This Wednesday marks the third installment of our Artist Mix Tape series that’ll last throughout the next few months. If you’re in a band that’s featured by our guests, and you’d like your song removed, please email us and we’d be happy to take your track down (I’m lookin at you Squeeze XTC Walker Bros, I have a feeling a bunch of these fools are gonna post the shit outta your tracks).

Please welcome Adam Smith: Frontman of Charlottesville’s garage-pop four piece Invisible Hand and drummer for Borrowed Beams of Light . After releasing a series of split 7”s (two of which are available in our store here and here), The Invisible Hand’s self-titled LP finally saw the light of day three months ago. In support of their slew of releases in the latter half of 2010, The Hand is hitting the road for a few weeks in March:

03/04/2011: VA Harrisonburg @Clementine Cafe
03/05/2011: VA Richmond @Strange Matter
03/06/2011: VA Williamsburg @The Meridian
03/07/2011: VA Norfolk @Concrete
03/08/2011: NC Chapel Hill @The Nightlight
03/09/2011: NC Greensboro @Legitimate Business
03/10/2011: NC Charlotte @The Milestone
03/11/2011: GA Athens @Farm 255
03/12/2011: GA Atlanta @The Music Room
03/13/2011: LA  New Orleans @Der Rathskeller
03/15/2011: TX Austin @Beauty Bar (SXSW)
03/16/2011: TX Houston @Super Happy Fun Land
03/17/2011: TX Austin @Spiderland (SXSW)
03/18/2011: TX Austin @Mellow Mushroom Showcase (SXSW)
03/24/2011: TN Knoxville @Pilot Light
03/25/2011: NC Boone @Boone Saloon
03/26/2011: VA Lynchburg @Rivermont Pizza
04/01/2011: VA Harrisonburg @Clementine Cafe (MACRoCk)

Here’s a 14 song mix that’ll probably see some heavy rotation in their van:

http://www.mediafire.com/?buwdjnecfd08tl8

1. Aphrodite’s Child - It’s Five O’Clock
…somewhere… sounds like these children have had a long night of drinking and are now their on their very first walk of shame. It’s so heart wrenching! I really feel for the kids on this one. What better way to start off a mix than with a melodramatic ballad waxing about nostalgia and shit? What a loser this guy must be! But, we’ve all been there. On a purely factual note: Aphrodite’s Child is Vangelis’ first band, who later moved on to produce distinguished soundtracks such as Chariots of Fire.

2. Roky Erickson - Mine, Mine, Mind
Yo, I like this dude. Has he lost his mind or is he a harbinger of things to come? A Line like “eye the devil child’s mind, flash their dagger like teeth in rhyme” could be just finding cool things that rhyme with rhyme OR we could assume he is foretelling
the arrival of Damien…

3. Idle Race - On With The Show
Pre-E.L.O. Thanks Ed Donny Hue for telling Thomas who told me and now I tell you.

4. Tame Impala - Alter Ego
Speaking of contemporary who says I don’t listen to anything beyond 1999? I recently became aware of this group through Guen (the owner of the Charlottesville record store melody supreme). To me it sounds like the hippiest shit ever! Like, bust out your glow sticks, eat some drugs and talk about your feelings kid of jam. It also, oddly, has a chemical brothers feel to it, which I quite dig.

5. Faust - Flashback Caruso
Love this band. Can do no wrong to me. Moon-walking in a garden of sand and “Marshmallows jumping inside a stone of cream” sounds like a blast!

6. Sand - On The Corner
Speaking of sand. This band’s name is sand. What is it with Germans and sand? Another kraut-rock gem unearthed. This album was produced by the lofty composer, Klaus Schulze (of Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra temple fame), who used a technique called “Artificial Head Stereo Sound” wherein the sound is supposed to feel as if it is coming from all around you, a sort of quadraphonic feel, I guess. So, when I listened to this album on headphones for the first time I was immediately struck with paranoia for I had thought that someone was in the room with me! Good job Klaus! You succeeded in scaring the shit out of me.

