Who Da Boss?

1. Jay-Z - Hola Hovito
2. Clipse - Stuntin' Y'all
3. Slim Thug - Like A Boss
4. Nikka Costa - Like A Feather
5. Timbaland - Give It To Me ft. Nelly Furtado & Justin Timberlake
6. The Vivians - Dr. Doctor Dr. Doctor
7. Justin Timberlake - My Love ft. T.I.
8. Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko
9. Lyrics Born - Bad Dreams
10. Mr. Vegas - Heads High
11. Rage - Run To You
12. Roots Manuva - Witness (1 Hope)
13. Twisted Sister - I wanna Rock
14. Spank Rock - Backyard Betty

Malcy, Blair and myself. 2 days. 1 van. Thousands of copies of The Skinny music magazine. And 4 records. August 2006. What a time to be alive.

I was unemployed, back living at my dad's, on the dole. A disgrace. Malcy I think was also unemployed but may have been making a living playing poker at that point. Also a disgrace.  Blair was, I think, doing some work at The Skinny and was maybe working part time at The Southern. A shining example.

The people at the magazine had asked Blair if he knew anyone who would be up for getting a van with him and delivering the new issue to various establishments over the next few days for a small fee. Naturally he thought of us. He asked. We agreed.

Sophomore solo records from both Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake had just leaked. Possibly the day before. Already Platinum by Houston rapper Slim Thug was still in heavy rotation a year after it's release. And Chamillionaire was enjoying a lot of radio airplay with his hit single Ridin' Dirty ft. Krayzie Bone. Those tunes soundracked our stop n' drop tour of Edinburgh for those 48 hours.

Malcy tolerated Blair and I getting giddy as we got to know FutureSex/LoveSounds. My initial disappointment at the lack of any input from The Neptunes on the project dissipated quickly as it became clear that JT and Timbaland had crafted something quite special for this record. The odd influences of southern rap, Prince, Coldplay and (obviously) Michael Jackson can be heard all over the record. What Goes Around.../...Comes Around an early favourite but it's My Love that has really endured. The video is one of my favorite pop videos of all time. The camera moves, the framing, the choreography, the lighting, the styling, the editing. It's fucking beautiful. Director Paul Hunter smashed it.

Anyway, B'Day got a few spins but no one else was as excited about it as I was. I still think it's her best album. It's concise, flab free, has killer production (including 2 brilliant Neptunes joints), vocals typically on point, some of her best hooks and short on syrupy ballads. What's not to like? But that isn't really relevant here. Neither is Ridin' Dirty. A completely irrelevant total jam.

 
Already Platinum was more or less disowned by Slim Thug when the involvment of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo on more than half of the tracks production didn't translate into massive sales. Regardless the dirty south gangsta rap of the record was hard. Obviously it's even more heavily indepted to the southern rap of the likes of UGK and Three 6 Mafia and the chopped and screwed stylings of DJ Screw than the JT one, but it was given that Neptunes pop sheen here. Mostly it is awesome. And exactly what was required on this mini (van) odyssey. Like the absolute goofballs we are, by the third play through when Click Clack came on we each had mime guns of different models to pretend to reload each time the sound effect appeared during the songs chorus. Passing cars chuckled at our nonsense.

It's crazy that just seeing My Love and Like A Boss on the same tracklisting instantly reminds me of these 2 days. Either track separately would make me think of other moments or people but the association between the 2 takes me straight back to that van like a time machine. It could have been almost any track from each album too and the effect would've been the same.

My Love and Like A Boss though, each produced by some of hip hop and pops most important ever producers, couldn't be more different. My Love with it's stuttering, swirling synths, human beatboxing, a dragged out cymbal shimmer and some kind of weird maniacal, mechanical giggle, Timbaland uses a lot of different sounds but puts a lot of space between them. It ends up sounding minimal despite how much is going on in it. It feels like a cold embrace. Like A Boss on the other hand is all bombast. Chad Hugo's obnoxious tuba, the marching band beat, an even more obnoxious lady screaming about how much of a boss Thugga is in the background of the chorus and the stabbing synthesized strings. Like the rest of the album there is a really aggressive air around it. The Neptunes do menace and it's a blast.

