I started my April Mixtape for Kim with “Back to Nowhere,” the title track by the band UV-TV. I’d never heard of UV-TV before despite this being their third album. It was on a list of best new songs and the reviewer mentioned the opening riff reminded them of the opening of the Cult’s “She Sells Sanctuary.” Yeah, I can see that… But as soon lead singer Rose Vastola’s melodic voice joins the jangling lead guitar all comparisons to the Cult fade away and it’s just a great pop track.

Many moons ago my friend Kim and I were talking about music and she mentioned she had a hard time finding new music. I responded that I love finding new music and I’ll put together a mixtape of new music for her. Mix tape, not a playlist, thank you very much. Am I dubbing things to a tape like I did growing up? No, no I am not. But I maintain this is the spiritual successor to the mix tape and wholly different than a playlist. There’s more cohesion – a through-line if you will – to a mixtape where a playlist is just a collection of songs. Sure, you could make a playlist with the kind of attention to order and linear listenability (and, okay, that’s what I’m doing), but the majority of playlists, I maintain, have little in common with mixtapes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

But I digress… Okay, look, obviously I’m a little passionate about the subject, but suffice it to say, I put together a mixtape for Kim (I might have even burned it to a disc…) back in November 2009 and since then I’ve put together a mixtape every month, rarely missing a month. Kim lost interest a few years later – life, you know? – but I still put the mixtape together. By that point it had become a mental exercise for me even if I was the only person paying attention.

My criteria has coalesced a bit: about an hour worth of music (sticking to how much I could burn onto a CD), trying to get music from that month or, failing that, that year. Exceptions happened because, hey, it’s my mixtape! There were a few theme collections, like the November 2011 addendum mixtape of tracks I heard on French MTV during a business trip to Switzerland. Or the Christmas music addendum in December of 2014. But by and large the mixtapes drew from whatever 14-16 new tracks struck my fancy in a given month.

All of this, however, ground to an unceremonious halt during lockdown. March was pretty much already in the can when things went pear shaped. April is complete, but I remember it being a real effort to get together. I didn’t even try in May. I rallied over the summer, but by September I was coming apart. There’s drips and drags in October and November, and a few songs across January, February of 2021…

I wasn’t writing much during that time either. Despite the extra time at home, the uninterrupted periods of time in my head, I couldn’t manage to put together stories or, well, Selfie entries or, really, anything.

I was talking with Akilah about this, about how my creativity just shriveled up during the pandemic and I didn’t really understand why. She countered with all the projects I did. She was right (of course). Yes, I did jump on the sour dough band wagon (again, RIP Tina) but also fermented ginger beer! I built an organizer for my kitchen and coffee tools. I built three mobile work tables, and modified a coffee table to be more mobile and useable. I built a bar cart that tucks under a kitchen cabinet, and I built and installed a shelf to display growlers. I’m sure there’s things I’m missing because in that regard I was quite prolific.

But I didn’t write. And I didn’t put together my mixtapes.

The fourth track on April’s Mixtape, “Family Van” by the band cleopatrick, opens with Luke Gruntz playing a fuzzed out alternating guitar riff and talking about when another band ripped off one of their songs. But thirteen seconds in, a kickdrum snare rhythm bursts in and gives order and drive to what started as a loose sonic rant. A little bass guitar dips in approaching thirty seconds providing another bit of structure before the whole thing blossoms into a thrumming punk jam that has elements of late 90’s pop-punk but definitely with a hip-hop vibe to the whole thing. It’s not a track I necessarily would have gravitated to except for the structure the rhythm section brings.

Structure. That’s the thing that fell apart during the pandemic. A giant existential threat to all the routines we’ve developed over the years of our lives. An invisible, silent killer that could strike if you didn’t wash your groceries — I kid, but you remember that whole thing early on about how we were supposed to do that, right? We didn’t know! We still don’t know everything, but it feels like we’ve come lightyears from where we were last year.

Luke Gruntz’s guitar and lyrics wouldn’t go anywhere without those drums and bass and without the drum and bass propulsion of my day-to-day, the esoteric, open-ended creativity behind my writing failed me, as did the drive to collect music from varied sources.

A writer whose newsletter is always a welcome Friday joy, Austin Kleon, described it recently by saying, “I’m not languishing, I’m dormant.Like a plant. Or a volcano.” He adds, “I’m waiting to be activated.”

The second to last track on the mixtape is “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” a cover of the Dolly Parton song by Waxahatchee from an extended version of “Saint Cloud.” That album originally came out in March of 2020 and sustained me well into the summer – into my dormancy. Dolly’s version came out in 1977, and there’s a particularly haunting acapella version by the Wailin’ Jennys that came out just four years ago. But Katie Crutchfield’s plaintive voice singing, “’Cause I can see the light of a clear blue morning/ I can see the light of a brand new day/ Oh, and everything’s gonna be all right/ It’s gonna be okay,” has a special gravity in April 2021.

I finished my mixtape for April. I’ve started regularly updating this blog. I also built a stand for my amps last month. I can see the light of a brand new day, and it’s gonna be okay.

PS: All the above links are to Spotify. If you’re anti-Spotify I apologize, it was out of convenience.

PPS: You didn’t think I wouldn’t put a link to the complete playlist here, did you? I should mention, this is the first playlist done exclusively in Spotify. That in and of itself is a major change for me, and I’m still getting my sea legs in this new paradigm. But, you know, it’s gonna be okay…