7. The Walker Brothers - The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore
Let’s bring it back with a little gloomy tune in that “wall of sound” style of yore, this one being sans Phil Spector though. This song particularly strikes me because it paradoxically couples a hopeful, almost anthem like melody with some real sad bastard lyrics.

8. Half Nelson - Saccharin And The War
Proto-Sparks. The Mael brothers have much more of a “psychedelic” sound going on here probably due to peer pressure. Later the group evolved into much more of a dramatic, power-pop force, but to me, this early shit is where it’s at.

9. White Fence - Who Feels Right?
Hey, another band from our era! I don’t really know much about them but it’s a real lashing, hippy crusher with indistinguishable lyrics. Love the ambiguity!

10. Damin Eih, A.L.K. and Brother Clark - Take Off Your Eyes
While we’re on the psychedelic tip, this tune flutters like a nutter butter! Another mind trip “pick up your eyes, lie down in your head” was obviously influenced by grandma’s apple pie and boggle… wild panning makes this track as confusing as it is
peaceful.

11. The Deep - Trip #76
So, this Philadelphia band was the VERY FIRST to use the term “psychedelic” to describe their music in 1966, or so they say…(Blues Magoos being second and Roky Erickson’s Thirteenth Floor Elevators being a close third). But who’s heard of the Deep? Whatever, this band lives up to its genre; good vibes and weird lyrics do the trick for me.

12. The Moles - Breathe Me In
I first heard about this band when I was very young and fell victim to the BMG music club. At the time they had a listing of new bands that sound like they should have been from the sixties. Featuring such heavy weights as: Of Montreal, Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control and…. The Moles! Being a huge Beatles fan, naturally I ate up this section of my monthly music club as it ate up my weekly allowances. But y’know what? I wouldn’t trade that time with you, BMG, for anything. We had something special there…

13. Country Teasers - Panty Shots
Is this Whatever Brains? This track made it to my top ten stalker/creepoid tracks of all time alongside “somebody’s watching me” by Rockwell and Blondie’s “one way or another.” How does front man Ben Waller make that riff sound so menacing?
Happy Valentines Day you freaks!

14. R. Stevie Moore - Goodbye Piano
Goodbye piano… this track is so apropos given my current situation of having a grand piano that I absolutely NEED to get rid of. Does anyone want a piano? It’s not that nice. It’s brown, huge, out of tune and a real son-of-a-bitch to move. Worst decision of 2010 was to think that I could get some use out of it. Owning a piano is not for the transient types.

15. Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air, for electric piano, dumbak & tambourines
Goodbye piano, HELLO ORGAN! If you don’t listen to this track all the way to the end you’re a pussy and need to hit the gym more often.

16. Roxy Music - More Than This
This song speaks for itself

This Wednesday marks the first installment of our Artist Mix Tape series that’ll last throughout the next few months. Get pumped! On that note, if you’re in a band that’s featured in one of our artist’s mixes, and you’d like your song removed, please email us and we’d be happy to take your track down (I’m lookin at you Sparks, I have a feeling a bunch of these fools are gonna post the shit outta your tracks). 

Please welcome Adam Brock and his eclectic itunes library from which he draws inspiration for his catchy power pop anthem brainchild Borrowed Beams of Light. The Beams recently launched a Kickstarter Video to raise money and take pre-orders for their upcoming yet-to-be-titled CD/LP. Hear a track from the Beams’ split 7” with Invisible Hand here, buy released material from The Beams here, and read more about upcoming shows, projects, and the kickstarter at The Beams’ Website or Band Page.

DOWNLOAD THE MIX HERE. (We Transfer).

