My first experience with music was whatever my parents were playing (Dylan, Marley, Van Morrison, Beatles). Good stuff to be sure but not MY music. The big musical “moment” happened on February 16, 1980. Gary Numan performed on Saturday Night Live. He played Cars and Praying to the Aliens and I was properly shook. This would be the start of my never ending love affair with New Wave. About a month later at the age of 12 my mom and I drove from Boston to Berkeley in her new Datsun 310. At a mall in Milwaukee I made my first ever music purchase: Gary Numan’s The Pleasure Principle and that tape got played a lot on that trip. 

In junior high I started buying records whenever I had enough money saved and I still have some of those early purchases (Devo, Missing Persons, The B-52s). In high school I DJ’ed some of our dances. This was my first taste of sharing the tunes I loved with others and I liked it. The first thing I did when I got to college was go to the radio station and inquire about getting some air time. They told me I had to make a demo reel (actually on reel to reel tape) and once complete they told me it was the most professional demo they had ever heard. Being a radio DJ combined my two favorite things: music and waxing weird on the mic. Soon the Tim Speed Show was born. I knew I wanted a cool radio name that I could hang my goofy antics and diverse musical stylings on and my given name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. My radio journey continued through the years with stops at a public station in Worcester, Cable radio in the East Bay, a stint on the Live 105 Amateur Hour, and a few years at Pirate Cat Radio. For a short time I was even a wedding DJ with two turntables and a microphone. 

At one point my collection topped 1600 records and cds. That’s just too much music to listen to so I started making compilations. I made 80s mixes on tape – two tapes for every year that I would listen to in the car. In 2001 I made my first “best of” the current year compilation and since I had time on my hands between jobs I went back and made yearly comps for the 90s that I would put on cd. It was fun compiling 80 minutes of my favorite music that was in my collection. When I built my first website for my art it seemed like a great place to also share my comps. Obviously in digital form there are no time constraints so I started expanding my mixes. Now my process is to read several top 50 lists and just listen to everything I can in all genres (jazz, country, metal, punk, pop, classical, electronic, indie).  The 2020 collection has 196 different artists! As you can imagine it takes me hours and hours to listen to all this music and pick my favorites but the end result is pretty damn cool. 

As you will soon discover all my eighties comps are between 4-6 hours long. This is my favorite decade and I have a pretty thorough knowledge of it. Because most of the “hits” of the 80s have been played out by now, my mixes mostly feature the non-hits or “deep” cuts as they say in the radio biz. You will recognize most of these bands but the songs might be new to you. And what about 1979? There were so many great albums from this year from bands that we associate with the 80s that I had to include it. 

For many years I was using eMusic which is a subscription based online store to discover new bands as they had a mostly indie selection. On a lark I did a search for the year 1980 in all genres just to see what would come up. I was curious to listen to the bands that I never heard of and thus was born the Mystery 80s. If you love the sound of the 80s but want to hear it from bands that you have never heard of this page is for you. Some of the bands are from other countries but many just never made it big for whatever reason. There a few bands that I should have heard before (Suicide, The Frogs) but most are just magical discoveries. 

I hope you enjoy my mixes and please do leave me a comment on some musical memories or discoveries of your own.