Finger Blast from the Past: Mixed Tapes

Finger blast, finger blast. Oh! Finger blast from the past. Sorry. Luce, it just seems even more awkward this week because we do have a special guest for this. I don't think it's awkward. It doesn't feel awkward when it's just me and you, but to be honest, talking very much about the finger blast from the past when we actually have somebody else here with us, it does feel a chat on the uncomfortable side. But hello, Ursula Carson.

This is a little snackette, a little snackette that we like to put out in addition to the full pod. And we like to point a little finger at things that have happened in the past. And it is a very quick blast. So there lays finger blasts from the past. And this week we thought that we would dive into the world of like 80s, 90s mixed tapes.

okay because they're not a thing are they and my son this is so i was thinking about this is this my son he had built um he loves guardians of the galaxy have you seen it no so the beginning so okay so chris pratt at the beginning he um he has this proper mixtape that his mum

has made him and then his mum, his mum dies. It's all very tragic, to be honest. It's just, I just, just maybe skip the first hour because it's proper sob fest. But the long and short is he has this mixtape and he has all these absolutely like banging 80s tunes on and we've got my son, um, some of this, um,

into the galaxy lego for christmas and with it there is a lego mixed tape that he so he makes the actual proper cassette tape out of lego and i hadn't realized this and i'd walked into his bedroom and he had it on his shelf and i was like I was like, sweetheart, what is this? I was like, where did you get this cassette from? And he was like, what is a cassette? He was like, that's me Lego. And I was like, and I was having to explain to him what it was. And so, yeah, how good.

Were your mixtapes, Ursula, in the 80s slash 90s? Listen, I can't even tell you the amount of hours I would sit in front of the radio with my fingers paused. on the play and the record thing so that now I'm listening to the radio, you know, when any song would come out from Meatloaf, Whitney, whatever, I'll just be paused, ready. And then as soon as it starts, I would hit play and record so it would record. But then sometimes because my uncle gave me this microphone attached.

to a radio slash cassette player. Oh, my gosh. I know. All the mod cons over there. And I used to, because I couldn't record off the radio, that the radio didn't have a tape player. cassette player didn't have the radio so i'd have to have the microphone and then wait and then hold my fingers you know because you have to press play and record together to get the thing to record and so

And I'm the youngest of three, and my mum would come in and start talking. I'm like, you know, and I'm being raised by an African mum, so you can't just gesture to your mum to shut the fuck up, you know, because then she's got... I'm ready to whack you with it. Four hours for the meatloaf song to come on. And then I start recording with a microphone, you know, and you get so excited you accidentally tap the microphone. It's like me with a podcast.

Sylvie. Time for you to get out of a shower. I can smell you down the passage. so you had you had the double jeopardy the double jeopardy of waiting for because you always had to try again before the bloody dj started speaking so you're the double jeopardy for dj and your mom as well oh yeah otherwise people are going to know when you're selling them on the street corner that you've made it yourself and it's not actually now 42 oh it was do you know what kids are today

they'll never know the struggle they'll never know they'll never understand you almost created like a claw ready right for the record record and play record and play ready to go and that That's six o'clock on a Sunday night. I don't know what time it was where you were, but it used to be Radio 1. Sunday charts. Between four and six, it would be the UK top 40. And you would literally, you wanted to rock in.

for the last hour um so what was so okay so you were a big meatloaf fan what what were the other um the other tunes i was being kind i remember specifically being at my friend's house and waiting for kylie and jason especially for you to come on just so we could also like duet it

The amount of royalties we've done Kylie and Jason out of. I mean, I think they're all right. Maybe not Jason. He's probably struggling. Kylie's probably fine. Yeah, she's doing all right. She's doing all right. I've heard of it. But then, like, we had Belinda Carlisle. I used to love Macy Gray and Tony Childs and Rodriguez. Now, in South Africa, whenever they play Rodriguez, who's Sugarman,

because it was banned in South Africa. So when they played him, it was like the DJ would come on and they'd only play like half the song and then go. immediately play another song over it to kind of go, maybe they wouldn't get busted or whatever. It was just crazy. And then I had two cassettes. of his two albums that was released. And I would immediately break the back part. And this is what people don't understand, because I have cassettes still at home, and I still have VHS.

beta tapes and stuff from you know movies and stuff and i show the kids i go if you don't want anyone to tape over your stuff you've got to break those little things out the bottom so that you can't be called over it so that was the first thing i did There were things at the bottom that you had to push so that you couldn't record over. Little plastic things and you can break them out. And so when you bought your Now 25, at the bottom you'd see there's two little holes in the cassette.

