Or, America: Fuck Yeah

Jimi Hendrix – “Star-Spangled Banner > Purple Haze” [Live]
Marvin Gaye – “The National Anthem” [Live]
The Impressions – “This Is My Country”
Chuck Berry – “Promised Land” [Single Version]
Grateful Dead – “U.S. Blues” [Live]
Woody Guthrie – “This Land Is Your Land”
Elton John – “Philadelphia Freedom”
Elliott Smith – “Independence Day”
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – [...]

This month’s mixtape is Part Two of our “Best of the Bay Area” mix that we started last month (find Part One here). We had set out to make a single mix that encapsulated the local scene, but there’s just too much depth of talent in San Francisco to reduce down to an 80-minute primer. [...]

We decided to change things up for this month’s mix. Instead of working around a theme (Christmas, Harmony, etc.), we’re highlighting some of the best artists from San Francisco and the greater Bay Area.
After pouring through our local music collection, we came up with so much good music that we quickly realized that it’d be [...]

I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas music. I genuinely love it, but there are rules. First, I’m a big Grinch about playing Christmas music early. I’m stricter than most people on this issue, but can’t we all agree that Thanksgiving is the absolute earliest date to break out the sleigh bells?
There is also too [...]

One of the things that I love most about music (and art in general, I guess) is that everyone appreciates it in their own way. Ten people can have the same favorite song, album or band and love them for completely different reasons. Be it lyrics, rhythm, melody, harmony, style or something else, people are [...]

I’m posting the September installment of our monthly mixtape project right at the last minute, with a whopping 5 hours left in the month. The inspiration for this month is a genre that we give very little attention to at Stranger Dance: bluegrass.
One of my best friends just moved to southwestern Kentucky, so this was [...]

Here’s an old mix that I made for a friend. It started out as an introduction to Alt Country, but turned into more of a mood mix than anything. It’s still one of my favorite mixes that I’ve made.
It’s got some pretty sad bastard material on it, but I don’t think of it as depressing [...]

Here’s one for the weekend. Everyone loves a good mixtape, and everyone loves a good cover song, so here’s a mix I made of some of my favorite cover tunes.
The mix spans a good deal of genres (R&B, country, reggae, folk, bluegrass) and artists – from relative unknowns (Clem Snide) to legends (Ray Charles, Aretha [...]