Chinchilla Tape
Shields Mixtape: The Chinchilla Mix —
What It Tells Us about Him
​Shields created a cassette mixtape for the short-lived Mojo Collections magazine. He commented on each song and what in particular most appealed or stood out to him.
One of the major themes of his list was the freedom of the meter, as many of the artists he selected didn’t stick to a strict time signature. If you tried to write these songs in standard musical notation, you’d run into problems, as the rhythms are uneven and inconsistent technically, though they work as far as the feeling is concerned.
Shields was also attracted to some of the more radical drum and bass music he heard on pirate radio stations. Much like the songs he chose for this compilation, he felt the genre also had elements of ‘free time.’ It’s that kind of freedom—whether it was in John Lennon’s rhythm guitar playing or on a drum and bass track that has multiple drums loops overlaid unevenly on top of one another until they seem to explode—that speaks to him in all forms of music from over the last hundred years.
Open-ended creativity, rather than rote learning or any kind of strict adherence to rules or structures, is a hallmark of his outlook. He strives to remain open to his art and keep commercial concerns and others’ perceptions out of his consciousness. The article is worth tracking down, as his comments on the tracks are not only insightful but convey the real excitement and joy music brings to him. It can be found in Mojo Collections magazine, Spring 2001.
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Side 1
Syd Barrett: No Good Trying (1970)
The Who: Anyway Anyhow Anywhere (1965)
The Byrds: Eight Miles High (1968)
The Beatles: It’s All Too Much (1969)
The Beatles: Across the Universe
(World Wildlife Foundation Version) (1969)
Skip Spence: War to Peace (1968)
The Flying Burrito Brothers: Wild Horses (1970)
Clarence Ashely: The House Carpenter (1932)
Side 2
Delma Lachney & Blind Uncle Gaspard:
Le Danseuse (1929)
Reverend JM Gates: You Must Be Born Again (1926)
Mississippi John Hurt: Spike Driver Blues (1963)
Garfield Akers: Dough Roller Blues (1930)
Skip James: Hard Time Killing Floor Blues (1964)
Bukka White: Parchman Farm Blues (1963)
Leadbelly: Gallis Pole (1969)
The Swamp Rats: Psycho (1983)
The Zombies: Care of Cell 44 (1968)
Funkadelic: Maggot Brain (1971)
While not as detailed, some interesting observations were made by Shields in an interview he gave to the Wire for their ‘Invisible Jukebox’ feature by David Keenan in March of 1999. They play selections of music, without identifying the artist, and he tries to identify the recordings and shares his thoughts.