This CD-R was curated by friend Omar Romero, who I briefly shared the stage with in the band Dream Caste. Dream Caste was one of my favorite bands I've played in, and I wish I didn't take it for granted at the time. If there's one thing I've learned while being friends with Omar, it has been the level of appreciation and desire he has for the searching and hunting for music that is not easily found from the surface. Those who know him know of his fandom to real emo and real screamo throughout the ages, but in my eyes, the dedication he has to immersing into a genre and the community/history surrounding it in a way brings about this mantle of historian. He'll find a band, then he will break it down by the members of that band, search for other bands those members were in, investigate influences mentioned in interviews with said members, scour linear notes and thank you sections in 7" inserts for other bands and individuals; this research goes beyond the casual listener's process. This process is fed by the organic cycle of the music lifting up the participant, and then the participant lifting up the music for others to hear. It doesn't matter if you like the music or not; I just think it's important to take notice of songs and bands helping and boosting someone up through the bright and the dark times. In Omar's own words:
"I made mix CDs for myself when I was younger to keep me company. I used them to help me ride my Huffy around the gated complex in Garden Grove because the gates were my boundaries and the only way to dissolve them was with music. I listened to them whenever I could because I had to distract myself from feeling ignored. I shared them with people so the songs would transform in ways that could not be done so on my own. I burned these CDs because I wanted to cover up the memories that tainted the songs I used to love with memories I wanted to keep. These are songs that bend time. They are to suspend you. The flowers outside stop aging, the milk stops curdling, sulfur compounds keep their distance, adhesives keep their hold, and every scent you pass by pulses at your senses more starkly than before. These are the songs that carry me through time."
Above is a YouTube playlist of the tracks, and below is a track-by-track breakdown, including a song by Pines that isn't on YouTube.
1. Kickball - Skinny Dipping (ABCDEFGHIJKickball)
2. Pines - Maybe If You Get A Tattoo You’ll Remember (Pines)
3. 1994! - Thank All You Guy Helpening (Fckyrhed)
4. Sleepytime Trio - 30 Equals (Plus 6000)
5. Bucket Full of Teeth - Capital Distracts and Imprisons (IV)
6. Daniel Striped Tiger - Nonstop (Teenage Cool Kids/Daniel Striped Tiger)
7. Regulator Watts - Eleven (the Aesthetics of No-Drag)
8. Ugly Lovers - Sister (Drought)
9. Boilermaker - Breach (In Wallace’s Shadow)
10. Boys Life - Calendar Year (Departures and Landfalls)
11. Akron/Family - Lumen (Akron/Family)
12. Arthur Russell - Lucky Cloud (World of Echo)
13. Hop Along, Queen Ansleis - Workers (Freshman Year)
14. Sound Providers - Braggin and Boasting ft. Little Brother (An Evening with the Sound Providers)
15. the Replacements - Androgynous (Let it Be)
16. Stina Nordenstam - the Man with the Gun (Dynamite)
17. Stephen Steinbrink - Call You Later (Condensed Nothing)
18. Abner Jay - I’m So Depressed (Terrible Comedy Blues)
19. Abilene - the Bombardier (Abilene)
20. Mt. Gigantic - a Bee (Gleanings and Gatherings)
21. 7 Year Rabbit Cycle - Skin of Ash (Wind Machine)
22. yyu - You Care (You Care)
For extra listening, check out Omar's growing YouTube playlist documentation of music within and connected to the genre of real emo.
Also, here is Everything Made Obsolete by Heritage Unit and A Calmer Room by Dream Caste