committed the ultimate party foul. In the midst of a slightly flamboyant performance of Love To Hate You by Erasure , I stepped out of the designated singing area in an effort to bring the full performance closer to the audience. This short video captures that moment: Unfortunately, upon my return to the stage, I unknowingly stepped on one of the floor lights. My attention was drawn to this unfortunate error as I gazed into the faces of the regulars seated near the stage. They were aghast and angry. Hoping I could redeem myself with an impassioned vocal delivery,  I continued the song. At the tune's conclusion, my mic shut off sharply. An audience member, with long Robert Plant-like hair, rushed to the stage and investigated the light. The stand mechanism was broken. "You gotta look out for the lights, man. What were you thinking? There are lights up here, y'know!" Embarrassed, I apol...

TootArd are a band from the Golan Heights. Since 1967, this area has been a part of Israel. However, the inhabitants are denied citizenship. Their first album is Laissez Passer . “Laissez passers are special situation papers,” explains singer and guitarist Hasan Nakhleh. “It took us a while to realise the effect. We’re permanent residents in Israel, but not citizens. We have no travel documents. When we travel we need the laissez passer. With no nationality, we’re officially ‘undefined.’” TootArd's sound reflects this undefined status. They combine the desert blues rock of Northern Africa with reggae and various Middle Eastern styles, creating a powerful, grooving sound. If you're a fan of Tuareg groups like Tinariwen ,  Bombino or Tamikrest , you will instantly love TootArd . Try their tune Musiqa for starters. Head here to sample other tracks from their debut.

Many years have passed since my high school obsession with Tori Amos ' Little Earth Quakes and Under the Pink . A few times over the last decades I have occasionally sampled her new releases, but nothing resonated. Her new album, Native Invader , has pulled me back in. It's rich songs are lyrically compelling, harmonious and based around great drum beats (something I loved in her earlier work). Released in September, it is both timely and timeless. The album weaves environmental, spiritual, indigenous  a and political themes into a dizzying sonic tapestry. There is also an ethereal, pagan vibe coming through many of the lyrics (in my opinion). The song I want to spotlight is Benjamin. At this point, no one has written a more powerful call to action for protecting the environment agains the onslaught of Trump and his cronies. "campaigns funded by the fossil fuel industry how many of us will they own to give them global mastery sucking hydrocarbon from the ground t...

The deep freeze of winter has settled in. This morning, I poured a cup of coffee and took in the sight of the sun's lazy ascent through the surrounding woods. The temperature outside read -4º Fahrenheit. Bone chilling and stunningly gorgeous. I sat in silence. Eventually I began to brainstorm music to accompany the scene. As we venture into late December, the sounds of Celtic and Nordic folk music tend to make their way into my daily mix. Wintry landscapes go especially well with Sweden's Väsen, a folk trio that prominently features the nyckelharpa. This song, Björkbergspolskan, highlights the instrument's power. Like a cross between the hurdy gurdy and a fiddle, it creates an ancestral tone that stirs the Viking in my blood. This one's for you Great, Great, Great Grandmother Wiklund. Nyckelharpa

Jonathan Richman 's I Was Dancing In A Lesbian Bar  reminds me of last night. Yesterday was my birthday. In typical fashion, after my responsibilities as husband and father were lovingly fulfilled and the sun had set on the quiet suburbs of Portland, I drove straight into the city for some karaoke. Throughout the evening I sang three songs and danced harder than I have in years. In Richman's song, the protagonist finds himself feeling like an outsider at a night club. The clientele is too cool to dance and less than welcoming. Soon he is invited to go dancing in a new spot by some kind strangers. They lead him to a lesbian bar that is the polar opposite of the first club. Everybody's dancing and having a good time. Richman has found a place of belonging in the most unlikely setting. That's how I felt at the karaoke club last night. I've been in literally hundreds of karaoke bars in a handful of countries. As a first-timer, singers can be met with indifference,...

   Christmas Day is gone. Still the holiday mood lingers. This is my third and final inclusion of a holiday song on the mixtape. Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody was their biggest hit, selling over a million copies upon its release in 1973 and scored them a #1 hit in the U.K. You might know Slade from their tunes  Mama Weer All Crazee Now and   Cum On Feel The Noize. The latter was a hit for the hair metal band, Quiet Riot on 1983's Metal Health (which happened to be the first cassette I ever purchased). I first heard Merry Christmas Everybody at a gig in San Francisco. My band was sharing a bill with a group name Petrol . The two brothers in the band were from the U.K. and they covered this Slade holiday classic year-round. In fact, they closed every show with this stomping anthem. I thought it was cool that they were playing a Christmas song in late August. In fact, I thought they wrote it. Later, the singer, Graham Shaw, revealed that it was Slade. ...

