Episode 020 - Bret Easton Ellis Mixtape
Plus: Merch!
So I’ve been super into the Bryan Ferry album Boys and Girls recently. The album was Ferry’s first solo outing after disbanding Roxy Music, and as its title would suggest, these are songs about love and lovers, the whole thing tuned to dreamy synths and hypnotic beats. It’s an album best played at night. The whole thing is a vibe.
The second single of the record was “Don’t Stop the Dance,” and this song has been of particular fascination. I’ve been daydreaming while playing it. I keep picturing a convertible cruising a winding road at night, and eventually I realized that the driver I was picturing was a character from some unwritten Bret Easton Ellis novel.
You know who I am talking about. They are driving through the L.A. canyons with the top down. They’re home on Spring Break from NYU, or they are just heading back to school in Vermont from a hometown drug binge. They are not a sociopath but their best friend is. Their parents are lawyers or agents or investors in a five-star hotel consortium but mostly what they are is absent. They are in love with the girl from high school who became a model but they are fucking their coke dealer’s girlfriend; the whole thing should be filled with ennui but actually it’s pretty vacant. They are smoking a cigarette and they don’t see the coyote in the middle of the road until it’s too late.
What are they listening to while careening towards their meaningless demise? Well, they are listening to “Don’t Stop the Dance,” and then probably the next six songs on this month’s mix.
These aren’t necessarily songs mentioned in Ellis’ novels, but some of them are. One of them is featured in a filmed adaptation of his work, but the rest are really just trying to catch that vibe.
In addition to the Bret Easton Ellis mixtape, this month’s show has a full set of Bob Dylan covers and closes with a short set of aughts indie classics featuring female vocalists.
Full set list is down below. The Guest Room is spoiler-free.
Merch Table
Show off your love for MITGR by taking our new stylish “No algorithms” tote bag on your next crate dig. Perfect size for carrying home more records than you reasonably should have spent money on while simultaneously showing off the new logo of your favorite internet radio show.
I also have a bunch of cool MITGR stickers.
There are very limited quantity of the bags. Gave a few to people who have been very supportive of MITGR over the last two years, and I’ll have a few for sale at the next few shows at Skinner’s Loft. However, since I am so excited about them, the first person from the U.S. and the first person from outside the U.S. to email the show at midnightintheguestroom@gmail.com with the subject line TOTE will get one for free, along with a few stickers. Put your mailing address in the body of the email. I’ll even pay for the shipping.
Send us pictures if you see the MITGR sticker out in the wild. Hoping it makes its way to the bathroom walls of dive bars everywhere.
MITGR Recommends
I’m Not There, A Film by Todd Haynes and its soundtrack
Rather than film a conventional biopic, Todd Haynes set out to make a film in which six different actors portray six different aspects of the Bob Dylan mythology. What emerged was a kaleidoscopic, semiotic masterpiece. It’s a great film, and one of the movies from this millennium that I have rewatched the most. Your mileage may vary depending on how deep of a Dylan Head you are, but even if you’re not that into Bob the centerpiece sequences featuring Cate Blanchett as “going electric” Dylan are worth the price of admission. My favorite sequences feature Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg falling in love in early-60s Greenwich Village and then watching their marriage break apart in upstate NY in the 70s. But that’s the beauty of the movie: it’s a collage, so every few minutes there’s another sequence to get lost in. Bored with Christian Bale’s born-again 80s Dylan? Here’s David Cross as Allen Ginsburg!
Even if you’ve never seen the film, the soundtrack is worth a few thousand spins. Dylan gave Haynes permission to use his songs in the film, but for the recorded soundtrack Haynes and music supervisor Randall Poster enlisted over thirty artists to do Dylan covers. It’s a treasure trove. I put three songs in this month’s mix but there are a ton more I could have included. The track list is mind-boggling. Stephen Malkmus playing “Ballad of a Thin Man”! Eddie Vedder singing “All Along the Watchtower”! Cat Power doing “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again”! MITGR recommends picking up the 4LP version while there are still copies on Discogs but it’s up on most streaming services and well worth your time.
Call for Requests
I’m putting out a call for requests- but not for specific songs. This is a request for themes or ideas. “Songs about the end of the world.” “A collection of songs featuring a jilted lover driven to murder.” “Music that feels like water flowing over rocks.” The weirder, the better. If I use your concept, I’ll send you a MITGR tote. Email suggestions to midnightintheguestroom@gmail.com with REQUEST in the subject line.
The Setlist 020
*Set 1* Bryan Ferry - Don’t Stop the Dance *Set 2* Psychedelic Furs - Heartbreak Beat // David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes // Elvis Costello - Hand in Hand // The Bangles - Hazy Shade of Winter (Remix) (Simon & Garfunkel cover) // Talking Heads - Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) // Wang Chung - To Live and Die in L.A. *Set 3* Calexico and Iron & Wine - Dark Eyes (Bob Dylan cover) // Them - It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob Dylan cover) // Yo La Tengo - I Wanna Be Your Lover (Bob Dylan cover) // Rod Stewart - Mama, You Been on My Mind (Bob Dylan cover) // Jeff Tweedy - Simple Twist of Fate (Bob Dylan cover) *Set 4* Yo La Tengo - Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House // The New Pornographers - Challengers // Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Turn Into
Word of Mouth
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Footnotes
Assorted ephemera related to Episode 020
0202.01 (14:42) Was a little worried this particular song might shift the vibe of the set, but a) you gotta have some Costello in a Bret Easton Ellis mix, and b) the opening line “No don’t ask me to apologize/and I won’t ask you to forgive me” feels like it could have been said by nearly any character in his first three books.
020.02 (17:04) The version of this I have is a 45 single from the Less Than Zero soundtrack. Turns out it was released by DefJam and produced by Rick Rubin. I never would have guessed that in a million years.
The drums rule so hard on this track.
020.03 (58:36) The way Karen sings “that girl you found” breaks me every time.