Geekscape Mixtape: My Fall Semester 2001 Mix
Across the globe, high school graduates are being dropped off at colleges and universities, unpacking their dopp kits and finding out who in their hall has a car. It’s a tale as old as time. I too was once an impressionable young adult, hungry for knowledge (and keg stands).
If you haven’t noticed by now, I’m quite the nostalgia junkie, so let’s jump in the DeLorean and head back to September 2001, the beginning of my college career. In addition to expanding my mind in the classroom and realizing my severe lack of game in regards to women, I also spent an impressive amount of free time on Audiogalaxy, PureVolume and LimeWire looking for new bands. My junior high and high school experiences as a sometimes punk kid (as punk as you can be in the rural Midwest) had given me a strong foundation of bands to seek out, but these new technologies were far more effective at collecting new music than my older techniques; these included asking the most alternative-looking person at the record store and scouring the CD racks for interesting cover art. It was primitive, but in my defense, I found my all-time favorite punk album that way (AFI – Black Sails in the Sunset) – purchased without hearing a single song and with no knowledge of anything the band had previously released, based solely on the sweet woodcut ship on the front. And maybe song titles like Malleus Maleficarum and Porphyria Tarda Cutanea.
Anyway, the fall of 2001 was a great time for me musically. I was up to my ears – literally! – in new stuff to listen to, and since this was a time before iPods and Zunes were in heavy circulation, I made a mix CD with some of my favorite songs of the time. Below is an annotated list of the tracks that were found on it, with a YouTube playlist of the whole thing at the bottom. Sit back, grab a can of Beast and enjoy the ride.
SIDE 1: Love, somewhat requited
September 2001 was probably one of the best month’s of my music-listening life thus far, as I was introduced to many of my favorite bands, including The Stereo, No Use For a Name, The Starting Line, and The Smoking Popes. The first section of my mix CD was full of sappy love songs and a couple of tracks reflecting my fears of being alone forever. Predictably, my high school relationship fell apart almost as soon as I left for college, and 19-year-old me was convinced my life was over. Thankfully, I didn’t flunk out (my roommate did though) or dip my oil stick in any strange engines (my hallmates did though).
The Stereo – Devotion
Ace Troubleshooter – Denise
Game Face – My Star
One Man Army – Last Word Spoken
No Use For a Name – Why Doesn’t Anybody Like Me?
The Starting Line – Three’s a Charm
Sugarcult – Saying Goodbye
New Found Glory – Heaven
* it’s worth noting that I was already an NFG fan in high school, and had some material by Me First as well, but finding out about Punk Goes Metal and the rest of the Me First discography was awesome.
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes – Wild World
SIDE 2: Keeping that frown upside-down
Enough of that happy crap, let’s feel bad about ourselves for a while. Again, I was already an Alkaline Trio, Saves the Day and Ataris fan, but found all this other music I never knew they had released. The Blink-182 song was one of the 6 bonus tracks, which I collected after enjoying Take Off Your Pants and Jacket all summer. While not the last song on the list, Pretty Pathetic is still one of my favorite songs ever. It so perfectly encapsulates the poor me, self-deprecating mindset I sported at the time (and sometimes still do, for better or worse).
Strung Out – Ultimate Devotion
Shai Hulud – Eating Bullets of Acceptance
As Friends Rust – The First Song on the Tape You Make Her
Osker – Disconnect, Disconnect
Smoking Popes – Pretty Pathetic
Saves the Day – This Is Not An Exit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo-uQtH94Zw
Dashboard Confessional – Again I Go Unnoticed
The Ataris – Looking Back on Today
Blink-182 – What Went Wrong
Alkaline Trio – Sorry About That
There are also 3 missing tracks that I couldn’t find on YouTube – two from a band called Sundaze, and one mystery band I’ve never been able to figure out. Sundaze actually grew into As Tall As Lions, and it seems that they did their best to scrub their previous iteration from the Internet’s collective memory. They also denied that they were in said band when I asked them at Warped Tour 2004, so there’s that.
Here is the full playlist if you want to experience this particular month in my musical history at some later point.
What about you, is there a song or group of songs that take you back to your college experience? Share links in the comments below!