So you couldn't record over it. So if you wanted to record over it, you'd have to chew a piece of paper, stick it in there until it dries, and then you could record over it. You were proper doing the bootleg mixtapes on the road, weren't you? Look at this. Look at this all inside, like Del Boy over here. Oh my God, I never knew this. Back it up a bit and then record right over his voice.

Yeah. I mean, I didn't do that. I didn't do that. I enjoyed a bit of Kylie and Jason, but then as I got a little bit older, my taste became a little bit more eclectic and then I became an absolute geek. So I remember I used to make ones out of the X-Files music. I had the microphone on the recorder so I could, as soon as the TV sat, I could record it. On the TV. That's right. I was next level nerd.

It was amazing. I think that we are kindred spirits, absolute kindred spirits, because nobody else was into that. I also, this is off topic, but I also used to make X-Files jewellery, but I used to try and sell it. god I'm such a loser I used to sell at school do you remember that um uh the Fimo clay Fimo Fimo clay you know stuff that you bake in the oven so I would get that and I would make X-file pendants and then I'd sell them at school for like 20p or something and then I sold quite a few

I was stopped by the teachers. I had some like dodgy business going on. Mulder, I was obsessed with him. Oh my God, David Chacopany. Yes, please. When you say you used to make X-Files mixtapes, you would just stand next to the TV? Yeah, or the radio, because Chris, there was a tune. They actually released the X-Files theme tune as a CD. But then there was the, this could be...

Catatonia. No, no, no, because that was probably too trendy, to be honest. That was like in the charts. That was, yeah. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, and also the sexual tension between Mulder and Scully as well. There was also that as well, just for a little... For my teenage hormones, just couldn't take it, just couldn't take it. Did you guys get jagged that Navy, were they lawyers for the Navy? No. I don't remember. No, I don't know. It was hot. Yeah.

And they were all ridiculously attractive. And then you go, holy shit, how are these people just among us? How are these people naval lawyers? So attractive. Look at that. Look at that dreamboat. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Never watched that, though. Oh, oh, hot. So, question. Obviously, there was the mixtapes that you would make for yourselves. Did you ever... Get a mixtape from a prospective lover. I have a mix CD that I still have and on it is just written mix 17.

that um a guy gave me when i was like 19 years old or 20 years old and it was just sort of in the well i could have been a bit older actually because i think we were still on floppy disk then just when cds came out like when you could literally just burn anything when uh before i knew how to put a stop you know to that and he he made me this mix cd and i still have it

And I have to go – because I don't even have a CD player at home. I have to go borrow a friend who's got an old car so I can listen to these. Yeah. Oh, I would love to know what was on that. I once made a CD for a boyfriend who was – Clearly not as interested in me as I was in them. I remember there was a bit of tension in the relationship and I thought, you know what? I know what's going to fix this.

I'm going to make him a romantic CD. So I made him a love CD and I poured all of my energy into this. And about a week later, he dumped me. So I remember... And I was absolutely psycho fuming. So I drove up to his house and I got and I had the CD that I'd made him in my car.

I don't know why, because maybe he didn't want to. But anyway, I had it. So I went up to his house and I walked up to his front door and I walked in and I just went, and you can have. Hang on, backtrack. You broke into his home.

How did you just walk in through his front door? Was he just in a very relaxed neighborhood? Yeah, well, just in a very relaxed neighborhood. Yeah, his parents weren't there. I knew he was home alone. And I thought, you know what? This is going to be such... dramatic Rachel from Friends moment end of a movie like breakup and then I'm gonna like throw his CD that he clearly didn't want because it was in my car I was the only one listening to it

but I'm going to throw him and then he's going to know it really and that's why he dumped you crazy psycho bitch yeah I used to have a mixtape in my car that was a mixtape that my sister's ex-boyfriend made out because it was absolutely banging. I just took it. He was a DJ on the side. It was called Marv's Magical Tunes.

I really hope they didn't use to have sex to it. I'm now just thinking retrospectively about Marv's magical tunes and what was magical that was also going down between him and my sister. Do you know what? I also think that you would have enjoyed about mixtape, Soph, and I don't know about you, Ezra, but Soph, you would have really enjoyed this. when you got the leaf of the cassette.

case and how you could write all your songs and decorate it and create your very own sort of like your album cover yeah i might make one for steve now might be songs like um can you feed the kids their dinner tonight fucker And do you know where the washing machine is and how much cowpaw you meant to give the kids? I think that's probably going to be, that's all going to be all the greatest hits that I'm going to give to Steve on the next mixtape that I make for him.

Salut, c'est Kevin de chez Colroyd. Coleroyed, meilleur prix. Notre savoir-faire se déguste avec sagesse