john sellers mix

After reading Perfect From Now On, I promptly hopped on the internet and asked author John Sellers to make a mixtape for the M|H. He ever-so-kindly obliged and I now proudly present you with this lovely mix to close out the year. Clocking in at a little over sixteen minutes, it’s a perfect get ready and go mix.

From John Sellers:
“I have a shockingly short attention span. Luckily, some musicians have helped me out by writing incredibly short songs that still manage to totally rule. here are thirteen rockers that check in at 1:30 or under. The best part is, if you don’t like one of them, it’ll be over quick.”

01| Guided By Voices – Wire Greyhounds
02| The Beatnik Filmstars – Hairstyle of a Smug Bastard
03| Sleater-Kinney – A Real Man
04| Pavement – Heckler Spray
05| Robert Pollard – I’m A Strong Lion
06| Archers of Loaf – Fat
07| Times New Viking – Ladders
08| Pixies – Distance Equals Rate Times Time
09| Guided By Voices – Shocker In Gloomtown
10| Bad Brains – Pay to Cum!
11| The Replacements – Customer
12| Sebadoh – Sixteen
13| Pixies – Broken Face

fun fact: he does not own an mp3 player

“I’m only two chapters into his book, but I think I may love John Sellers almost as much as I love Chuck Klosterman.”

This is what I got out of bed at two in the morning to change my away message to after starting Sellers’s book Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life. I am pleased to report that the remainder of the book did not let me down. Not the sappy or nostalgic memoir the title forecasts, Perfect From Now On is a recounting of Sellers’s journey from semi-casual Top 40 listener to full-blown Guided By Voices worshiper.

Sellers admits to a musical history that he could have easily buried (and that most indie-lovers would deny), sharing that he created a dance routine to Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration”, choosing Sammy Hagar as his first album purchase, and scissor kicking to Duran Duran’s “The Reflex”. These early transgressions serve to temper the later admissions of obsessive fandom.

The presentation and tone of Perfect From Now On is unique and sassy – the 183-page body offers 178 footnotes (many which span for several pages), plus three appendices offering lists of Sellers’s takes on the good, bad, and ridiculous within music, ‘verdicts’ on several musical matters, and a formula to determine a band’s true awesomeness.

And lest we forget some of the priceless bon mots found throughout:

on singing in the car

“I know that whenever I look over and see some goon energetically mouthing the words to a song I can’t hear, I assume the worst: Creed.”

on frat boys playing New Order

“It might be the case that they played New Order because they knew girls would dance to it, because, hey, dancing is a nice prelude to nonconsensual sex.”

As I said: sassy.

Perhaps I enjoyed this book so much because I can relate to Sellers. To the average person his endeavors may seem crazy (or at the very least, ridiculous). To me, they seem perfectly normal and even enviable. My obsession is not as single-minded as his, but for my favorite bands I have spent more money than I can afford to, camped out in ridiculously long lines for tickets (sometimes in cities hours away from my place of residence), and have even driven halfway across the country to see a band that was not breaking up and tours regularly.

The book may be a bit foggy for those unacquainted with the indie music scene, but Sellers’s humor and exhaustive notes make it a fantastic read for anyone who has ever had a favorite band.

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Perfect From Now On was published in 2007.

For more info on John Sellers, visit his website.