This is the end of the line my friends. “The End”. I felt this was a fitting tape to use as the final passage of this project.

I made this tape for a special group of friends during the summer of 2015. It was created to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of a very special night in 2005 where we all got blacked out drunk and saw Thor perform at a small movie theater here in Boston. In a lot of ways, that night represented the pinnacle of our camaraderie, and as with many bonds of youth that burn too bright, you never anticipate the crash and fallout that inevitably follows these moments of god-like feelings.

At a running time of 30 minutes (15 minutes per side), this tape is a short, sharp, sonic journey through an era long passed. Every song has specific meaning in the context of our friendship, a soggy memory attached to each one. I’m confident the secret messages coded here on this tape can still be deciphered by all the original recipients to this current day.

I realize the human concept of “The End” is really just another mental trap we set for ourselves. I am the King of Nostalgia, hanging on to the past and refusing to let go. I set these traps for myself every day of my life. Maybe that is why I still have all these tapes piled up at my house along with all the other countless memento mori that I have acquired over the past 36 years. But the boundaries of “The End” and its finality reach only as far as we allow them to set. Life goes on. New things bloom and others pass. Memories live on, both good and bad. We all know this yet we still struggle to fully operate accordingly. Such is the human condition.

If there is one message I would like people to take away from this project is that there is absolutely no substitute for the analog world. Every moment we spend here in our digital torpor is a moment less we have in the tangible existence.

Get off your phone, get off your computer, and go make a fucking tape for your friends.

THE END.

There’s a storm coming, but you aren’t afraid. Your body is a fortress of flesh, and while it may leak water from the ceilings, the physical world cannot touch your spiritual temple. Corrupt souls surround us, poisoned by their pride and confined by their cowardice. But we feel content in knowing that this outcome is unavoidable, that we deserve whatever comes next be it good or bad. So we sip our drinks and calmly await the violent clouds approaching. Acceptance. Rest easy knowing the seeds of hope we planted deep in the earth are safe, preserving the promise of reconstruction once this all has passed.

Get in touch with your inner child. Play in the dirt and giggle at clowns. Throw a tantrum and scream at your parents. Revel in angst and jive in pop appeal. All the colors of the rainbow taste delicious as shit and if you are too fussy to appreciate a single flavor on our Earth’s eclectic platter you are only cheating yourself. Open your damn mind by any means necessary and you will realize the answers to all of life’s biggest questions are right in front of you.

Love cats? Hate Nazis? Well, here we have a pro-feline, anti-fascist mix tape chock full of classics from your favorite artists, celebrating the age-old tradition of recounting the WWII era and the many global complexities left in the aftermath of it all. Originally packaged with homemade vegan cookies that I consumed upon receiving the tape 8 years ago.

Banish the darkness in your heart with a case of lite beer and some fuckin grooves. Squeeze into your tightest pants and hump the couch while you blast this party, which careens from punk to dirty metal to sleazy AoR. Finishes of with some of the most uplifting shit.

While on the surface this may seem like a tape containing nauseating romantic schlock you would hear at a dentist office in the late 80s, it is in fact a banging mixtape jam packed with heavy hitters, full of fury and contempt. A sleeper cell of crusty classics contained within a repurposed thrift store cassette shell. The tracklisting is scrawled on stolen USPS property and slapped on the inner sleeve. Utilitarian, straight to the point and enjoyable from start to finish. A celebration of truly not giving a single fuck! A celebration of Caandaxe!

A day with nothing to do, so you go to a vacant lot to watch grass grow through cracks in the asphalt. You get that feeling of wondering about all the cool or uncool stuff that maybe went on or still goes on in this little-visited, crumbling ruin. People sleeping rough, or doing drugs, maybe teenagers partying. No one's here now, but it feels like just maybe life could be as cool and mysterious as the movies.

A weird, meandering trip to some strange places. You're excited to start out, but things get fouled up fast and by the end of Side A you're terribly confused to have ended up on popular radio circa 2009. Side B lets you know that the problem was that the handful of mushrooms you choked down 40 minutes ago was maybe a little too much, and now you're in a kind-of-pretty-kind-of-frightening woodland trip, like that freaky scene in The Bear and you're the baby bear.