Coincidentally an earlier song on this compilation makes me think of a moment with Blair as well. Opener Hola Hovito, another Timbaland production from one of Jay-Z's (and hip hop's) best ever albums, reminds me of a discussion we had in probably about 2002. Blair wasn't sold on Jigga as an artist, what he'd heard hadn't impressed him, so I lent him The Blueprint in an effort to convert him. It worked but he told me that it was only after hearing Hola Hovito that he was convinced.

It's likely that I didn't put this particular mix CD together until probably November 2006, by which time I was working at The Southern and World Famous had already gone walkies down to London which would explain the reappearance of both The Vivians - Dr. Doctor Dr, Doctor and Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko. It would also explain why the version of Timabaland's Give It To Me ft. Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake is the early demo version that leaked online around that time.

Most of the rest of this mix is fairly cohesive with the exception of 2 tracks. I suppose I Wanna Rock by Twisted Sister has some loose kinship with the glam punk rock of The Vivians, Run To You by Rage by comparison is a real curveball. A mid-ninties dance-pop cover of a Bryan Adams song seems like a really random choice. I Wanna Rock can at least be explained by the fact I was playing a lot of Vice City at the time. I have no idea where the Rage came from. Belter though.

Elsewhere Nikka Costa appears with her Mark Ronson produced 2001 single Like A Feather. I still feel like even though it was a hit and used in many ads and TV shows, this really is an under - celebrated ditty. I remember it would occasionally get dropped through in the back room at Motherfunk when it was at The Honeycomb. Probably by Spectrum. The ascending/decending bass line, the hand claps in the chorus, the strange distortion on her massive voice, nice jangly guitars, ?uestlove on the sticks. It's really great. Roughly half of her debut album and the same of her sophomore effort are excellent. The rest is fairly disposable.

Stuntin' Y'all is taken from the Re-Up Gang mixtape We Got It 4 Cheap Vol. 1 and is another Neptunes production. Pusha and Malice of Clipse ride a beat made up of a bright sounding glockenspiel and a  propulsive synth line, as though it comes as natural to them as breathing. The brothers explain in detail how slinging crack supports their shine. The dark and the light. There is a nice and atmospheric middle-eight which helps to illustrate this dichotomy. Pharrell's ad-libbed 'Oooooh's at the back of the incredibly catchy chorus act as the songs real hook though. Wonderful and under-appreciated stuff

Spank Rock's Backyard Betty is still filthy, electro-rap fun and Roots Manuva's Witness (One Hope) is still an absolute classic (what a video too). But Lyrics Born is a name that takes me back to my late teens to early twenties self when I was all about backpack, conscious hip-hop and definitely not into any of that 'mainstream, commercial shit'. I was first aware of his name when he appeared on the Quannum Spectrum album in '99 around which time Jurassic 5 and Dilated Peoples would also have been in getting a lot of spins. Bad Dreams is taken from his 2003 album Later That Day and still sounds like the not quite as good younger brother of the sublime I Changed My Mind from the aforementioned Quannum album.

It's interesting that on this compilation it is immediately followed by a song that takes me back to the very next step of my relationship or evolution with hip-hop and rap music. Heads High by Mr. Vegas transports me to the now dead and gone club Establishment on Semple Street where drinks were 50p on a Thursday and £1 on the weekends. Bumpin' and grindin' to bangers like this completely changed my perspective on all that 'mainstream, commercial shit'. I realised that rap and hip-hop could also soundtrack a party and be about fun and drinking and sex and didn't always have to be a sermon. I realised that there was plenty of space for both kinds of rap to exist and sometimes it was even okay for them to overlap. I could listen to the label mates on Stones Throw in my bedroom and the latest Nelly record in the club. And that was okay. Before that time I turned my nose up at anything that wasn't hippy-hip-hop like A Tribe Called Quest or politically charged like Public Enemy or hard gangsta rap like Wu-Tang Clan or somewhere in between like NaS. I was a bit of a snob about it basically and it felt good to grow up and embrace the fun.

Years later that development allowed me to have a blast with my mates in a van while jamming to the last Slim Thug record. What a time indeed.

