Years ago, on a Muchmusic special about the direction of music (I believe it was a retrospective covering grunge and pop’s resurgence), George Stroumboulopoulos (then a VJ) made an impassioned call for the music junkies of the land to take back popular radio and once again make known the great hidden gems through the power of mix CDs strewn n random places across the city.  “Leave a mix on the subway!”  he suggested.

I so developed a crush on him that day.  Rick the Temp who?

In any case, after successfully making the jump to hosting The Hour on CBC, George began a section of his site dedicated to tracking and encouraging such Mix Cd Madness.  Called Operation Disc Drop, users are able to post a tracklisting and a drop point in one section, while those who find said discs (led to the site by the instruction to put the URL on the actual blank) can also post to say what they found and what they thought.  Some of the mixes are definitely inspired, the sort of delicious goodness one might find at The Art Of The Mix (another site I dig).

In honour of the boyfriend’s birthday, I did my first drop tonight, in the bathroom of The Central in Toronto, a restaurant in which we dined.  Lemme know what you think!  If you’ve found my disc, I would love to hear your thoughts and also encourage you to rip a copy of your own if desired and ‘re-drop’ it.

For the indie musicians I know (several of whom I threw on the mix), it could be a revolution for promotion.  If every fan dropped a mix and included a song of yours, it would be awesome!

In any case, all further drop discussion will be tagged ‘operation disc drop’. I encourage you to consider giving it a go!
Tracklisting for the Summer’s Near 2008 Mix:

1.  Day Job – Sunshine State
2.  Bouncing Off Clouds – Tori Amos
3.  Ride A White Horse – Goldfrapp
4.  Feel It – Jakalope
5.  Run Baby Run – Garbage
6.  Face The Music – Conjure One
7.  Broken Glass – The Gathering
8.  Land On Your Feet – Karen Kosowski
9.  Far From Home – Tiga
10. Shores of California – The Dresden Dolls
11. Pumping Up The P House – Slave to the Squarewave
12. English Summer Rain – Placebo
13. High Rise – Ladytron
14. Hey Pretty – Poe
15. Daylight Robbery – Imogen Heap
16. So-Cal Loco – Sprung Monkey
17. Parkdale – Metric
18. The Great Gig In The Sky – Pink Floyd