Alethia
1: Basket Case – Green Day – For my best friend’s 12th birthday, when i was 11, her dad got her this album and Mariah Carey’s Daydream. This is the turning point, I think.
2: Just A Girl – No Doubt – I still fucking love this band. If anybody wants to come hang out and play the entire Singles album on rockband, let me know. I can ace that shit on expert.
3: Istanbul (Not Constantinople) – They Might Be Giants – Said best friend’s friends were burn-out skater kids that I wasn’t cool enough to hang out with. They all loved TMBG and I got into them as a way to impress them (it didn’t work). I remember laying on the BFFs super cool WATERBED with all her blacklights on listening to Flood and staring at the glow in the dark posters/stars all over her room. Sober.
4: Don’t Touch My Bikini – The Halo Benders – You grow up in Olympia and you like spock rock before you are legally able to drive. Thats just how it is. This was also a good one for the crucial waterbed hangs.
5: Summer of 69 – Mxpx – I had a 60 min tape that had The Return of the Aquabats on one and a half sides, and the second half of side B was my favorite songs off ‘On The Cover’. I would like to pretend that I was never a thrift-store “punk” girl with pink and black hair and a ton of MxPx shirts … but I totally was.
6: She’s In The Bathroom – Atom + His Package – For my 16th birthday, my mom took me and the BFF and her boyfriend to Red Robin in Olympia and an Atom and his Package CD was my only gift.
7: You’re No Rock N’ Roll Fun – Sleater-Kinney – My mom had a radio show at KAOS in at Evergreen State College, and I would often go with her and spend a few hours buried in the music library making mix tapes of songs I randomly came across. This is how I discovered the Groovie Ghoulies, the Go Nuts, Less Than Jake, etc. This has always been my favorite SK song (and is also my favorite rockband jam!).
8: Weather’s Here, Wish You Were Beautiful – The Benjamins – The story of “Alithea’s First Teenage Love” involves the following things: Seeing this band open for RBF in 2001, Livejournal and a dude from Milwaukee. I’ll let you fill in the blanks.
9: Close to Me – The Get Up Kids- Can we just talk about how all GUK covers are AWESOME? Beer for Breakfast? That shit is my JAM!
10: Watermark – The Weakerthans – I got a Sub City/Hopeless comp because it had Mustard Plug on it (boo). This song was also on it and I pretty much fell in love with the Weakerthans right then and there. Somebody out there has a tattoo of a teacup with the word ‘grace’ as a, like, friend tattoo for me inspired by the “little cups of grace” line in the song.
11: Cricket – Dance Hall Crashers – First serious teenage boyf, as mentioned above, learned this song on guitar for me knowing I loved DHC. Also my yearbook page my senior year just had some random lyrics to this song written on black paper in white out. Pretty artsy, dudes.
12: Bite My Tounge – The Ataris – Love U Pop Punk. (Also, when i was 14 I saw MxPx with the Ataris in Olympia and my best friend told me it was Atari Teenage Riot so I spent like, 3 years thinking that I saw Atari Teenage Riot open for MxPx in Olympia and that they were awesome. Woops!)
13: Everybody’s Better – The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – Official song of the Summer After Highschool. Also, Jackknife to a Swan is the best Bosstones album. Just FYI.
14: Point/Counterpoint – Streetlight Manifesto – When I moved to Chicago, I had a going away party and my friend Dustin (Hey Dustin!) gave me a copy of this record, which I listened to pretty much the whole drive to Chicago. I now have some of these lyrics tattood on the inside of my arm.
15: Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone? – Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – This was on a Mix made for me by an ex boyfriend, my first introduction to TL/RX. As a huge fan of power pop and ska, this is the ultimate song.
16: Nothing Better – The Postal Service – I listened to nothing but the Postal Service for pretty much the whole time I lived in Chicago.
17: Yes! – The Divorce – This is to commemorate a time in my life where I worked at The End with Nouela, spent too much time at the Egg Room and saw The Divorce once a week.
18: This Is How We Know – The Thermals – No explanation. It just rules really hard and it was on every mix I made for all of 2007.
19: Please Forgive Me – Westbound Train – I love this band. Also, one time I got OBLITERATED at the (nearly empty) Beauty Bar in NYC and sang ‘Rebel Girl’ by Bikini Kill to them and members of Mephiskapheles and The Toasters.
20: La Familia (Remix by Guy Sigsworth) – Mirah – Love Mirah, love this remix. Listened to it a lot during a shitty time in my life when I was trying to find my footing.
21: Times A Wastin – The Fuller Brothers – Official song of Emerald City Soul Club? This is Nipper’s jam.
22: This Is How You Spell “HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics” – Los Campesinos! – Official song of last summer (and maybe this summer too?).
23: Glory – Television – I currently spend 9+ hours a day working retail. This is my favorite song to put on and I wish every song was as awesome as it is.
Unintentional Omissions: Aquabats, RBF, Goldfinger.
Intentional Omissions: The Red Elvises. I couldn’t even listen to them long enough figure out where it belonged on the mix. They were my favorite band when I was 14 and I was named their FAN OF THE MONTH once which you can read all about here: http://fanclub.redelvises.net/0211/opinion.html
Download here:https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/843711/autobiographical%20mix.zip
