Why I picked up this book:

I was searching for an old friend from my childhood when I stumbled upon Ken’s facebook page and discovered he’d written a book. Ken and I grew up together, and while the two of us weren’t climbing trees or chucking rocks at cars (pretty sure it was only me), his family and mine were close and spent a lot of time with dinners, baseball, you name it. But he and my brother were super close, and when I turned seventeen, my family left California for Colorado.

This is the moment Ken influenced my life.

He made my brother a mix tape for the journey, one filled with his early DJ years, jokes, and tons of music. The song that stood out the most was “Magic Carpet Ride” by Steppenwolf. It became a cry for freedom from a life where people smiled and waved to my family, then whispered when we left the room how odd we were. The song also became a call to adventure, to a new life where social status, friends and enemies weren’t decided during a third-grade fight.

So when I saw Ken’s book about mix tapes, my entire Saturday flew right out the window in a cloud of nostalgia. I grabbed the book for my kindle and curled up on the back deck, ready to see how the one tiny mix tape that hooked into my soul influenced his life.

This review may contain spoilers.

Tiny Mix Tapes of the Soul

Does music rule your life? Have you ever had trouble dating someone because of the music they like? Do you feel guilty for liking pop music, but are tired of apologizing for it? Have you ever worried that the most important, life changing song you’ll ever hear is still out there for you to find? You are not alone. From 2002 to 2006, writer/ comedian Ken Napzok tackled these topics and more on the independent music webzine Tinymixtapes.com with a confessional, humorous, and down to Earth style that is more of a peak into the modern pop culture driven life of a music fan than it is straight forward music journalism. His style, with heart and soul placed proudly on his sleeve, makes readers feel as though they have found a new friend. Now, after four years of articles, essays, and confessions, Ken brings his collected works and several new pieces to one place with the anthology Tiny Mix Tapes of the Soul. Ken Napzok spent three years as a rock radio personality at K-Bear 95 in Pismo Beach, California before leaving the “biz” for Los Angeles. After logging time in the glamorous world of screenwriting and sketch comedy, Ken left it all for the many stages of Los Angeles’s stand-up comedy circuit… because apparently driving two hours for non-paying gigs in front of ten people is just that much more fulfilling.

What I loved:

I absolutely devoured this book and couldn’t put it down. From the first page I connected to Ken’s voice, probably because I was such a late bloomer in my own life. Ken starts off light-hearted with his opening words, but as I immersed myself into each of his essays, I found them alive with pain, struggle, and a raw depth that can only be found as we step on the ledge of life.

I expected to see bits and pieces of the kid I remember from childhood, and instead found that Ken’s journey paralleled my own early adult years in so many ways. The struggle for love, the dark moments where the only lifeline you have is a song or a story, and the duality of a life lived under a family’s shadow while you try to forge your own path. It was like watching the core of my soul travel a different path filled with music and Hollywoodisms (something I know zero about, BTW).

If you grew up somewhere between the 70s and 90s, this book is ripe with nostalgia. So many of the band names brought me right back to my childhood and the remembered love of anything from Aerosmith to Madonna to Beastie Boys. But between the music and utterly hilarious tale about the music snob buying back CDs is a heart-warming journey of dark, raw pain and how one man kept fighting for his place in the world until he held a spark of hope for the future.

Areas needing a touch of refinement:

I wish this story had one more pass at an editor. The prose is clean and honestly hooked me from the first line, but there were a few spots here and there where errant apostrophes or commas run wild. They might even be breeding. It pulled me out of the story a few times, but the voice was strong enough to keep me immersed and racing forward.

Overall:

I’d highly recommend this book for anyone, especially those who love the movie “High Fidelity.” Music snobbery is real, but Ken’s journey is one any person can identify with. He has a way of digging deep into the reader’s soul as if the book itself plays a subtle mix tape in the reader’s head, and I hope to see Ken’s library of tales grow because I’ll probably devour them all.

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