Mittwoch Mixes - Satan & Sadness

I've neglected this blog and publishing mixes for a while as the rough beast of 2022 has slouched on. Still, I have muddled on with mixes, plucking away at my spreadsheet where I compile them. At current count I have two dozen or so that I've been working on, with two or three mostly ready and just in need of sequencing, finalizing the track list or making an image for.

These two mixes have been occupying me for a while, so it was time for them to be let loose.

And Let the Devil In

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	Three Thoughts (Devils Sect)
2	Zeal and Ardor	Devil is Fine
3	GREEN LUNG	Let the Devil In
4	Soft Pink Truth	Satanic Black Devotion
5	Meat Beat Manifesto	It’s The Music
6	Onslaught	66’fucking’6
7	Pig	Satanic Panic
8	Jaclyn Kendall	Wasn’t Allowed to Wear a Burning Witch Shirt to Grandma’s Birthday
9	The Legendary Pink Dots	The Heretic
10	Twin Temple	Devil Didn’t Make Me Do It (Live)
11	Blood Ceremony	My Demon Brother
12	Andrew Liles	Cosmonauts! Hail! Satan!
13	Molassess	The Devil Lives

Alternative title for this mix: Inspired by the Powers of Hell

When I was young I got allergy shots, spending a fair bit of time in the allergy clinic each week. The shots weren't bad, I got used to needles quickly and it was just a quick jab, not any involved procedure—but I did have to sit and wait around so they could make sure I didn't have an adverse reaction. I didn't mind this either, unsurprisingly I was a strange and bookish child, so having an extra half an hour to read a book was more of a treat than anything else.

One day, though, when I was twelve, my mother was in the waiting room while the nurse administered the shot and this nurse saw I was reading the 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Supplement The Complete Ranger's Handbook and proceeded to tell me that if I kept reading the works of the devil that I would go to hell. Now, she meant this in the spirit of 'Christian Charity', which is to say, cruelty and the enforcement of conformity cloaked as kindness. It probably wasn't the first time I'd bumped against this as an irreligious kid in the suburbs of the Midwest, but it was one of the most indelible.

Looking back, it was made even more absurd because as far as old D&D supplements go, the Complete Ranger's Handbook was by far one of the tamest—dedicated to class that was required to be good aligned and featuring very little of the devils and demons of other D&D.

This mild cheesecake is probably the most 'provocative' content in the Complete Ranger's Handbook unless you could the loincloth clad man rescuing a fawn below...

Though the encounter didn't really bother me, it stuck with me and I was slightly more discrete in the materials I read at the allergy clinic, or at least, I didn't let the nurses see I was reading D&D books, and like most small minded bigots that nurse didn't really care what the content of the books was—she was only concerned with her ignorant conception of a book, if the cover was plain and innocuous I could have been reading hardcore pornography but I'm sure that just as the D&D book was 'obviously' evil in her eyes, had I been reading a book on puberty that would have been just as suspect. I probably would have been able to get away with reading a book on the Haymarket Martyrs as the word martyrs would make her think of safe religious matter instead of anarchists who were put to death by the state for the crime of being anarchists but if I was reading a book on the history of socialism or anarchy that would have been beyond the goddamned pale for her, even if it was not written as a sympathetic portrait of those movements.

Anyway, the obtuse and casual cruelty of telling a child he was destined to hell for being interested in D&D has stuck with me and been on my mind as we watch the hate group that masquerades as a political party try to ban books indiscriminately based on what they imagine is inside them instead of the actual contents.

Not that I believe in the supernatural or Satan, but I'll take the Devil's side over the cruel and callous god of the contemporary American Christian any day. I have kind and thoughtful Christian friends, neighbors and family members, but all of them are good people in spite of being Christian not because of it. I have seen Christian faith wielded too consistently for an excuse for viciousness, hatred and uncharitability to buy that Christians are good because of their faith. And I'm not talking about long ago religious persecution or wars, but what I've seen in my adulthood where it has been used as an excuse for hatred of the LGBTQA community, refugees and anyone who does not want to submit to the white supremacist christian ideals that dominate American Christianity.

All of which is to say Hail Satan! And part of me hopes I see that nurse again and get to throw up the horns and call out Hail Satan to her face to let her see that I have no fear of her hell and fight on the Devil's side against her pernicious and hateful worldview.

Every Piece of Fortune Is Lost for Today

#	Artist	Track
1	The Legendary Pink Dots	Birdie
2	Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld	Bianchissimo
3	Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds	Girl in Amber
4	Panopticon	Not Much Will Change When I'm Gone (the basics)
5	Akron/Family	Don’t Be Afraid, You’re Already Dead
6	Chris Connelly	Shipwreck
7	The The	Soul Catcher
8	Holy Sons	Double Negative
9	Zola Jesus	Skin (live at the melbourne recital centre)
10	The Angels of Light	What Will Come
11	GREEN LUNG	Born to a Dying World
12	Allfather	Lamepdusa
13	Current 93	Sleep Has His House

This mix was inspired by the classic Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds track, "The Weeping Song" though that song doesn't appear on this mix (I'm saving it for a mix of songs about songs and music). Instead this is a mix of sad and melancholic songs that have brought tears to my eyes. I'll freely admit that I included GREEN LUNG's incredible "Born to a Dying World" on both this mix and my cathartic rage mix I WANNA SCREAM OUT LOUD because I've found myself listening to it both when I feel righteous anger and hopeless despair.