Real Boss N*ggas Do Real Boss Things

1. Mickey Avalon - My Dick ft. Dirt Nasty & Andre Legacy
2. 50 Cent - Amusement Park
3. Mark Ronson - Stop Me (Kissy Sell Out Remix)
4. Kate Nash - Dickhead
5. R. Kelly - Rise Up
6. Foxy Brown - Candy ft. Kelis
7. Fergie - Glamorous (Space Cowboy Remix)
8. Miss Odd Kid - Weed, Wine + Wankers (Sluttt Remix)
9. Hands Of God - Cryptonites
10. Alvy Singers - Melmac
11. Armand Van Helden - NYC Beat
12. Cashmere - Rainbow Bitches
13. Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow (GnB Remix)
14. Surkin - And You Too (DJ Slugo remix)
15. Fuzzz - The Monk
16. Onira - Xiao Xiao
17. Shitdisco - OK (Acid Girls Remix)
18. SebastiAn - Ross Ross Ross

'Real boss n*ggas do real boss things' is a lyric from T.I.'s verse on the superb Make It Rain (Remix). That song does not appear on this compilation so as to what may have possessed me to name the disc that, I cannot speak. It was a long time ago. Mid 2007 roughly. R, Kelly makes an appearance here as he does on Make It Rain, maybe that was it. Tenuous. There is literally no other connection to that verse or song that I can see. Maybe it's in the music? Or maybe I was just listening to it when I was trying to think of what to name the mix. That seems more likely. I guess I'll find out...

See, unlike the World Famous CD-R, I don't remember two thirds or more of this mix looking at the tracklist. I'm a little worried it's going to be horrible. At least it has Candy by Foxy Brown and Kelis in there, that's a good old school Neptunes beat for sure. I also still have a lot of time for NYC Beat and the rest of Armand Van Helden's Ghettoblaster record. It remains a summer staple round my way. And Mickey Avalon's ridiculous My Dick is still good for a giggle. As for the rest, I recognize a lot of the names and some of the song titles, some I vaguely remember liking but not much else about them. I'm gonna hit play now...

'My dick don't need no introduction/Your dick don't even function', I may be incredibly childish but 8 years later and I still laugh my ass off as Mickey, Dirt and Andre trade bars about how awesome their dicks are. Especially when they name drop Macauley Culkin and reference the Munchkins and the refrain where the claim to have 'dicks like Jesus', whatever that means. This is another track that I'd often play at The Scottish Hobo Society and usually it went down a treat. I can still remember pretty much every punchline, on the other hand Amusement Park by 50 Cent I'd forgotten even existed. Apparently it was a single, had a video and everything. Who on earth thought that was a good idea? It is extraordinary in only how spectacularly unmemorable it is.

Now, next up is a Kissy Sell Out remix of a Mark Ronson cover I don't remember of a Smiths song I don't really like. And I'll tell you what; it's okay. Kissy Sell Out make me think of Palms Out Sounds, a now defunct music blog that was dedicated to sharing all the newest electro remixes with the world. The only place I could possibly have come across such a remix. For some reason that site is tied in my brain to my old pal Nick Stewart, owner of Sneaky Pete's club in Edinburgh and DJ around town. I guess we used to discuss their posts whenever he was in The Southern for his coffee. I miss the Sunday Remix zips too.

A very weird demo-ish sounding version of Kate Nash's track Dickhead has shown up next. Not sure where it came from. It's really minimal, just some piano and vocals. It's not very good, but then I'd say the same for pretty much anything she did, final studio version or otherwise. Anyway, it's followed up by R. Kelly's tribute to the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre. It's not his finest moment but still it has an epic sub-I Believe I Can Fly feel to it.

Finding Kelis on the hook was not an uncommon thing when it came to Neptunes produced tracks between 1999 and 2005. This one; Candy by a typically fierce Foxy Brown came out in 2001. I don't think I heard it until probably around 2003/4 when my Neptunes obsession really kicked into gear and I was discovering a whole host of obscure tracks they were responsible for via theneptunes.org fan forum. Again, not one of their best works but it still knocks and obviously it was back in rotation when I made this mix.

At track number 7 is a remix of Fergie's Glamorous single by Space Cowboy? Me either. It sounds like a lot of post-Fatboy Slim remixes often did. It's not terrible. Neither is his remix of Gaga's Just Dance.

When I put Miss Odd Kidd - Weed Wine Wankers into YouTube the top hit was for the Sluttt Bust In UR Face Remix that is on this disc. I guess this is the definitive version of this song. It's a bit annoying if I'm honest. The other songs I've found by her are annoying too. Didn't need reminding of her, she's shit.