Released in 2003, by the over the top, glam metal resurrection act, The Darkness , Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End) has been one of my favorite holiday tunes for close to a decade. The royal timbre of the electric guitars and falsetto of Justin Hawkins are undeniably Queen-like. And what Christmas classic is not complete without sleigh bells and a children choir? I can't think of another modern Christmas tune that packs so much melody and action into three and a half minutes. The tune became such a part of my holiday tradition that I finally had to throw down the cash to the buy the import CD single (it was never released domestically). The b-side, I Love You 5 Times, while entertaining is definitely overshadowed by the bombastic grandeur of the lead track. I hope this one finds its way into your holiday playlist, if it isn't there already.

Around my house you might find my kids humming this tune as if it were a classic song like Blue Christmas or Silent Night. To them, The Ramones are great Christmas singers; right up there with Bing Crosby and Brenda Lee. Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight) first appeared as a b-side to I Wanna Live in 1987 .  The single failed to chart in the U.S. and U.K. However, the Ramones released Merry Christmas  again in 1989 as the third single from The Ramones' Brain Drain . This would be the final record to feature Dee Dee. The video, depicting a holiday meltdown with people speaking in an authentic Long Island vernacular (maybe?), features Dee Dee's replacement, C.J. on bass. Here's to a non-violent, peaceful and perhaps humorous holiday! Further Listening: This year, Steven Van Zandt released a cover of the song with a 15 piece band and a new third verse. Check it out: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/see-steven-van-zandts-video-for-ramones-me...

Here's the perfect song to commemorate the approaching conclusion of 2017. "You were born hungry And you'll die angry And if life has failed you Leave the cross you're nailed to You belong to no one And you owe nothing There's no golden future Just an open wound there Oh lord, this is the worst year of my life" Paul Simpson's despondent baritone can almost pass for Morrissey's throughout much of The Wild Swans' 1988 album, Bringing Home the Ashes . Fans of The Smiths and fellow Liverpudlians, Echo and the Bunnymen , will hear aspects of both groups in the shimmering alt-pop of the Swans. In fact, Pete De Freitas  (Echo & the Bunnymen drummer) produced the album's first single,  Young Manhood . Like The Mighty Lemon Drops and The Teardrop Explodes (whom Simpson left in 1980), The Wild Swans were a second-tier British indie pop group that never quite broke through in the States. The band was featured on two widely distributed Sire...

If you haven't been following nostalgic alternative rock news, Morrissey ( Bigmouth Strikes Again ) is currently embroiled in a public relations debacle resulting from last month's interview with Zer Spiegel wherein he made some uncomfortable and half-baked statements about sexual assault. I f you're interested in catching up on the situation, it's here . I've always enjoyed Morrissey's defiance of the status quo with his music. Throughout his work with the Smiths and as a solo artist, he's expressed brash opinions about animal rights, war, celibacy, sexual identity, royalty and even toyed with English pri de and Britishness (which, for many fans, went too far). Morrissey is a pop singer and has continually employed sarcasm and irony in his music. He also toys with ambiguity. I like Morrissey when he uses lyrics and music to provoke our thinking. He tends to completely bungle interviews, coming off as a both a narcissist and hypocrite. That's not to ...

Bold self-reliance. That's what Alex Chilton was channeling when he penned The Ballad of El Goodo.  It's one of those tunes that I try to include on any mixtape or CD that I ever make. Tonight, the melody emerged from the back of my mind as I was strumming my guitar. It moved me to find the chords and learn to play it. Striking the chords and whispering Alex Chilton's lyrics unleashed a powerful feeling inside -- like uttering some magical incantation. My spirits were immediately lifted. That's the power of rock & roll. True and simple. Big Star was a huge influence on many of my favorite groups: The Replacements, Wilco, The Posies and R.E.M. The Ballad of El Goodo has been covered by countless artists. Here are two of my favorite covers; Evan Dando's sublime version from the Empire Records Soundtrack (1995): Matthew Sweet's version from Big Star Small World (Tribute to Big Star).

Just got back from an evening walk. It's 29º and the sidewalks have been half plowed and salted lazily. One wrong step and you're done for. Tomorrow's the winter solstice. It's one of those Lemonheads kind of nights. Evan Dando's indolent, frayed voice has a way of connecting with the fatigue of a Wednesday evening in mid-December. This tune, Hannah And Gabi , from the Lemonheads '92 breakthrough, It's A Shame About Ray is one of my favorite deep cuts. The opening lyrics meander effortlessly: Got me watching your eyes watching things go by outside Out the window of a train Easy sipping them just seeing it fly left to right Pour the milk and I'll say when Apparently, Dando was hoping for Sneaky Pete Kleinow from the Flying Burrito Brothers to lay down the lap steel part. Gram Parsons' influence has always orbited Dando's work. However, the record company could only arrange for  Jeff Skunk Baxter from the Doobie Brothers to do a session. For...

