Vol. 2, the indie rock mixtape challenge

This is a message for the indie rock kids. Go check the short version if you're pressed for time, or if you hate jokes, or if you didn't care all that much for High Fidelity.

As Mr. T would say, any fool can make a mixtape. I can give you a few examples: I personally have seen trained seals put together decent stuff. I heard about a monkey hitting tracks at random on a laptop for an infinite amount of time with an infinite number of mp3s once creating a complete mixtape. A reasonably intelligent dog probably wouldn't do half bad. Hell, I bet even a Neanderthal who was slightly ahead of his time could do something not so terrible. That's all well and good if mediocrity gets you going, but that's not what I'm striving for. I'm a perfectionist. How 'bout a little eardrum-blowing bliss, hmm? How 'bout a mixtape that brings lots of people to my front door, trying to get into my house for merrymaking at my place. Yeah. I'll have a couple helpings of that. At least, that was how I looked at this before starting some research in preparation. There is an entire world out there that I was unaware of; I'm now trying to understand and incorporate some new ideas. I first found there exists a surprisingly lengthy wikipedia article about mixtapes, touching on history, legal issues and culture (I particularly liked the section about aesthetics... and yes... I did read the entire thing... kind of a dork that way). Going deeper, I decided I would watch High Fidelity, which expands greatly on the aesthetics aspect. Jack Black and John Cusack imbue me with a new level of energy and enthusiasm. I feel I am ready to accomplish something magical...

And so, that is why I am today issuing for myself the Indie Rock Mixtape Challenge! Here's how this party works:
1. Blab for a little bit about what you dig, in terms of genres (or sub-genres), moods, tempos, instruments, artists, actions to accompany listening, etc. If you've got no clue where to begin, you might cheat a little.
2. Armed with my trusty library of indie rock songs and a few handy last.fm tags, I create your custom mixtape of choice.
3. Listen to mixtape. Have eargasm. Rinse, repeat as necessary.

As there are now just four weeks left until the sure-to-be-awesome mixtape party, I figure it's time to get crackin'. That could be either a lot of time, or a little, depending on how demanding and complicated I decide to be. Or how distracted I get by other music, or shiny things I find on the ground, or hard drive death and its subsequent loss of data, or interesting stuff on the interwebs... Also! Still waiting on Perry, o' fearless leader, to put out the guidelines for this.

Participation, of course, is optional. If you elect not to play the game but still want a little something something I can make you a mixtape that's a bit more random and follows whatever whimsy floats through my head at the time.

PS: So entertained by the things that can be found on wiki. :-)