Since this will be the last post for a while, I wanted to end on a positive note. This is a tape that someone made for me in April of 2007. She has made me many tapes since, but I felt this was an apt tape to share today.

Like a movie with the soundtrack running in reverse. Never knowing where the story begins or ends. Play it forwards, play it backwards, it doesn’t deter the Kängnäve flow. It doesn’t change the fact that this tape will inevitably put a stupid smirk on your uncouth face. So tuck it back my friend, and dance like nobody’s watching.

Wimps and posers leave the hall. Go back to your faux-tastemakers’ playlists on Youtube. But for all you true people who are down to fuck: we welcome you to the freak party with open arms.

It’s a warm summer evening, you pop this tape in the boombox and set out for a night of wandering around the neighborhood with your mates. After several warm cans of Colt 45 and a toot of Adderall, you ascend a stone cliff overlooking a vacant lot. It is littered with trash. Smashed televisions and broken beer bottles glisten in the yellow hue illuminating from the street lights. Shattered trophies from nights of lore. You feel on top of the fucking world, so confident in all you do. So blind to see that this youthful arrogance will soon come crashing down on your head. Until then, kick it into high gear and don’t look back. Full speed ahead motherfucker we’re the MHP and we don’t care!

Let this musical mix of Iberian variety serve as a soundtrack to your Easter holiday. Remember the good times with friends drinking kalimotxo and munching on Catalan cheese in the mountains. Remain focussed on the many more good times to come once this virus dust settles. ¡Hasta luego tio y salud!

Another bright sunshine, positive mood tape. Unselfconscious corniness as you drive around and eat hot dogs and ice cream. Your shorts are real short, and it is all hanging out.

Last month’s meatloaf leftovers, wrapped in foil and placed into the microwave (on high) for 60 seconds. Fungus dies as sparks fly, but the heat purifies your blessed feast. Soak it in ketchup to help soften the encrusted ball of flesh. Your bowels will thank you for the inevitable tarry purge that will follow this meal. With friends like these, who needs enemas?

Fever dream vibes. Like being hopelessly entangled in sweaty sheets, sinking into a claustrophobic panic. You're listening to what people are saying but it doesn't make any sense, and it’s all just feels like a bunch of unsettling non-sequiturs.

Remember that scene in Repo Man where Otto and his friends are all hanging out in a parking lot, drinking BEER and thrashing about themselves while blasting the Circle Jerks’ “Coup D'Etat” on a boombox? Well, very few people know this, but after that song finishes this fucker was the next tape on deck for the evening. Boneheaded to the bone with a dash of Dad’s ‘NamRock for sophistication.

Is acceptance the same as giving up? Is it merely a human response to the overwhelmingly averse situations we face? Is it truly “surrender” when we bow to the seemingly inevitable? Or is it somehow an ass-backwards opportunity for self-empowerment? A cosmic challenge to defy the odds.

You’ve almost made it through another week in this topsy turvy world and I am certain this one will help keep you pushing through to the end.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m proud to share with you the greatest mix tape you’ve never heard.

You are trapped in a mountain cabin with your European lover. It’s snowing outside and all roads are closed. It’s their birthday, but you’ve no access to fancy dining or any sort of luxury to elevate the evening. All you have is 2 bottles of French Malbec, a bag of potato chips and this tape to guide you through the many mood swings that will inevitably materialize before the night is over. Your musical puberty has begun. Keep drinking and keep on rocking until you pass out from exhaustion. In the morning you shall awake as a fully-blossomed adult ready for another year. Never forget where you came from.

Hold your cards close to your chest. Reveal just enough to casually flex your taste with a sly wink of the eye to ensure the game is all in good fun. There are no losers, only missed opportunities in the time that passes agonizingly slow. The hardest part is just about over, or so you think. Brace yourself for the descent down one of the many crests you will have to overcome in this life. Remain eternally grateful knowing you won’t go it alone.