I turn 40 on Saturday, so as the calendar turns to September I am feeling reflective.
One of my favorite storytelling devices is the mix CD (AKA playlist for you young folx). I’ve been making mix CDs, affectionately dubbed “Matt’s Mixes” for about a quarter century now. In August 2004, starting with Matt’s Mixes 68-70, a 3-disc set I titled August ’04 and Everything After, I became more intentional about giving each mix a title and often a theme or connective thread to go along with cover art.
When I made Matt’s Mix 100 in September of 2006, I was turning 22 years old and entering my senior year of college. I made 12 unique versions of Matt’s Mix 100, Peaces of the Hole, and gave away 11 copies with an explanatory insert to important people in my life at the time, writing, in part, “…each CD is a piece of the whole 22-song compilation, just as each person who receives one of these CDs is a piece of the whole that is my life. But, the title also suggests my mindset as I encounter a whirlwind of life changes at age 22 and beyond. Despite all of the pieces, there is still a hole: my future.”
The twelfth CD was not given to anyone as a symbol of all that was yet to come. I wrote, “While the uncertainty of the future can be intimidating and scary, the message of this CD is that even though there will be roadblocks and pitfalls along the way, I am prepared to deal with the road ahead and thus at ‘peace’ with the ‘hole’ that is my future, in part because of the various pieces/people who make my whole life so wonderful on a day to day basis.”
Eighteen years and 100 Matt’s Mixes later, Matt’s Mix 200: September, is the culmination of a yearlong calendar-themed music project I started in October of 2023 when I realized serendipitously that I was exactly 12 mixes away from 200 and 12 months away from turning 40 years old.
In recent years, the majority of my mix-making has shifted to be for my kids. They each look forward to receiving a Ben’s Mix, Max’s Mix, or Rosie’s Mix on their respective birthday each year. The calendar project was a fun, reinvigorating way for me to tell the story of this final year of my 30s one month at a time with songs that relate to each month in a variety of thematic ways.
Whereas Matt’s Mix 100 was 12 variations of one mix, Matt’s Mix 200 is the 12th entirely unique mix of the calendar project. The cover art of Matt’s Mix 100 was 12 fragmented black and white pieces of a filtered rendering of my face looking serious at the daunting future ahead. In contrast, Matt’s Mix 200 is one full image of my face—now in color—yet not without blemish and a bit of an artistic rendered blur representing both the wear and tear of my life that has already been lived and the still sometimes daunting nature of the future ahead. However, there’s a slight smile there, too, signifying a sense of being at peace with the most wholly authentic version of myself who I am becoming more of each day.
Matt’s Mix 200 begins with a live version of “Round Here” from a Counting Crows concert this summer in Buffalo that features an incredibly relevant outro. Meanwhile Matt’s Mix 189: October, which began the calendar concept ended with “Round Here” live from Boston on October 31, 1999, which is my favorite song of all-time. That same track 1999 live version was also included on Matt’s Mix 100. The decision to begin September (Matt’s Mix 200) with a new version of the same song that ended October (Matt’s Mix 189) and also existed on Matt’s Mix 100: Peaces of the Hole reminds me of one of my favorite song lyrics ever, from Semisonic’s “Closing Time,” which itself was the closing track of Matt’s Mix 100: “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
That lyric served as the theme of my senior project in high school, and it’s a line I share at the beginning of each school year with my students as a teacher. As I wind down the end of my 30s and prepare to begin my 40s, that line rings true yet again.
And it feels good to honor the moment with a mix that includes musical influences new and old, lyrics that speak to me in profound ways, plenty of horns, and more!