This isn’t a competition. It’s a collaboration.
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FIRSTLY, IN ORDER TO TUNE-IN TO
Mix Tape Radio on Moun.Town/Radio
Just press the ‘PLAY’ button on MTR - SIDE A below:
*warning: sometimes there’s naughty language*Or press UP NEXT to choose a different starting mix ↑ THAT’S IT.
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Ok, BUT HOW DO I KNOW IF PUSHING THAT ‘PLAY’ BUTTON IS THE RIGHT MOVE FOR ME RIGHT NOW (WITHOUT JUST PUSHING IT AND SEEING IF I’m intrigued by WHAT I’M listening to)?
Well, if you’re the kind of person who would like to be able to press play on something once & then have a thoughtfully curated soundtrack set for the rest of a big chunk of your day (or small chunks every now & again) — y’know, so you can focus on non-music choosing distractions like staring out the window & pretending to work or tidying up the place instead of that thing you’re supposed to get done — well, with Mix Tape Radio on Moun.Town/Radio, you can now consider yourself set for the rest of a big chunk of your small chunk days.
How is it possible? Well, the embedded MTR - SIDE A player above is filled with 54 handcrafted mix tapes that run for over 24hrs straight, one human-made mix tape after the other. And the MTR - SIDE A mix tape selection gets updated EVERY Wednesday-ish with a new/old digital mixtape put at the front—SO—pressing ‘play’ on that little Mix Tape Radio player above is basically like tuning into a radio station that just plays handmade digital mixtapes and mix cds all dang day long. Aka a ‘Mix Tape Radio’ which also functions as a ‘Mountain Town Radio’ (because I live in a mountain town) which can also be thought of as a thing called Moun.Town/Radio if you just use your imagination (and internet connection) a little bit differently. Hence the NPR sounding MTR acronym.
Does that sound like something you might like?
Well, scroll back up and hit play on MTR - SIDE A ↑ — or:
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OR MAYBE YOU’D BE INTERESTED IN
MTR - SIDE B
If so, just press the ‘PLAY’ button below:
*warning: sometimes there’s naughty language*Or press UP NEXT to choose a different starting mix ↑ THAT’S IT.
YOU’RE NOW TUNED IN to
Mix Tape Radio on Moun.Town/Radio
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BUT, IF YOU WANT MORE:
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YOU CAN ALSO JUST CHECK OUT EPISODES INDIVIDUALLY (WITH TRACK LISTING / LINKS / MORE ) on hI54.BLOg:
And there’s quite a lot of them to check out:
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So here’s some more context
Actual picture of an actual mix tape radio player (not actual size).
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For quite a long time, spread across the years with gaps of sporadic consistency, I was posting different versions of a digital mix tapes series called ‘The Mix Tape Radio Show’, a show that has had a few different iterations and cover art styles (perhaps something that will be expanded on when looking for blahg ideas to recycle/repurpose), BUT, after hitting episode 200 back in the summer of 2021, I decided to put that series on pause — but you can still find/listen to EVERY episode of The Mix Tape Radio Show in this chronological mix tape playlist, which you can also listen to like a radio that plays one mixtape after the other below:
I’m playing around with the idea of bringing back a version of the “Shuffle Up’d 8” for a new recurring Mixcloud series, but I also need to figure what’s the realistic amount of time that I can put towards consistently making/sharing digital mixtapes. As much as I enjoy the process of putting them together, and as much as I know that some people out there like them when they hear them, I still need to keep time for work that helps earn food & rent money. So, at the moment, instead of putting together new mixes, I’ve been digging more into my Mixcloud Select Archives & doing some refreshed recycling when it come to checking my ‘EVERY Wednesday, update the mix tape radio rotations’ check-box (luckily, those archives are filled with 180+ mix tapes not currently in the rotating rotations of either the 54-mixtapes currently featured on MTR - SIDE A or the 54-mixtapes currently featured on MTR - SIDE B, both of which anyone can listen to for free — offline listening & more available thru Mixcloud Select Subscription).
