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From The Desk of Kevn Kinney: Virtual Mix Tapes

Kevn Kinney‘s music has always been lurking in the cobwebbed corners of your mind, even if you weren’t aware of it. After making the big move from Milwaukee to Atlanta back in the ’80s, he happened to be close to Athens, Ga., the birthplace of R.E.M., when that band was really catching fire. He caught the always-open ear of Peter Buck, who produced some material by Kinney’s band, Drivin N Cryin, which would latch onto a support slot for an R.E.M. tour. Fast forward to the new millennium, and Kinney has moved to Brooklyn, where he’s cut a fine solo record, A Good Country Mile, with Anton Fier and the Golden Palominos. The new disc somehow manages to fit Bob Dylan, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Van Morrison under the same tiny leopard-skin pill-box hat. Kinney will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.

Kinney: There’s nothing like a mix tape … a great collection of your favorite songs
as a way to communicate with your friends or lovers, or as a pre show
introduction … It was a lot of work in the past, spending hours coming up
with the perfect sequence … Like your own personal radio show …
And then decorating the cover with colored markers and pictures from
magazines …
It’s a lot easier now but I still love putting together a playlist, collections of
artists and songs to turn people on,
or just entertain myself on a long drive or runway fiasco …
Let me turn you on … To Dead Confederate, Tim Knol, Thad Cockrell, Drive
By Truckers, Chuck Prophet, Richard Buckner,
Michelle Malone, Owen McCarthy, the Oil Tasters, Plasticland, Madison
Square Gardeners, Tim Easton, Kaleigh Baker, Findlay Brown, Takya …
There’s nothing cooler than someone saying … Man, that’s cool … Who is
that?
And you don’t have to fit it all on a 90-minute cassette anymore either …

Video after the jump.