Anti-Romantic Mix-Tape

Alex Gadsby wants it to be understood that whilst this is not a photograph of her, she did take it.

Want to woo a girl, or a man, or other, or someone, or something? Making a mix-tape is a great idea. Or, in this day and age, a burned CDR, or a playlist on Spotify or other - or perhaps a combination of the latter two - an MP3 CDR - placed in a CD player set to "random" and "repeat" - sentiment after sentiment, for eternity.

Of late I've been considering as to what would constitute as the worst woo - what sequence of music would - were you to present it to a potential suitor - send them running, or induce such a state of mortal peril in your target of courtship that a sequence of events is set in place which eventually results in your getting arrested? I've had a very bad week.

This is what I've come up with. Because I haven't got a Spotify account and can't be bothered/am too fearful of arrest to upload MP3s, then I'm afraid that these are songs which you'll have to seek out yourself. Might be a bit of fun - seek them out, burn your own atrocity exhibition. Here goes.



1. Nurse With Wound - Two Shaves and a Shine (Edit)
David Tibet screams of straining to amputate his knees over a demented bass and bouzouki groove. Thrilling stuff, but the idea of a mix-tape is that these artists are saying that which you cannot express. You utlilise the poetry of others to serve your own agenda. If these words constitute as a window to your soul, in the presence of those with whom you want a degree of romantic involvement, you'd be best remaining a closed book. At best you won't get "in", at worst you'll get arrested. Gone for the edit for the sake of pacing and what have you.


2. Grinderman - No Pussy Blues
Nick Cave isn't getting any, so he wrote a litany of peverse sexual frustration which he recites furiously over a caterwaul of screaming feedback. "I thought I'd try another tack, I drank a litre of cognac, I threw her down upon her back, but she just lay up and said that she just didn't want to". It's probably not a good idea to reveal that you'd resort to rape. At least not in the early stages of a relationship.

3. The Cramps - Under The Wires
An ode to the sacred art of non-consensual telephone sex. Even if you're already in the healthiest of relationships, it's best your partner's not aware that you listen to songs with such breathy lyrics as "What colour panties are you wearing/And how long have you been wearing them?" 

4.  Lee "Scratch" Perry - Pum Pum
"Pum Pum" is, of course, a subtle metaphor. Perry is 73. Here you have five minutes of a lecherous old man croaking lustily over filthy dancehall grooves. Anybody you play this to is more or less guaranteed to never, ever want to have sex with you. Ever. Or spend any time in the same room as you.


5. R.E.M - Star Me Kitten (William S. Burroughs version)
Watch their eyes widen in horror as, with no apparent concept of rhythm, the peverse junky barks and slurs his unholy intonation over the most spartan and brooding of backing tracks. Worst case scenario - what if they know (and love) R.E.M, but have no idea at all as to the identity of Mr. Burroughs? What then? They expect joy and relief from their old faithfuls, only to be confronted with this - THIS. Then they ask you who in tarnation is William S. Burroughs. What do you say? A detailed plot synopsis of Naked Lunch has nipped millions of potentially beautiful relationships in the bud.

6. Crass - Asylum
Their eyes widen in horror at the extemely sacreligious bile - potential there to offend even the staunchest of atheists (You lie alone in your cunt fear!) - only to screw themselves shut again at those brutal industrial guitar screams. It grinds to an abrupt halt - they stare at you, lip quivering - "You like this?"

7. Alan Menken - Heaven's Light/Hellfire
A song of two halves. They might appreciate the sweet sentiments of the first half - in which their gaze is likened to heaven's light - but by the time they get to the insane, overblown, orchestral grandiosity of the second half - in which it is hinted that if they don't sleep with you, you will kill them; in a fire - well, you might never see them again.  It will be even harder to explain as to why you own a copy of the soundtrack to Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame".

8. Comus - Drip Drip
You might have difficulty justifying even to yourself as to why you have, in your library, an eleven minute folk dirge written on the subject of cutting down the body of a hanged woman and fucking the corpse. Wait until the third date at least before revealing your fondness for Comus.

9. Kevin Ayers - Song From the Bottom of a Well
Disorientating backwards loops, screaming feedback and creepy Mysteron-like vocals chanting grimy rhyming couplets about griminess and - god knows what. Your desperate plea of "But Mike Oldfield's on guitar!" will fall on deaf ears.

10. Fripp & Eno - Swastika Girls
And what better way to end your mix-tape of unfathomable horror than with an approaching twenty minute loop of dissonant tape delay with an uncomfortable title? "Frippertronics!" you'll exclaim with gusto and aplomb. "Groundbreaking, in its day. You know, without this, there'd probably not even be a My Life in the Bush of Ghosts? And I don't even have to begin telling you as to how influential that proved to be." Never leave your room again. There's just no point.


CONCLUSION - There'll always be room for Coldplay.