Cassettes & Chocolate Milk

Mix Tape #2: El's First Driving Tape
Genre: New Wave/Britpop/Automatic
Date: January 2005

I'm not sure when it started, but I've always been seduced by the idea of driving around, late at night, with the one you love. I'm sure my irreverent new wave penchant had something to do with it. How could it not? Practically every third song is entitled Behind the Wheel and details getting hit with a double decker bus. Romanticism aside, at 19 years young, I was determined to get my license and make my soundtrack.

Since my parents refused (and refuse) to get in the same car as me, I was left to have driving lessons. Of course, my first driving lesson was booked on the morning following the single most drunken, debaucherous party of my life. Unkempt and still drunk, I wasn't so much terrified of crashing the car as I was getting breathalised. Has that happened before? Has anyone ever been breathalised in a learner car?

I found the lessons so incredibly infuriating. I got told off for really silly things like "not staring at the mountains in the distance". Soon, I couldn't take any more of it and I applied for my test. Quite similarly to the I-shouldn't-be-doing-law-because-they-accidentally-overenrolled debarcle, I should admit publically that I shouldn't have obtained my license. In fact, the test instructor beeped me within a minute of the test commencing. After my panic attack, I managed to get my license somehow.. and that is the story of how a silly lass like myself took over the roads of Melbourne in a 1978 Yellow Tank. With my best friend Laur in the back included.

So what happened next? Did I indulge in midnight jaunts in the belief that this night can last forever, if we fall in love?

Well, sort of.

I made this tape instead. This tape doesn't so much personify all those old new wave ideals, but it signifies a time and place where all was full of love. I was in love with everything that was coming out of Britain at this time. I was in love with my radio show, Music is My Radar: a venture which allowed me to interview musicians I adore. This was a time when Bloc Party's Silent Alarm hadn't been released. Arctic Monkeys were unsigned at this stage. The Departure were nevertheless inauthentic. It was a time when the music awesome and it was all mine. Then the bandwagon came to Australia and the tape player broke in my car...

Playlist of Mix tape #2: El's First Driving Tape
Side 1:
1. The Futureheads - Hounds of Love (2004)
2. Bloc Party - Little Thoughts (2004)
3. The Departure - All Mapped Out (2004)
4. Arctic Monkeys - Scummy (2004)
5. New Order - Temptation (1982)
6. Moloko - The Time is Now (1999)
7. Milli Vanilli - Is It Love? (1989)
8. Interpol - Slow Hands (2004)
9. Morrissey - You're The One For Me Fatty (1992)

Download Side 1

Side 2:
1. Franz Ferdinand - Tell Her Tonight (2004)
2. The Faint - Southern Belles in London Sing (2004)
3. Cause and Effect - Nothing Comes to Mind (1990)
4. The Postal Service - Nothing Better (2003)
5. Bloc Party - Skeleton (2004)
6. Guster - So Long (1999)
7. The Dears - Warm and Sunny Days (2004)
8. Stroke 9 - Make it Last (1999)
9. Queen - Dear Friends (1974)

Download Side 2