Someone hit my car in a parking lot (he left a note), so it’s been in the shop for a week. The dealer’s loaner is lacking, stereo-wise; there’s no SiriusXM and not even an AUX input plug. After three whole days of thinking “broadcast radio is not cutting it,” I realized that even without being able to plug in my iPhone, there was a way to listen to music in this car. On CD. That means that somehow the old, hard-copy method of listening to music in cars did not register for a full 72 hours.
Strip club music plays from a computer now, unless you’re in a little bar with a jukebox or a stereo with an iPod jack (hello, Portland). If the club allows dancers any control over the music, the DJ will either download requests or rip them from iPods/phones/flash drives. So it’s rare now to see a dancer bring CDs to work. Until relatively recently the ones with a particular interest in what they danced to while on stage would regularly haul their CD cases up to the DJ booth every shift, though.
One of my old work booklets sits in a desk drawer because there are still two clubs I travel to where it’s useful. While looking through it for something to listen to in the car, I found the very first CD I ever burned. A smart CompUSA salesguy talked me into buying an external Iomega CD burner for my iMac (2001!) instead of a Zip drive. This is the actual CD that came with it, and a playlist of what I thought I’d like to hear at work (meaning I found it tolerable and it wouldn’t horrify customers), probably made and burned with Roxio Toast.
This Freelance Hellraiser track is the first mashup I remember hearing and possibly the first thing I had to download because I couldn’t find it elsewhere.
[audio:https://titsandsass.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/01-A-Stroke-of-Genie-us.mp3|titles=”A Stroke of Genie-Us”|artists=Freelance Hellraiser]Wonderland by the Charlatans was a serious workhorse for me in 2001. This song still pops up in my work playlists from time to time.
[audio:https://titsandsass.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/01-Youre-So-Pretty-Were-So-Pretty.mp3|titles=”You’re So Pretty—We’re So Pretty”|artists=The Charlatans]The Super Furry Animals put out Rings Around the World in 2001 and for my birthday that year I was given a trip to London to see them play in surround sound. “Smokin'” was the only song of theirs that the titty bar DJs I worked with weren’t confused by.
[audio:https://titsandsass.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/08-Smokin.mp3|titles=”Smokin'”|artists=Super Furry Animals]What’s MC Solaar up to today? And how the hell do you not play a French MC rapping over a Serge Gainsbourg sample at the strip club?
[audio:https://titsandsass.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/03-Nouveau-Western.mp3|titles=”Nouveau Western”|artists=MC Solaar]As for the rest of the tracks, well, the Strokes are still around, huh? During SXSW 2001 I bailed out of the line to see them because of severe anxiety/panic attacks (which also chased me out of a large venue before the Soft Boys played, and that is part of why I am attached to my Wellbutrin, because thinking you are going to die every time you are at a rock show is no way to live, and also confusing in a mind-exploding way when you regularly dance naked in front of people with no such anxiety). Those Pixies songs are on there because after Fight Club used “Where Is My Mind” they became recognizable in the strip club. Those Tricky tracks should have automatically been on every strip club computer everywhere. Listening to Spoon’s “Anything You Want” is a reminder that in 2001, eight years into it, they were just getting started, and that Sound Exchange was still open. It was the first place I went when UT classes stopped on 9/11.
If anyone reading wants to contribute classic work mix CDs, please speak up. I’d love to see what your playlists from 5-10-15 years ago look like.
The spin-doctor’s mix 🙂 Awesome.
Sound Exchange!!!! You sly dog! Thank you for mentioning it!!!
MC Solaar is doing well. His later work is even better and his older work, as you already know, just gets better. That would be a mad sexy track to dance to. I saw him get booed off a stage a few years ago when he made a cameo at a more gangsta show. Sort of a French revolution moment. The people were too angry to party anymore. But years later they’ve gotten over it and he is embraced as the grande dame of French rap. Great set list!