Java Jive: The Coffee Mixtape

John’s Cache 3, Bob Dylan 2

After going undefeated in the first three, the gap is now closing. That’s right, it’s been a competition all along, and how can you not win when you’re your own DJ? By not having the tunes, that’s how. These last two themes have been junk, to be sure, and it’s the only way BD can win (I think). But I admit, with Coffee, this is the first time I’ve had to go fishing outside my own collection and knowledge, just to fill up half a tape. To counter that unfortunate decline in standards, I’ve also included two very personal selections that are unique to my collection—a couple of audience recordings—one of which I made 25 years ago.

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Well, it’s, FIFTY CUPS OF COFFEE and you know IT’S ON

So announces Adam Horovitz at the start of the Hello Nasty LP, pretty much summing up the Beastie Boys’ approach to music-making. “Super Disco Breakin’” isn’t about coffee, but the hyperactive MC-ing that rips through the first two minutes and seven seconds of the band’s fifth album—their second-best—exhibits the over-caffeinated methodology that has been a trademark throughout their long career. No one else on the mixtape is quite as embracing of the stimulating properties of the bitter bean—bouncing off the walls, rocking, joyful.


Except Bal Croce, that is, spastic singer with the Stingrays (the 80s, psychobilly/folk rock ones from London, not the 90s surf rockers, 21st century cruise ship entertainers, or various 60s garage incarnations). “Another Cup of Coffee”, one the tracks on the B-side of the group’s debut “…On Self-Destruct” EP, was one of the few ‘rays originals co-written by Bal with main songwriter Alec Palao. On the original recording, it’s hard to make out what words his highly amped and sometimes guttural motormouth is spewing besides the title refrain (“another cup of coffee, and everything’ll be all right…”), but my understanding has always been that it’s about a spoiled rich girl with a drinking problem (intelligible words include “your daddy’s car,” “down another pint on the way to the bar,” “bourgeois ways,” and “mom’s expectations”). I'm not completely sure those are accurate, but good luck making out the lyrics from this exclusive live version which I recorded on my old ghetto blaster at Mike Spenser’s original Garage club in Brixton, south London, on March 19th, 1983. Extra bonus track from same gig: "My Flash on You" (cover of the original by Love). [photo: The Stingrays on stage at the Garage]


Other coffee songs? In my groping around for filler, I was pleased to learn about The Mods, a Japanese punk band formed in 1974. Listening to a snippet of Espresso, I hear echoes of the Godfathers and the Sid Presley Experience, hometown contemporaries of the Stingrays. The last of the truly wired tracks on the mixtape is "Mug A Joe" by Mug A Joe, a short-lived teen band that played about a dozen gigs in the Dublin area in 2004. The live recording is very likely from this gig. The other songs all namecheck coffee but are mostly smooth or at least less frantic, recognizing that caffiene can, actually, be taken in moderation and be quite calming.

Here is the track list for the Coffee tape:

Black Coffee - All Saints
Super Disco Breakin’ – Beastie Boys
Black Coffee – Black Flag
Java – Bob Crosby and His Bobcats
One More Cup of Coffee – Bob Dylan
The Coffee Grind – Charlie & the Jives
One Cup of Coffee and a Cigarette – Glen Glenn
Cappuccino Bar - Jonathan Richman
Cappucino – MC Lyte
Espresso – The Mods
Iodine in My Coffee – Muddy Waters
Mug A Joe – Mug A Joe [MP3]
Black Coffee – Peggy Lee
Another Cup of Coffee – The Stingrays [MP3]
BONUS TRACK: My Flash on You -- The Stingrays [MP3]
Coffee in the Pot – Supergrass



Click here to see Bob Dylan's Coffee mixtape selections.