For violence, for young patient lovers, and always the indestructible wolves. These are the sounds of the running feet no one wants to hear in the night. The neon tunes that led us out of the night and the songs that kept us alive on the floor. All those mornings, all those first times. In your room though telepathic spells. Drowning in your record collection. A perpetual holiday away from all worlds that take on the shape of a cage. The sky is ripped. Catch those dreams. it's raining women's voices like they died in memory. Riding through iron landscapes, hard and homeward bound. Turn out the lights. Cut your teeth. Sparkle and shine. The gift has been charged. Handle her (23) like no other. She won't forget you.

Max G Morton

DOWNLOAD 23 MIXTAPE

(1) Depeche Mode – “Never Let Me Down Again”

This is the song that was playing in the club at exactly midnight, right after I caught a taste of your tongue and a black eye, right before I blew the smoke from the barrel. They say this song is just about Heroin, but I still hear it as an ode to the soul that would complete me if it existed. A young boy raises his fists in celebration and dances with wolves in what becomes an anchor of a memory. (Wesley Eisold)

(2) Cold Cave – “The Trees Grew Emotions and Died”

The name escapes me but the glow of the white and orange sign is still there. Vividly. An all night grocery store on the border of two towns, neither one's pretty side. There was this guy in a trench coat. In hot humid Florida summer nights, in any weather, he was sweating in his statement. Just taking it, not just from the baking degrees, from the entire town too. A Throbbing Gristle badge adorned the right breast. Destroy All Monsters written on the back in white paint. Within time the jacket would collect more names, pins, and studs. The spike effect was all the more reflective in the summer sun as he gathered and pushed shopping carts around the parking lot. Always wearing sunglasses and headphones. A member of an art collective that held court in an abandoned haunted hotel, naturally entitled The Bat Cave. We spoke over an amateurish cigarette once. "You going to see Alien Sex Fiend down in Ybor City?" "Nah, I don't think so." "You should." "Uh, okay." The fluorescent glow of that parking lot and the nuance of shadows detailing a forgotten breed visit me quite often. Forever I will wonder what would have happened if I would have listened to more "Ceremony" and less " Traitor" in my youth. (Max G Morton)


(3) Steve Elgin - "Don't Leave Your Lover Lying Around (Dear)"

Steve's Elgin's only 45 spewed out of the male bath houses of 1974, a true memorial to a lost world we shall only imagine and return to with glee. (Mark McCoy)

(4) Captain Sensible - "Secrets"

Complicated parable about being paranoid as a result of being yourself, or vice versa. "Don't wear someone else's gear" - sensible words to take with you at all times. (William Pym)

(5) Autographs – “While I’m Still Young”

I took the flames rising from the main promenade as my cue to find a different way out as fast as humanly possible. Armageddon had erupted in the fiery orange halls, and there was no turning back. Books, paper on fire, chairs, white bodies, and black fists were all flying through the air. Teachers were locked inside their classrooms, smoking cigarettes and taking bets on what kids were going to catch it the worst. I was running down a side hall and hurdling debris when I felt a hand grabbing my shoulder. My head was suddenly slammed into a locker door, and as I quickly spun myself around to greet whatever hellish party I had just been invited to, I found myself standing face to face with Rocky and the large knife in his right hand. (Max G Morton)

(6) The Yummy Fur - "Roxy Girls"

Slightly pissed-up but extremely well-organized, these Scots were by far the United Kingdom's best case for art school in 1995, and my man Nick maintains they get better and more relevant each year, despite breaking up in 1999. "West German cabaret schism / bad makeup, no brassiere / NO BRASSIERE!" (William Pym)

(7) The Slits - “So Tough”

This bit of cuckoo reggae punk is supposedly about Sid Vicious. The girls see right thru him acting the part of a tough junkie star and failing miserably. Still the ladies have compassion by seeing that "he is only curious, don't take him serious". Greatest line "Don't mess up by getting sick.... AGAIN! " (Kid Congo Powers)

(8) Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers - “Too Much Junkie Business”

I saw Johnny the next day and turned him on to a few bags of dope. This in when my heroin habit really kicked in, fueled by the magic junkie hooker gift from god. (Howie Pyro)

(9) Fludd - "Get Up, Get Out, and Move On"

This groover, the catchiest reminder to cut loose from soul suckers, scum bags and shitty jobs, is the most inspiring song in the world. Fludd hailed from Montreal and this was released on Warner Bros. in '72. True magic! (Mark McCoy)

(10) Unit - "Queer"

True story from Andy Martin, former member of Hackney skins The Apostles. This latter-day lineup, an outgrowth of his '80s group Academy 23, includes, I believe, his "Chinese lad" lover. About as frank and as punk a lyric, and as perfectly structured a narrative, as any I can readily recall. (William Pym)

(11) Primal Scream – “All Fall Down”

Sticking bubblegum to the school bus windows, carving hearts in the pleather seats, I blew a dandelion on to your freckles and you said you'd see me on Monday. I had to move that weekend and all I remember of you is this song. (still hurts). (Wesley Eisold)

(12) Slob - "Mister Ugly"

Records playing in Wes' old loft got me started on thinking about the difference between basement losers and bedroom losers, two crucial teenage varietals. This stands as a textbook example of the second sort. Something to do with having a mirror, and having a window, and having a bed, and not having anything else. From 'Something's Burning In Paradise', an excellent cassette compilation from 1988 on Subtle Records of Bristol. (William Pym)

(13) The Manson Family - "Ra-Hide Away!"

