Spreading the Musical Word with the Mix-Tape

As a teacher, for many years I would make an end-of-the-year music mix for a select group of students, the ones that “got it” if you will and wanted to expand their musical horizons. I included my favorites from all the new, largely unheard of stuff I’d been listening to during that particular year.

As with all my mix-tapes, I would think of a catchy name for it and do all the artwork by hand, usually on the old Maxell cover.

Looking back at some of these, I must say I’m pretty proud at how far ahead I was on the musical curve. OK, OK, I had some misses as well. But hey, who didn’t think Deadeye Dick was going to be huge? Anyway, one year I called a mix “The Ungodly Nuggets” which seemed cool at the time.

Probably a year after giving this mix out to maybe 25 or 30 kids, I was getting new tires for my car in Chillicothe at a little out of the way garage. The guys taking care of my tires looked like they’d be into Conway Twitty or maybe Megadeth, so imagine my surprise when an obscure alternative song that I recognized came blasting out of their tape deck. I was a bit amused when the next song up was also by one of my favorite new alt bands. It was on song three that I noticed the pattern. These cats were listening to my Mix-Tape from the previous year. I asked one of the workers who they were listening to and he replied thusly:

“It’s some group called the Ungodly Nuggets. We love it.”

That, my friends, made me smile. I then walked over to their tape player and the cassette case was laying there. Sure enough it was my mix, but the cover and tape had been copied and redistributed.

It’s the little things in life that make you feel good, ya know?