At least Hand Of Gods - Cryptonite is... *sigh*... This is shit too. I cross my fingers and skip to the next one; Alvy Singers - Melmac. Funny thing about this is that I guess I must have downloaded this while looking for songs by an old friend of mine, Voe. He was once in a band called The Alvy Singers, which is a great name for a band. For those that don't recognize it; Alvy Singer was the name of Woody Allen's protagonist in Annie Hall. Anyway Voe was once in a band of that name and I do own a 7-inch by them though I'm not sure where it can be located now. I'd lost touch with old Voe by this point and was interested to see if any of his material had made it on to the web. It hadn't. This song is by some other guy or band or whatever. It sounds kinda chiptune-y. It's quite nice actually. Like it could be from a Zelda game or something. Weirdly, when I Shazam'd it to make sure I had the right track name it came back with a different answers each time I did it, which was 8, so I guess it's some kind of Girl Talk-type of mash up thing or it just sounds really like these other songs at different points in its running time. In case you're interested the 8 Shazam results were 1) The Edwin Davids Jazz Band - The Theme From Alf (obviously this is where the tracks title came from) 2) Chriss Ortega - Love Is Here (Mario Ochoa Remix) 3) Gods Tower - The Eerie 4) Claudio Colombo - Sonata K. 423 In C Major 5) Big Skapinsky - Open Your Eyes 6) Oelki - Galileo 7) The Bethels - Tranquility and 8) Giacomo Tosi - Flurry. But I'm sure no one gives a shit.

Absolute belter NYC Beat is up next. It's got Daisy Lowe in the video. I was so in love with Daisy back then. Ghettoblaster, the Armand Van Helden album this is from really is killer, filled with summer jams like I Want Your Soul with it's dope old-school video directed by Vashtie Kola and Touch Your Toes which features Fat Joe of all people.

Unfortunately it's followed on this mix by some horrible number called Rainbow Bitches by someone called Cashmere. At least that's what I think it's called. This is another track that I can't seem to find any trace of online. Regardless, it sucks. Really bad. It sounds like something Noel Fielding's character in Nathan Barley would drop just as you wake up from the worst nightmare you ever had. I tried to Shazam this one too and Shazam wanted nothing to do with it. Which is fair enough. Why I thought it was worth including in any mix instead of being instantly deleted is beyond me. Yuck.

Slightly better, but not much is the Guns N Bombs remix of Gravity's Rainbow by Klaxons. It starts off fine, just your typical electro remix of a Klaxon's song of which there were approximately 3 billion being posted every day in 2007, but at 6.18 minutes it is just way too long. I'd lost interest by the third minute and by the fifth it was really starting to annoy me. Next!

The next 4 tracks continue on the Palms Out Sounds path that the disc has very much wandered down and gotten lost. First is the Surkin track And You Too as remixed by DJ Slugo and it is really boring with it's monotonous beat and repeated lyric about strippers. Fuzzz - The Monk is a little less bland or irritating but just like the last few tracks makes me think of something that'd get thrown on early at White Heat or The Goulag Beat or at I Fly Spitfires or Dogtooth or one of the many other Indie-Electro nights that were rife at the time in Edinburgh, before the fashionably late cool crew had shown up and the DJ didn't want to waste their 'good' remixes. It's got a few playful synth lines and a decent beat. Inoffensive stuff. Similarly the guitar part at the start of Onira's Xiao Xiao is fun and stays fun when it get's all chopped up goes full dancey-indie-electro. It's jagged and abrasive but it has personality. I quite like it still. And then there is Shitdisco. Shitdisco were everywhere with their dance-punk jams in Scotland in the mid to late 2000's. An Acid Girl remix of their OK tune is really in keeping with the aesthetic that this mix has conformed to. True to it's title and lyrics it's ok.

The last track on this one is by SebastiAn at what would have been very near the peak interest point of French electronic music label Ed Banger Records popularity in Scotland. For me this really was a fun time in music but it hasn't aged that well for me. It was like a second wave after the fun of the electroclash scene popularised by International DeeJay Gigolo Records. Big, silly, over the top, colourful, cartoony dance numbers. There are still a bunch of records from the Ed Banger era that I love, Ross Ross Ross though is not one I have any particularly deep affection for. It still has miles more joy and vitality and character than the previous 4 songs on this mix though.