Thankfully Sharon Tate bought it otherwise this lovely blood drenched gem from 1970 might've never surfaced for me to channel my own visions of destruction. Deranged hippie acid trips such as this one are essential for those knife wielding nights of looking in bedroom windows and creeping around places where the violence calls. (Mark McCoy)

(14) Brett Smiley – "Space Ace"

Another planet, another suburbia where boys played with their sister's make up and mother's lingerie, this never left the turntable. (Max G Morton)

(15) Studio Apartment – “Why'd Ya Do It (remix)”

This remix of Kid&Khan's version of the Marriane Faithful classic bitch out your cheating partner rant, "Why'd Ya Do It?” is further taken to the lowers depths by Germany's Studio Apartment, whom is actually Christian Jendreiko of Dusseldorf art collective, HobbyPopMuseum (Kid Congo Powers)

(16) Sweet - “Teenage Rampage”

Deranged punk rockers running wild through the Lower East Side of Manhattan, too young to have worn the platforms of the Dolls & the Sweet but old enough to wear/use the spikes. (Howie Pyro)

(17) The Partisans – "Blind Ambition"

No other song can guarantee an absolute time travel into an arena where the air is nervous, wet, and colored red. Only if you recognized me when you were better looking. (Max G Morton)

(18) The Plugz – "Achin'"

The first night I must have looked pretty cool with my hands covered in all that blood and gravel. The second night I must have motored right past pretty cool straight up to stone fucking cool covered in all the blood and gravel. There were looks. I saw. The third night was the charm. Hearing your unfortunate friend hiss as I walked by "weird, your boyfriend isn't covered in half the club's blood" told me nothing other than you do. You should have seen your face when you finally made your move and I just got up and left. Snubbing, excrement, dirt, whatever it is, it fucking always works. The thing was I totally loved you. At that point we had never really spoken but I loved you nonetheless. We shared meaningful conversations at night when I was isolated, even with others I was always alone. Some nights we shared a flat. I liked your look. Always have been big on other planetary gut feelings and Valley Girl endings. That following morning you drove over an hour to my house just to tape a note to my window telling me that I was "it." How fucking romantic was that? It's the little things as such that kill relationships because you could never do anything that spectacular ever again. Youth had no high notes so naturally I took the bait as something more than it really was. I lost mass notches on your corner pole when I placed that call to your work. You actually sold vacations and I was a customer in need of an escape. Were the roses too much? I had never done anything so cheap and text book before. However I was different, if you keep repeating such fantasies you will eventually believe them and I did. You killed me for dreaming but ironically enough still to this day you ask about me. The bouquet reigns as your most beloved sniff of romance. If you could still consider the third night a charm than the fourth night was a rusty nail. All that energy and barely even any tit. I bought you a Happy Meal, cigarettes, and nail polish. I put my hand on your leg in the car and felt death. Your frostiness made me want to die but it only made me cling harder. I never left your side once that night. The kids wanted to fight and I walked away. There was a certain way the light caught your eye and momentarily I thought you deserved better. Regardless you let me in your bed and gave me your back. I played with your hair and felt snakes. Chain smoking on the right side, leaning over you to ash while you huffed annoyance, I almost took up talking to God. I never gave up with the touching and mental persuasion. Just before the sun made it official you gave in. It was nothing like your cow girlfriends told you it was going to be like. No pulling, punching, kicking, or spiting. Just a couple of cupid endorsed pushups. You even put it in for me, I was still shaking to the beat that you were something greater. Your last victim's boxers slightly pulled down and your shirt barely pulled up, junior high offered me more passion. Sad thing is you held me back that night like no other. The idea that became you was monstrous. Not even a kiss or grip of your hand back. Coffin case. I'd played dead in the morning too so I knew. You showered with the door locked (and what a painful snap that was… so loud). And the bed took on the shape of a noose. Sky high with the horrors I picked up your ancient dialer phone and called for a marriage license but the line was busy. Your hair looked porno hot wet. You drove me home in silence and I though about kissing every rig that passed us. Granted only a couple of heartfelt thrusts but there were pieces of me missing in her for years. The stench of her body hardens me to this day as I replay the conversation that went down right as we passed a symbolic hanging piano on the freeway. "Some advice. You will never have me again, honestly don't ever call me, I won't pick up. Girls like guys who fuck and fight like animals, we don't actually want princes and if we already have one, well we are cheating on him with the guy I drove over an hour to tape a note to his door, you at the club stabbing a guy with a bottle over nothing not you following me around looking all lost and weak. Girls don't want dinner and flowers, they want to be taken, even if they say they don't. I should be waiting by the phone wondering where you are not the other way around. You killed this for me by showing you were human on the first date. Not what I was looking for." (Max G Morton)

(19) 999 – “Feeling Alright With The Crew”

I guess when you are young every weekend us important but now they all bleed together. (Max G Morton)

(20) Siouxsie And The Banshees – “Dazzle”

We were fourteen, wasted on whatever we could find, and ready to destroy whatever we could get our hands on. (Max G Morton)

(21) The Spitters – “Sun To Sun”

“I see you’re busy with your past… it won’t last.” (Max G Morton)

(22) The Dead C – “Hell is Now Love”

The most fitting song for a humid Western saloon-lined dirt road shoot-off, New Zealand cowboys with dried tears of blood scaling the grit of sand stained agelines. The dead leaves fall to the slow sway. She has left you for dead. Kind of an unfair song to live in a mix without the rest of their rock album to back it up. (Wesley Eisold)

(23) Prurient - “The Wine Cellar”

What time did each of you go to your bedroom?
What time did each of you go to sleep?
Was your bedroom door open or closed?
Did any of you get up during the night?
(Dominick Fernow)