Return of the Juxe
/This is a post for 1% of you.
The Juxe posts were dedicated to music recommendations that I used to make on this site. I then moved them to another site, but eventually forgot all about that site. (At the time, I was also writing about music professionally for another outlet. So taking more time to write about it for a teeny-tiny audience of magicians whose music taste slightly overlapped with mine was never a huge priority.)
The new Juxe Music Club will not be on this site or any other site. It’s going to be via email. Once every three months you’ll get an email with a playlist of songs from the previous three months.
Here is what I wrote about why I would be posting music on this site many years ago:
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Music is a gigantic part of my life. I buy a couple new albums each week (and I sample probably 15-20 more in that time). And I try and see as many live shows as I can.
I was a consummate mixtape maker back in the day, and I like sharing music. I don’t love writing about it, so I probably won't say much beyond "I like this." But that's okay. I'm not trying to impress you with my music knowledge, just share some stuff that I'm into. The odds that you will be into it too are... well... probably not great. I don't intentionally seek out obscure stuff, but my taste is rarely in line with what's popular.
I'm a big fan of indie pop, indie rock, garage rock, power pop, surf rock, psychedelia, pop punk, and a bit of hip-hop and folk. I'll be posting newer music, mostly, but many of the bands I'm into are heavily influenced by the music of the 60s. I'm a big fan of catchy music with high energy. I like music that is sometimes wild and off the rails. And at the other end of the spectrum, I'm a sucker for intricate, beautiful harmonies and complicated arrangements.
And it actually does have something to do with magic because my ideal style of performing is most similar to that of sharing music back in the day. I am perhaps of the last generation where you would invite someone over to listen to a new album. Does that still happen? Do people go over to someone's house and sit around and listen to a new record? Probably not too much. That's too bad because it's such a pleasant type of interaction.
And it's this dynamic that I want to emulate when I perform magic. That is, it's not me "performing" for you with my awesome talent. It's me saying, "Hey, come over. I have this thing I want to share with you," and then us experiencing it together.
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Okay, Andy. Whatever. How do I sign up? I’ll probably just delete the emails. I have all the music I need with my Phil Collins collection. But I’ll sign up anyway. This might be some secret ploy where you say this is about sharing music, but you end up sending people some cool magic content via the emails too. You’re tricky like that. So what do I do? Just send you an email or something?
No. I promise you. You won’t miss out on anything magic-related.
And no, unfortunately, you can’t just send me an email.
We’re going back to the Columbia House days of my youth. Where they would send you a bunch of tapes or CDs for a penny.
To get on the e-mail list for the Juxe Music Club you have to complete the form below and mail me a penny.
We don’t have pennies in my country.
You can tape a printout of a penny, or a coin from your country, or anything else flat and round.
The point isn’t the penny. The point is to make you buy in a little on your end. To print out the form, tape something to it, find an envelope, address it, put a stamp on it, and drop it in the mail.
I’ll be more inclined to keep up with the Juxe Music Club if I know people cared enough to go to some small effort to sign up.
Make sense?
Well, I’m going to be making cents too. I’m guessing around 15 cents if my estimate of how many people will sign up and send me a penny is accurate. Money, money, money!!!
If you’re interested, complete and send in this form.
The first email will be sent at the beginning of 2025, with some of my favorite songs of 2024. If you want to get in on that email, send the form off before the end of the year. Otherwise, there’s no deadline. If this post is still up years from now, it means I’m still doing the music club and you still sign up the same way.