A great compilation this was not, it sounds a bit thrown together, with a few songs that really just seem to be there to make up the numbers. I think that is the reason I couldn't remember most of the tracks on it. I must have played it only a few times. Somehow I have still managed to ramble on about it for about 1700 words. The next one will be better, I hope.

At least now the reason for the discs title is still clear as mud.

World Famous

1. Dragonette - I Get Around
2. Giant Drag - Wicked Game
3. Hadouken! - That Boy That Girl
4. JC Chasez - Until Yesterday
5. Klaxons - Atlantis To Interzone
6. Klaxons - Magick
7. Modest Mouse - Float On
8. Neon Plastix - Neon Invasion
9. Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko
10. Blood Arm - Suspicious Character
11. The Streets - Pranging Out ft. Pete Doherty
12. The Horrors - Count In Fives
13. The Vivians - Dr. Doctor Dr. Doctor
14. The Yard - Hey Man
15. Xerox Teens - Darlin'
16. Hot Chip - Over and Over
17.Justin Timberlake - Sexy Back (Linus Loves Remix)
18. Dragonette - I Get Around (Midnight Juggernauts Remix)

Late 2006/early 2007; Anna's youngest sister Checkie was living in London. We'd met briefly in passing. She knew my sister and I think we might have been friends on Myspace. Anna was my boss and also the older sister of my good friend Georgia. At some point I'd made this compilation of random stuff I'd been listening to at the time to play in Anna's bar, The Southern on South Clerk Street in Edinburgh. The Southern had long been a biker bar most famous for the night Nirvana played an intimate gig there, but it's popularity had dwindled. Anna and her then partner Warren had taken it over and transformed it from a dingy, smelly, dark bar for hairy metalheads and Southside undesirables into a really rather nice and unconsciously hip hub for a young emerging new Edinburgh club scene. Anna had been kind enough to give me a job pouring the drinks in the place and occasionally DJing (I use this term in the loosest way possible).  A random untitled compilation I made ended up in Anna's car somehow and when Checkie was back for a visit she decided to take it back with her down to London where it became something of a hit with her and her flatmates (or so I heard).

Months later (maybe a year) Checkie moved back to Auld Reekie and the CD ended up back in rotation at The Southern where she had started working with us. With the original having migrated south, I'd made an alternative but quite similar mix as a replacement for the bar. By this time Kieron, one of the bar managers had ironically titled the original mixtape 'Mike's Compilation 'Known Nation Wide''. World Famous I decided would be the official title of this replacement.

Cut to almost 10 years later and now I'm living in London. As are Kieron and Georgia , Checkie is now in Glasgow, Anna is still in Edinburgh but her life is a world away from what it was then, same goes for Warren and The Southern has changed hands and is almost unrecognizable again.

This weekend, on a visit back to the homeland I came across a CD wallet at my dad's flat filled with mix CD's that I used when DJing (still a very loose description of what I was doing) around that time. It was something of a time capsule seeing the tracks and CD titles within. Each one took me back to specific moments or places or reminded me of forgotten stories and as I waxed reminiscent it was suggested that I should maybe write these stories, memories and thoughts down somewhere. So here it is.

World Famous or Mike's Compilation 'Known Nation Wide' is the first CD in the wallet. The songs on this mix are as eclectic as on pretty much every CD in the wallet, but it is a bit heavier on the Indie-Electro than the later more Rap leaning mixes. It also features a couple of Edinburgh local band rarities from the era. Listening to this back now, some of it still holds up for me, others not so well. Some of it may have been better left forgotten. But the opener, I Get Around by Canadian electro-pop outfit Dragonette still charms me. Fun synth lines and a stompy beat soundtrack Martina Sorbara's story of an unwise hook-up and bad decisions made while partying, I could relate at the time. And still can a little now. I played it out quite a lot at The Scottish Hobo Society at The Bongo Club. From what I remember their LP's were pretty uninspiring but I liked this song enough to both open the mix and to close out with a remix of the same song.

