Monkey Shines

Side 1 of a mixtape, originally recorded 2nd September 1990. Enough downtempo sounds for this week, time for some noise. This was compiled as a batch of hastily recorded essential mixtapes to accompany me on a year in Australia, 19 years old, travelling solo for the first time. Bossanova had come out a few weeks earlier and I had all of Pixies' albums and 12" singles up to Here Comes Your Man at that point. I had wanted to include the single version of River Euphrates but I couldn't fit it into the cassette's running time. For this recreation, I've had to swap the live version of In Heaven from the Gigantic / River Euphrates 12" for the original demo version as I haven't yet ripped the former. This brings back lots of happy memories, though I did discover yesterday that it's not the best soundtrack for a commute to a work meeting. After three quarters of an hour of driving and 'singing' along with Black Francis' primal howl, I arrived at the meeting to find that I'd nearly lost my voice. "Your mouth's a mile away"? You ain't kidding.

 

1) Bone Machine (1988)

2) Tame (1989)

3) La La Love You (1989)

4) Cecilia Ann (1990)

5) Bailey's Walk (1989)

6) Caribou (1987)

7) Hang Wire (1990)

8) River Euphrates (Album Version) (1988)

9) Rock Music (1990)

10) Dancing The Manta Ray (1989)

11) Ed Is Dead (1987)

12) Cactus (1988)

13) Brick Is Red (1988)

14) Gigantic (Album Version) (1988)

15) Gouge Away (1989)

16) Allison (1990)

17) Something Against You (1988)

18) No. 13 Baby (1989)

19) In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song) ('The Purple Tape' Demo, 1987)

 

Side One (45:46)
 

The mixtape title was inspired by the 1989 single Monkey Gone To Heaven (it's on Side 2) and lifted directly from George A. Romero's 1988 movie adaptation of the 1983 psychological horror novel by MIchael Stewart. I haven't read the book and only saw the film once, which I think was possibly one time too many. The cassette cover is very loosely based on the Bossanova album sleeve, with a point knocked off for using 'the' in the band name on the sleeve's spine.