Damn straight. Photo via tapedeck.org

Mixtapes were the bomb, right? They represented dedication; time spent crouching by your boombox, starting and stopping and racing for the ‘record’ button when that song came on the radio (early piracy?). The order of songs, the meaning of songs… remember when you’d even record sweet nothings in between tracks for that special someone?

The last mixtape in my possession was made for me by one of my best friends (shout out to you, A cup!) when we were 15 years old, to bring on my exchange student summer in Mexico. It contained the following classics:

1. “The Bad Touch” (the ‘Discovery Channel’ song) by the Bloodhound Gang
2. “I Get Around” by Tupac Shakur
3. “Thug Passion” by Tupac Shakur
4. “Ojos Asi” by Shakira
5. “Bye Bye Bye” by N*SYNC

Equal parts gangster, pervert, Latinphile and vapid teenybopper; I must have listened to it hundreds of times. It was perversely enjoyable trying to translate Bloodhound Gang lyrics to my host mom the day she let me play the tape in her minivan. That mix was me, analog.

And it so it is with a certain fondness I look forward to the San Francisco Mixtape Society’s second quarterly tape exchange. Come with a tape full of memories, leave with someone else’s, down a few, partake in raffles with prizes from Matador Records and, of course, enjoy the sweet, sweet melodies of cut and pasted audio pleasure. Fyi, the theme of the afternoon is "Cities vs. Towns." It’s enough to make you toss your Ipod and realize- with an unpleasant start- that your car no longer has a tape deck. Oh, fickle technology!

SF Mixtape Society get-together
Sun/31 4-6 p.m., free
The Make-Out Room
3225 22nd St., SF
(415) 647-2888
www.sfmixtapesociety.com