tapebomb 003 - "Welcome to College/This Won't Be On the Final"

The mixtape: Covers were various webcomics. Each tape came with a different copy of an online comic strip with the tracklisting written on the back. There were four strips-American Elf, Nothing Nice to Say, Copper and a fourth strip. Possibly a 4-Y Records strip.

Side A (Welcome to College)

1. The New Pornographers - The Laws Have Changed
2. Fountains of Wayne - Survival Car
3. Imperial Teen - Million $ Man
4. Troubled Hubble - Ear, Nose & Throat
5. Atom & His Package - Anarchy Means I Litter
6. They Might Be Giants - Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas) (Live)
7. Nina Simone - Brown-Eye Handsome Man
8. The Magnetic Fields - When My Boy Walks Down the Street
9. The Pixies - Debaser
10. Radiohead - Just
11. The Smashing Pumpkins - Muzzle
12. Feeder - Buck Rogers
13. Blackalicious - Passion
14. The Mountain Goats - No Children
15. Dropkick Murphys - Boys on the Docks (Murphys' Pub Version)

Side B (This Won't Be On the Final)

1. Pete Yorn - For Nancy
2. The Promise Ring - Get On the Floor
3. Michael Franti & Spearhead - We Don't Stop
4. Gomez - Waster
5. Moby - Feeling So Real
6. Bad Religion - Hooray for Me...
7. The Weakerthans - Plea From a Cat Named Virtue
8. Beck - Milk & Honey
9. Hedwig & the Angry Inch - Tear Me Down
10. Guided By Voices - Glad Girls
11. Mike Doughty - Sunken Eyed Girl
12. Junkie XL - Saturday Teenage Kick

taped and dropped at the beginning of the University of Pittsburgh's 2005 Fall semester. Intended as an upbeat mix to welcome kids to college which required multiple revisions of the side B title initially conceived as "Everything Counts Now." That and other potential titles seemed too negative and intimidating for a "Welcome" tape.
The drops were largely undramatic. I gave a copy to my cousin who was starting college at Pitt. He literally didn't know what to do with it. The digital age has hit hard folks-the kid didn't have a single analog device in his room, not even a television set. There might have been a radio built into his alarm clock (with digital display). Otherwise everything was listened to and viewed through the computer. If he's listened to the tape at all I'd be very surprised. More than likely it's been thrown out or handed off to another resident of the dorm who saw it and asked what was on it.
The second copy went to a kid who stuck his head into my cousin's dorm room while I was there. He was wandering the building saying hi to everyone just to get to know folks. Nice kid. I ran into him again later and he asked me what the deal with passing out the tapes was. I gave him a brief rundown of tapebomb. He probably listened to it.
Third copy went in Skippy the Panther's mouth, fourth went into a newspaper kiosk that has copies of the local alt weekly.