My mixes tend towards bruitist destructiveness, somewhere between music and noise— partly because I dont have the necessary musical skills, partly because i hope noise will help me to learn to really listen, and partly because thats the way i like it.

When I upload one of these noise-music mixes, I sometimes imagine the following : one day there will be a big ccmixter meet-up in LA or Berlin or wherever and hundreds of mixters will get to meet one another personally and every afternoon workshops and combos and every evening concerts and djs. And at this meet-uo everybodys milling aroun the bar between sessions. A few mixters are wearing gold badges engraved with the phrase 40+ ; I m trying to work out what that means, looking at them it cannot be age, what can it be ? Someone notices my puzzlement and explains “ mixters who have at least one track with 40 or more recommendations. “ One of these musicians bears in on me, greets me by name, and then puts his arm around my shoulders and says “ lets have a little talk “. He steers me a little bit out of the crowd, offers me a cigarette and as we stand smoking, he proceeds as follows : “mixing is not easy you know. Not easy, and you know we, we have to …er… tolerate ….mmm…different .. . hum…. styles and, to be quite frank , “ looking me abruptly in the eye, “ different skill levels as well “ I try and fail to make a meaningful comment but the 40+ er continues “ its one of the strengths of our community that we do tolerate opposites : rap and orchestral, jazz and pop, serious and fun, good and,“ giving me that look again, “bad. You know, we have noticed your uploads, yes… and we want to emphasise, we truly believe, that even the smallest ant has its place in the universe, but , notwithstanding all that, we would really ask you not to …“ At this moment an airplane flies overhead and the rest of his words were drowned out except for “ not an order of course, but just a friendly recommendation “

Bring on the ccmixter meet-up !

LOL!!! That was a good one.

I’d love to help organizing that meet up.