Throughout the last week, UFOs have graced the headlines of both the New York Times and NPR's website. It turns out that the Pentagon's Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program has been collecting accounts of the military's contact with unidentified phenomena between 2007 and 2012. They've even got official videos that are, at this point, inexplicable. Check out this one recorded by two F-18 pilots. Tonight's addition to the mixtape is most definitely the early-Genesis classic, Watcher of the Skies . It was a tough pick. I toyed with the idea of selecting Yes' Arriving UFO or The Byrds Mr. Spaceman . However, neither Jon Anderson nor Roger McGuinn had the imagination nor impudence to dress up like extraterrestrial royalty as they sang their odes to flying saucers. Peter Gabriel clinches the selection with his peculiar number, sung to a 6/4 time signature, in full make up and garish robe.  Watcher of the Skies imagines a barren Earth surveyed by alie...

There comes a paradigm-shifting moment in every average youngster's life when they realize that they are simply not cool. For me, that occurred in 5th grade during the Dehesa Elementary School talent show of 1985. The song was  Mothers Talk by Tears For Fears . At that point, I had about five cassettes in my collection:  Top Gun Soundtrack , Footloose Soundtrack ,  The Transformers The Movie Soundtrack and   The Police -  Zenyatta Mondatta  and  Synchronicity  (the latter two inherited from my father). I fist-pumped and lip-synched in the mirror for hours to songs like Bonnie Tyler's I Need A Hero and Kenny Loggins' Heaven Helps The Man. In my mind, I was the lone rebel waltzing into a school dance, clearing the center of the dancefloor with my awesome moves. The spotlight beamed down on my red Chuck Taylor Converse hi-tops as I moonwalked into glory. I was completely unaware of the fact that most of my peers (and especially the 6th graders) we...

Definite Door is the Posies' final single from 1994's Frosting On The Beater . With it's psychedelic and fatalistic lyrics, matched with sugary sweet grunge guitars, the song stirs up a mix of somber, yet mystical bliss. It is the pinnacle of power-pop meets grunge. The Posies, like Nirvana were part of the 90s Seattle music scene. Since Kurt Cobain died on April 8, 1994 and Definite Door was released shortly after (April 27), we can rule out the idea that the band was directly addressing Cobain's suicide. Music journalists at the time perceived the song as a statement of psychedelic escapism. Still, with lyrics like "Say goodbye to your friends and family Pack your promises silently Funny how they forget to tell you This is all you will ever be" it's easy to interpret the song as a commentary on suicide's power to eclipse all of our memories of one's lifetime. Ultimately, there is no literal meaning provided for this tune. We are left t...

Originally released on 1983's Power, Corruption and Lies, this live version of Your Silent Face (from NOMC15) captures the enduring sound of New Order at Brixton Academy in 2015. On their third album, the band embraced synthesizers and romanticism wholeheartedly. They were emerging from the ashes of Joy Division and the more guitar-driven  sound of their first two albums. This song is exemplary of my favorite period of New Order's music -- the threshold of synth pop and post-punk. It's amazing to hear them, nearly 35 years later, performing the song with such vitality.

Winter comes and I think of bands, hunkered down in basements, turning up their amps to survive the bleak weather. As I stroll through the idyllic neighborhoods of my town, I sometimes wonder if the next wave of punk rebellion might be brewing beneath the restless facade of raised ranches and capes. Perhaps this is just the anachronistic dream of a music lover on the verge of a mid-life crisis. Hopefully not. During the early 80s, Minneapolis (a somewhat sleepy town) was home to a thriving underground rock scene that gave birth to acts like The Replacements, The Suburbs, Soul Asylum and a band that named themselves after a board game, Hüsker Dü.  Hüsker Dü has always been the least accessible to me. Their sound was edgier and songs tended to be faster and forelorn. Lately, I've really fallen in love with the group's uncompromisingly original approach to music. Their songs endure in a way that some other bands from this era haven't. Tonight's sonic selection is the...

This song reminds me of rolling aimlessly around the streets of San Diego in the backseat of Mona Rupe's Honda in 1992. Mona was my girlfriend's best friend. She had a license and she had adventurous taste in music. Rides with Mona provided the scenery for her gothic rock soundtrack. Among her cassettes were Peter Murphy "Deep," The Cure "Disintegration," Nine Inch Nails "Pretty Hate Machine," and I think some Sisters of Mercy. I seem to remember that this Love and Rockets song was somewhere in the mix. Maybe we heard it on 91XFM, our local modern rock station that played the hell out of this song. It was never my favorite, but it definitely captures a space and time for me. The opening lyrics are sung by David J in that hushed, serpentine voice, over a perfectly mixed acoustic guitar. He draws you in and keeps you poised anxiously for the entrance of the drums. "You cannot go against nature Because when you do Go against nature It's ...