While I’m humming & hawing about whether to get back into a “NEW Mixcloud upload every ___” routine, I’m probably going to at least keep poking away at my The HI54 Yearbook Mixes project (which is where I make ‘19 from 19_’ and ‘20 from 20_’ Mixcloud mixes for every year that I’ve been alive for + the individual blog posts also come with more goodness from each year, including extended mix cd playlists for each year and movies. And because I’m an “old”, even though the total Yearbook Mixes Made tally is now over 30, I still have more that need to be made to catch-up to my age — SO — besides seeing yearbook mixes popping up in the SIDE A and SIDE B players every now and again, you can also find EVERY HI54 Yearbook Mix in this playlist collection for every year so far (which you can also listen to like a radio that plays one tape after the other below):
And I haven’t quite got around to getting back into making more mixes for THE MIX TAPE RADIO MIX CDs series, the one where I would shuffle up the iTunes organizational system I used when I was running an online radio station and put together a new mixed cd out of the selection, but I feel I at least have enough interest in getting the total count of mixes in the series to a more satisfying number than forty — SO — besides seeing Mix Tape Radio Mix CDs popping up in the SIDE A and SIDE B Moun.Town/Radio players that get update EVERY Wednesday, you can also find EVERY Mix Tape Radio Mix CD in this digital cd folder (which you can also listen to like a radio that plays one tape after the other below):
As you may have noticed in some of the non-MTR Mixcloud playlists that I’ve embedded/linked above, there are some mixes that are labelled as ‘EXCLUSIVE’ — that just means that episode is only available to listen to at all times for people that subscribe to HI54LOFI on Mixcloud Select, which is something I mention in a bit more detail below, but here’s my SELECT VAULT archive playlist that’ll play one-after-the-other for anyone who is a HI54LOFI Select subscriber (besides the offline listening, I guess this kinda the main “perk” for being a subscriber on Mixcloud — but both the SIDE A and SIDE B players of Mix Tape Radio on Moun.Town/Radio only contain mixes that are available for anyone/everyone to listen to):
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The Fine Print Terms & Conditions
If you hear something you like while listening to any of my HI54 Mix Tape Radios above (or just in general out on the internets today or any other day), make sure to check out the people making the stuff you like and show them a little bit of love / support / appreciation (in whatever ways you can). Because everybody wins if we all start being more mindful in trying to share some more metaphorical coffees/beers/cheers with the people making the things that make things a little bit better (and maybe while we’re at it we can also start giving way less to the people out there always trying to keep things shitty).
So, besides continuing to create individual blog posts with links/embeds for further discovery for each Mix Tape Radio episode, starting in 2021, I am also making ‘available on Bandcamp’ lists over on Buy Music Club for the music that gets played on Mix Tape Radio and elsewhere in the HI54 ‘pretend, for real’ diy radio station universe. Because streaming is a great upgrade from the old am/fm radio days, especially on the listener side of things, but streaming has not replaced the need for us to be mindful of where and who our money goes to (more thoughts on ‘better streaming’ over here) — and buying music directly from artists/labels on Bandcamp is the next best thing to sticking a fiver directly in an artists hand (because you can’t support them all, but you can support some).
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Can I add it to my Bandcamp Collection?
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Not to confuse the kind of streaming people do on Spotify/Apple/Tidal with the kind of streaming you do when tuning in to MTR —which is rigged together using Mixcloud and functions more like a traditional radio station in the sense that you can’t pick out which songs/artists you want to listen to, so Mixcloud is more of an aid to music discovery/listening and not a replacement for music purchasing + it should also be noted that Mixcloud pays royalties for licensed music—I’m just trying to sprinkle more Bandcamp links & reminders around the site because it’s important we remember to buy/support music we like and the people making it.
So, if you’d also be interested in supporting the HI54LOFI mix making side of MTR, I am in the Mixcloud Select program, which means you can support the making of these mix tapes & the artists included on them with a monthly subscription (while also unlocking offline listening of EVERY HI54LOFI mix for yourself, including all the EXCLUSIVE mixes) — y’know, if you’d be interested in something like that. Or nobody would be mad at you if you wanted to make a one-time “thanks for the stuff” donation of your choice to HI54LOFI over here , or even if you just told someone else that they might like what they’d find over on the ol’ HI54.BLOG or 95EH.CA or… because all that stuff helps keep the wheels moving in different ways \m/
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That’s it. Tell yr friendz.
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