1.  Madonna of the Wasps - Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians

Rich Ivey, from F/NF affiliated bands Whatever Brains and Order, posted a Robin Hitchcock song on my Facebook page not long ago, and told me it’d be my new jam.  It was once of his real sparse, solo tunes with just piano and guitar and these weird Syd Baretty vocals, but the hook was undeniable.  Since then, I’ve been into some of his more lush, full band stuff—even the late 80’s kinda cheesy ones like this.

2.  Ball and Chain - XTC

At first it sounds like the riff from “Getting Better” from Sgt. Peppers…but then it becomes it own thing…and by the end its almost as good as “Getting Better” from Sgt. Peppers.

3.  Ex-Con - Smog

Some of my favorite lyrics by Bill Callahan here in this gem from Red Apple Falls.  I feel the same way when I put on a tie.

4.  The Morning Sunshine - Idle Race

Those of you who know me probably know my recent obsession with this band.  Its ELO’s Jeff Lynne’s baroque-psych band from the late 60’s and it’s the shit.  This is one of their more subtle numbers.  Those drums are all Native American and that synthy guy is straight Dr. Dre and then there’s Mr. Hawaiian riff thrown in for good measure.  Killin’ it.

5.  Savage Night at the Opera - Destroyer

I was listening to Destroyer while y’all was a glint in the mailman’s eye.  The new record is as good as it gets.  “Set the loop and then go wild!”

6.  The Way I Feel Inside - The Zombies

I think this is from that Zombie Heaven compilation, though I can’t recall for sure.  Holy crap.  You could spread that voice on your toast.

7.  Five Day Morning - The Clientele

Someone put this on a mix for me a while back and I thought it was some band from the 60’s that I somehow missed when I spent two years scouring the epoch for this sound.  I’ve since been a fan of the band’s whole catalogue, but it doesn’t get any better than this jam, the first of their’s I heard.

8. Come On Sister - Belle and Sebastian

It’s the new joint.  That keyboard is the jam.  Who is that fella?  Mr. Farfisa?  Madame Juno.  Casio??? Anybody know? 

9.  Tinkertoy Tomorrow - Milk ‘n’ Cookies

My buddy Thomas (Order, Invisible Hand) got this jam from some power pop blog…and boy, that’s what it is alright—POWERPOP!!!!   It’s so Quick it’s probably produced by one of those dudes.  Or the dude from Sparks who produced the Quick.  Actually I think somebody told me it was.

10.  Shut Out  - The Walker Brothers

Man this shit is wild.  I’ve actually been really digging the cheesier, avant-garde lounge stylings of earlier Scott Walker (which comes at the end of this mix actually…)  But I’m drawn to that BIZARRE vocal harmony like that dude Yanosh, Sigourney Weaver’s boss in Ghostbusters 2, is drawn to that evil painting of Vlad the Baby Killer or whoever the fuck that was.

11.  The Best of It - Thorinshield

This one of those rare finds my buddy Jason came across when he bought a Lot of records for like 50 bucks…It was 99% trash and then we found this one.  It’s become a favorite late 60’s, Zombies-esque psych R&B jam of mine.  And I’ve only ever seen one other copy of the record in my life.  $50 on the wall of fame at Academy Records in Brooklyn.

12.  As I Recall It - Donovan

Yeah, it’s Donovan.  Deal with it.  And I think this version might be kinda shitty like a bad conversion or something…But that’s cool, cuz chances are your vinyl copy of Hurdy Gurdy man is real beat to shit like everybody elses.  #dollarbin

13.  Academy Fight Song -  Mission Of Burma

This is only on here to win you back after that Walker Bros, Thorinshield, Donovan tangent.  Welcome back.  Oh yeah, here’s some more weird cheesy shit.

14.  Funeral Tango - Scott Walker

Thanks for bearing with me.  Regardless of how you feel about this song, do yourself a favor and watch 30th Century Man…the Scott Walker documentary that came out recently.  It’s on Netflix Instant Watch.  It’s fabulous.  Thanks for listening.