Making People Listen Whether They Like It Or Not

I had a lengthy career as a mixed-tape maker.  This went from about 1985 through 1999 or so.  Everyone I knew wound up with one eventually.  I think I was actually pretty good at it since I occasionally got requests for them.  Once I got to college I started working in the on-campus pizza parlor as a DJ.  This was great since I could really drive home my point with a captive audience.  Captive for as long at it took to eat a pizza is more like it.  Sometimes I purposely played irritating or aggressive music out of spite for my fellow students.  Big Black for lunch is not the usual collegiate whitehat's idea of a good time.  One day I played a Frankie Goes to Hollywood interview from Smash Hits several times in a row.  "I've got a weird assortment of freckles when the sun comes out".  Other times, overcome with a sense of populism, I'd relent and play a friendly bunch of one-hit wonder new wave.  This led to a spate of requests for tapes and "what's that song where they say...?" questions.   Eventually, I made a tape of typical 80's new wave songs to be copied in order to satisfy these requests without having to listen to "The Safety Dance" again.  

Generally, tapes were made to reflect my own taste and to push obscure music on others.  There were lots of personal favorites that made it onto those tapes.  Almost everyone got them at some point.  One of these was "88 Lines About 44 Women" by the Nails.  The Ravers were a weak punk band from Denver that wound up in New York City renamed as the Nails.  They made a great 12" EP on Jimboco Records with that song and some other good ones.  The original version of "88 Lines" is one of my favorite things.  I typed up the lyrics and posted a printout on the wall of my dorm.  In 1994, my roommate was prescient enough to have Archers of Loaf play in the pizza parlor.  Eric Johnson stood in our dorm and read the lyrics and said "the Nails, right?"  Right on.  The band signed to RCA and re-recorded the song but it lost a lot of the charm.  Their two RCA LPs were so-so.  They did a reunion CD in the 90's.  Of course I have that too.  None of that material gets close to "88 Lines About 44 Women".