Good Times Till The Cops Shut Us Down, a mixtape by Spaceship Studios and Triangle Music Labs released earlier this year, reflects the rich, eclectic and growing house show “scene” in Murfreesboro. It covers a wide scope of what the ’Boro offers, featuring Meth Dad, TronAteMyBaby, The Most Amazing Century of Science, Technikiller, Blastoids, Mantra Mantra Mantra, The Prophet Nathan and pretty much everyone you’ve heard of, if not seen firsthand in a crumbly basement or dingy living room about town. If that’s your scene, you’re likely familiar with the artists, and this mixtape will just be a reminder of all the good shit about them.
Highlights on Side A (this is a cassette) include a very Genesis sort of Blastoids number called “The Mountain,” a breezy electronic dream that leads into TronAteMyBaby’s “When I Grows Up” (and I guess when they grows up they want to do something with a spaceship and the matrix and a disco party or something—it’s hard to hear over the carny music); “Everything Everything Everything,” a great, great, great resonating melody by Mantra Mantra Mantra; the captivating voice of Michael Taylor from The Subnovas on “Hazy”; the Ramones-esque “Shetland Pony” from the Sleepy Pie-Skulls; and Technikiller’s hollow sounding, melodic, percussion-driven side-closer, “Crapazoid.”
On Side B, The Prophet Nathan get floaty and electronicky with “The Most Holy Trinosophia”; there’s the danceable warble of guitars in Self Help’s “Personal Gain”; Crayon’s & Antidotes’ “Tempaura” is a perfect multicolored dreamscape cut with entrancing vocals; and the ending is perfect—A Day in the Life of a Daily’s “How Our Hero Spent His Summer Vacation Pt. 2,” a declaration about floating down a river and kissing and not being stopped by fathers, devils or the world.
This isn’t a question of whether the music is good; of course it is. Murfreesboro is a cesspool of musical talent. The question is, does it flow and succeed as a mixtape? The answer is yes.
Furthermore, with all these songs compiled, I’ve noticed Murfreesboro artists are really influenced by jazz and are super into electronic music and hard rock—and mixing all of that together. So that’s good. My only question is, where are Mom & Dad, Tetsuo, Seafood Hotline and The GoldRoom?
Stream and download the collection at spaceshipstudios.com.
