This Is Your Mixtape

31. Morbid but Cool. [Sara.]

Sara is a professional beer wrangler living in Vancouver with their wife and homicidal housecat. When not sampling the finest craft beer in the city, they co-host a Xena: Warrior Princess podcast (Warriors Bards ’n Brews) with their wife.

Sara and Michael talk about growing up queer in Cape Breton, riot grrrl music, censorship, being nonbinary, and feminist rage.

Sara’s Five Songs.

Chì mi na Mòrbheanna (Mist Covered Mountains) by The Rankin Family.
Siren by Tori Amos.
One Beat by Sleater Kinney.
Cold War by Janelle Monáe.
Fire Drills by Dessa.

Show Notes.

Warriors Bards ’n Brews podcast website.

Warrior Bards ’n Brews twitter account.

Sara’s personal twitter.

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30. Loud in Your Head. [Claire Biddles.]

Claire Biddles is a writer based in Glasgow, Scotland. She’s a regular contributor to The Wire, The Line of Best Fit, and The Singles Jukebox. She writes about pop music, film, and fandom with a focus on feminist/queer readings and the politics of desire. She also edits a number of pop culture zines including the series Fuck What You Love, which features writing on pop star crushes by women and LGBTQ+ people.

Claire and Michael talk about boyband fanfiction, the thrill of confrontational femininity, meeting your heroes in a supermarket in the north of England, delayed queer adolescence, and wanting to be Quentin Crisp.

Claire’s Five Songs.

Ready or Not by A1.
Yes by Manic Street Preachers.
I Don't Know What It Is by Rufus Wainwright.
UGH! by The 1975.
My My My! by Troye Sivan.

Show Notes.

Follow Claire on Twitter!

Category Is Books, the only queer book shop in Scotland, where Claire’s zines are available

You can also find Claire’s zines here, if Glasgow is a bit of a walk!

Troye Sivan at One Week One Band, where you can read Claire's posts about it, as well as her friend Vikram writing about Troye and delayed queer adolesence.

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29. Millennial Microwave. [Victoria Williams.]

Victoria Williams is a soprano based in Washington, DC, and originally from Richmond, Virginia. She began her formal studies at Virginia Commonwealth University under the tutelage of the late L. Wayne Batty. Since moving to the DC area in 2011, Victoria became a member of the Aria Club of Greater Washington, DC, but has made her primary singing focus in sacred music, ranging from traditional chant to masterworks to gospel. She has been singing professionally since 2006.

Victoria and Michael talk about impatience, growth, VH1, wanting to be an astronaut, and pragmatic love, among many other things.

Victoria’s Five Songs:

Breakin’ My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes) by Mint Condition.
Perfect by Alanis Morissette.
O mio babbino caro by Giacomo Puccini.
Blessed and Highly Favored by The Clark Sisters.
Sweet Love by Anita Baker.

Show Notes.

Victoria on Twitter.

Victoria singing Puccini.

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28. Future Nostalgia. [Dan Kois.]

Dan Kois is an editor at Slate and a contributing writer to the New York Times magazine. He's the author of Facing Future, a book in the 33⅓ series of music criticism, and the co-author (with Isaac Butler) of The World Only Spins Forward, an oral history of the play Angels in America, a winner of a Stonewall Book Honor from the ALA. His memoir of parenting around the world, How to Be a Family, will be published in September 2019 by Little, Brown.

Dan and Michael talk about mixtape evangelism, the discomfort of growth, celebrating difference, first concerts, and creating memories.

Dan’s Five Songs.

A Perfect Circle [MTV Unplugged] by R.E.M.
Strange Loop by Liz Phair.
Deeper Into Movies by Yo La Tengo.
Follow Your Arrow by Kacey Musgraves.
Green Light by Lorde.

Show Notes.

How to Be a Family. Dan’s book about his family’s year-long trip around the world.

Facing Future. Dan’s 33⅓ book about Israel Kamakawiwo’ole.

The World Only Spins Forward. Dan's book with Isaac Butler about Angels in America.

R.E.M. vs. U2. Dan’s early essay about the rivalry he perceived between U2 and R.E.M.

Slate Podcast Mom and Dad are Fighting.

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27. One Song Can Reduce You. [Pete Gresser.]

Pete Gresser is a composer and occasional voice actor who lives with his husband and their incredibly old dog in suburban Los Angeles.  He’s written music for the soundtracks of over a dozen games, the most recent release being Rex: Another Island, currently available on Steam.  By his own admission, he’s terrible at social media and has made it his 2019 resolution to attempt to feel shame for being terrible at social media, but he makes no promises about actually improving.

Pete and Michael talk about video-game music, Arizona, compositional practices, the reckoning of middle age, and how Björk taught him resilience and pride as a closeted teen.

Pete’s Five Songs:

Don’t Go by Yazoo (aka Yaz).
Scheherazade: Op. 35, II: The Story of the Kalendar Prince by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Simon’s Theme (from Super Castlevania IV) by Masanori Adachi and Taro Kudo.
Isobel by Björk.
Epic III (from Hadestown) by Anaïs Mitchell.

Show Notes.

Pete’s website, where you can hear some of his compositions.

Pete’s Twitter account.

Lindsay Ellis’s video on the Death of the Author.

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