The other electro and indie numbers on here fair less well by being not very memorable. Both the Neon Plastix and Shiny Toy Guns tracks are fine but sound a lot like a lot of other bands from the same era but not quite as good and while I remembered the name of the band Xerox Teens (later XX Teens) I'd forgotten the song even as it was still playing. Quite shite. Suspicious Character by The Blood Arm sounds like a haircut you thought made you look amazing when you had it but looking back you actually look like a bit of a tit, but Hot Chip's Over and Over would still get me dancing if I somehow accidentally wandered into an NME Indie Disco in Camden. It's a tune, I just wouldn't chose to listen to it anymore. Modest Mouse were for me always a deeply mediocre band and listening to Float On here just makes me wish I was listening to a different version of the song that I'm sure will pop up on a later mix.

I still have a soft spot for the Klaxons brand of so called Nu-Rave though. I recently revisited their first couple of records and still quite enjoyed them. Atlantis To Interzone doesn't instill quite the same excitement in me as it once did but that may have had something to do with the cheap Glasgow eccies I was gubbing at the time. Those were good nights. And Magick always makes me think of it's awesomely mental video.

Count In Fives is an interesting relic when you consider what The Horrors became (meaning; a much better band). The early stuff is still kinda fun to listen to. And the Chris Cunningham video for Sheena Is A Parasite remains incredible.

Annie from Giant Drag's vocals on their cover of Chris Isaak's Wicked Game are cute and it's a nice version of the song. I like how she always claimed she'd had an affair with the 'much older' Chris when she was 8 and he stole her song. I saw them live once supporting The Cribs at The Queens Hall in Edinburgh and they were great, I only got about 3 songs into The Cribs set though before leaving. Good grief they were (are?) a shitty band.

Speaking of shitty bands; Hadouken!. That Boy That Girl. What utter, utter pish. And I fucking LOVED this song when it came out. I really can't explain that. At all. Deary me. All of the day-glo rave mashed up with indie guitars and half shouted, half rapped lyrics that seemed so rad in 2006 sound unbearable now. Unbearable and embarrassing. Apparently they're still going. I dread to think.

So to the 2 Edinburgh based bands that made the mix. First of all The Vivians. Ah, The Vivians. I saw this band live about 20 times. Had a blast every time. They were mates, so it wasn't like I was paying to see them at every show. Just so we're clear. I don't want you to think I was some kinda Vivians superfan or anything. But yeah, some excellent nights out featured this band playing at one point or another. Like the time they inspired a stage invasion at one of the busiest night The Southern ever saw. Or the time they played a guerrilla gig in the Innocent Tunnel under Arthur's Seat and got shut down by the cops about 4 songs in. Dr. Doctor Dr. Doctor was their perfect pop moment. If they ever reformed I'd be up for seeing them live one more time.

Also based in Edinburgh was The Yard a grungy 3 piece with a girl on drums who also performed backing vocals. Me and my mate Blair saw them once when they played the same bill as his band Charly's Boat. We were both blown away and ended up seeing them a few more times around town. They were super tight with a bunch of real catchy songs, but Hey Man was the stand out. It has a hook that I still sing to myself on occasion now. They disappeared not long after and I can't seem to find any trace of them left online. Gotta love bands with unGoogleable names and song titles. Finding the recording on this CD really made my day.

Another track I'm thankful to have back in my life is the Pete Doherty remix of The Streets' Pranging Out. Pete delivering loosely rapped verses about being in the grips of drug addiction is breathtakingly stark and honest and Mike Skinners original beat is atmospheric and grim and beautiful.

Linus Loves managed a rather dull electronic remix of Justin Timberlake's SexyBack, the original of which I'm not that into itself anymore. Timberlake shows up elsewhere on the mix to better effect though; this time with his former *NSYNC bandmate J.C. Chasez. Timberlake's role here is as co-writer and producer on a melancholic pop ballad masterclass about lies and infidelity and pregnancy and the bitter end of a relationship. Until Yesterday was supposed to be the first single from Chasez's sophomore record but it never appeared. Shame really. It was a killer start. And I can vividly remember singing along to it, loudly, while cleaning up The Southern bar after hours, with friends.

It's amazing how a song can really transport you back in time. To a specific place, or feeling, or person. This mix takes me back to all of those things and although most of the songs on here I don't particularly care for anymore, those memories are precious as diamonds. Just a bunch of poor quality MP3's on a cheap CD-R really, but to me it's a time machine. It's messages from the past. It's kind of magical.