Andrew Walsh Blog & Podcast

When I was a kid, back in 1986, my sister and I had a collection of four cassette tapes from McDonald’s. They were called “Rockin’ Gold”, and even though they were just a collection of top 40 oldies hits, they had a huge impact on me. I listened to them over and over and over and over and over again. They were the soundtrack to my childhood summers.

I forgot about the tapes until about five years ago, when I heard Chad & Jeremy’s “A Summer Song” on the radio.  That song was on the McDonald’s collection! I was suddenly overcome with the need to track down all four original tapes. I didn’t need the actual cassettes, but I wanted to find the playlists so I could recreate them.

The task was harder than I thought it would be; I couldn’t remember the actual name of the collection, and I couldn’t remember the name of the individual tapes. I just recalled keywords like “golden” and “classics” and “summer” and “McDonald’s”, and if you type those words into Google, you get all kinds of stuff that you can’t dance to.

Eventually I stumbled upon two of the tapes on this site, but I still couldn’t find the other two in the series. I asked for help from the listeners of the TBTL podcast, and they helped me track down the playlist for a third cassette.

One awesome Canadian had the great idea of searching the U.S. Copyright Office, which confirmed that there is a fourth tape: “Rockin’ Classics.” I haven’t found the playlist for that one yet, but at least I know it’s out there.

So, we’ve now accounted for three tapes in the “Rockin’ Gold” collection, and I spent this weekend downloading the songs and putting them in the order that God intended them to be played in (or at least the order that Ronald McDonald intended them to be played in.) And now I’m that much closer to reliving my childhood.

These tapes, I’m sure, will have little resonance with you — just a collection of Golden Oldies you’ve heard a million times. But if you want to pretend you’re a chubby, 10-year-old Andrew Walsh, download the tapes below, put them on your iPod in the right order, and go outside and play.

I think this is going to be an awesome summer.

 

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

 

Summer Classics

1/ Surfin’ Safari / The Beach Boys

2/ One Fine Day / The Chiffons

3/ A Summer Song / Chad and Jeremy

4/ The Wanderer / Dion

5/ Summer In The City / The Lovin’ Spoonful

6/ Remember (Walking In The Sand) / Shangri-Las

7/ Rhythm Of The Rain / The Cascades

8/ Summertime, Summertime / The Jamies

 

Lovin’ Classics

1/ (You’re My) Soul and Inspiration / The Righteous Brothers

2/ Baby I’m Yours / Barbara Lewis

3/ Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow / The Shirelles

4/ Sea Of Love / Phil Phillips

5/ Cherish / The Association

6/ Blue Velvet / Bobby Vinton

7/ To Know Him Is To Love Him / The Teddy Bears

8/ There’s A Moon Out Tonight / The Capris

 

Dancin’ Classics

1/ Let’s Twist Again / Chubby Checker

2/ Shout / Joey Dee & The Star Liters

3/ Ally Oop / Hollywood Argyles

4/ Sea Cruise / Frankie Ford

5/ Soul Man / Sam & Dave

6/ Twist & Shout / Isley Brothers

7/ Kansas City / Wilbert Harrison

8/ Come Go With Me / The Del-Vikings

 

If you have issues downloading this, let me know.

 

 

You’re going to start watching this video, and you’re going to think, “bah, it’s just another YouTube slideshow.” But you will be wrong. It eventually becomes an honest-to-god video, and when you reach the 1:15 mark, you’re going to understand why I’m so psyched about it. SPOILER ALERT: She’s PLAYING the DRUMS. Also, about a minute later, you’ll be introduced to the hottest sax player to ever butter your bread or whatever.

There are a bunch of other videos on my tumblr page. And most of them aren’t by The Carpenters or Sonic Youth.

But some of them are.

If You’ve Got Nothing to Say, Sing It

 

Remember when things like this were on TV?

Yes, I think you might hate some of these songs. But I also think you will really, really like some of them (track #2, that’s a shoutout to you!) If I were you, I’d just download the mixtape. It’s free, and it’s not going to break your iPod or anything.

Click HERE to download the mix (zip file)

1/ Call On Me / The Bangs

2/ Shotgun / Eugene McGuinness

3/ All My Love / TiRon & Ayomari (ft. Yummy Bingham)

4/ Somebody That I Used To Know / Gotye

5/ A.D.H.D. / Kendrick Lamar

6/ Different Drum / Linda Ronstat and the Stone Poneys

7/ Andrew In Drag / The Magnetic Fields

8/ Getting Out Of Hand / The Bangs

9/ Romance / Wild Flag

10/ Inspectors of Inspectors / Driftless Pony Club

11/ Camille / Le Kid, Les & Marinellis

12/ Touch Cups / Juga Hill

13/ So Damn Down / Tanya Morgan

14/ Break Loose / Rasheed Chappell (ft. DJ Scratch & EPMD)

 

If you have issues downloading this, you’ll let me know, right?

 

 

Pretty much the only thing I like about the movie Scarface are Michelle Pfeiffer’s awesome sunglasses.

 

This is a strange collection of songs that have nothing to do with Christmas. I hope you enjoy them. If you don’t, let me know, and I’ll see if I can find some other way to make all your holiday wishes come true. (Except the gross ones.)

[ CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MIX ]

 

1/ Pass Me By / J Cole (Ft. B.O.B.)

2/ Fallin’ / Teenage Fanclub & De La Soul

3/ Fireball / Willow Smith

4/ Violent Nudity / Says She’s Ms. Blat

5/ If You Wanna / The Vaccines

6/ Young Mother / Juviley

7/ Like Smoke / Amy Winehouse (Ft. Nas)

8/ Mr. Brown / YC the Cynic (Ft. Sene)

9/ Slight Work / Wale (Ft. Big Sean)

10/ A.V.E.R.A.G.E. / Kazi

11/ Rose Garden / Shad

12/ FYC-x-Gruzen / Earl Sweatshirt (Sly Tendencies)

13/ Smart / Girl in a Coma

14/ Darling Divine / Royal Baths

Oh, and hey, for reals: If you have any trouble downloading, let me know.

I got an email from my girlfriend, Vieves, recently. The subject line was “Actual plot points in the Law & Order SVU I’m watching.” It’s worth sharing.

Oh wait, the baby was found wrapped in a t-shirt from some frat party from the local college.

But wait! The father lies on the stand and claims it WAS rape, so they have to acquit her on grounds of insanity.

BUT the detective who investigated the crime tells the girl that she, the detective, was the product of a rape.

Aha! Double jeopardy protects her on the second baby, but she can still be charged with murder for the first one.

Oh no! Meanwhile, Councilman Incest is about to take his son/grandson home to raise.

The detectives:”You’re never getting this baby!”

FIN

Sorry, boys. She’s taken.

[ CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MIX ]

1/Theme From A Summer / Skeeter Davis

2/ Come and Get It / Badfinger

3/ All Summer / Kid Cudi, Best Coast & Rostam

4/ Shiraz / Action Bronson

5/ Good Friday / Kanye West (Ft. Common, Pusha T, Kid Cudi, Big Sean & Charlie Wilson)

6/ Titanic / Nikkiya

7/ FYC-x-Gruzen / Earl Sweatshirt (Sly Tendencies)

8/ Farewell / Soda Shop

9/ You Can’t Hurry Love / The Concretes

10/ Pumped Up Kicks / Foster the People

11/ Gotta Have It / Jay-Z & Kanye

If you have any trouble downloading, let me know.

Luke mentioned my blog on his podcast today. That pretty much means I better post something here. I’ll take advantage of this opportunity by sharing with you the best animated gif you’ll ever see. I can’t embed it with sound here, so just click on the image below. And enjoy!