The Spiller’s Corner June 2025 Mix Tape can be found on Spotify. Listen in-blog below for a more rich experience, or on Spotify for uninterrupted music. Please note below each song is a link to song lyrics for accessibility. Check out more details on how to best enjoy mix tapes.
Good day!
Welcome to KMTJ-DB – Your Mix Tape Journey – Denver, Colorado.
I’m DJ Ponyboy and I am thrilled to introduce the newest DJ at Mix Tape Journey – somebody I’ve not known long, but who comes highly recommended. He will be taking over the slot formerly occupied by the monthly Connections mix tape (the third Sunday of every month) with a new format called Spiller’s Corner.
Without further ado, I’m proud to introduce Mix Tape Journey’s newest disc jockey, DJ Spiller.
Spiller:
Good day indeed. Thank you for your kind introduction. I am proud and humbled to be here and excited for the future!
As DJ Ponyboy said, my name is Spiller. I was born in southern Ohio but moved around a lot growing up, not often staying in the same place more than six months at a time.
I hated school. I just wasn’t any good at it – not ’cause I’m dumb, you understand – but I was always in a new school with no friends, and I was bullied by the other kids and sometimes even the teachers.
I’m just so happy to be here and I believe first impressions are important. When preparing today’s mix tape, I was trying to think of a good “introduction” song for my very first play. I finally settled on one from an album I remember my dad playing when I was young – 1968’s Beggar’s Banquet.
Enjoy the Rolling Stones on KMTJ-DB – Denver, Colorado.
Ponyboy:
The Rolling Stones, huh? How funny – I would have figured your first track would be a country song.
Spiller:
I have to be honest, I’m a little bit offended by that statement. It really isn’t fair to make assumptions about people you don’t know that well. I listen to just about everything – from opera to metal.
I’m gonna switch up the next song I had planned for a track by American metalcore/nu-metal band Sylar. Here is 2016’s “Assume”.
Ponyboy:
I’m DJ Ponyboy, and Spiller, I apologize for making assumptions about your music. That wasn’t right and I shouldn’t have done it. I will work to not make that mistake again. Will you forgive me?
Spiller:
Yes, sir, I will. Everyone makes mistakes. I believe what’s important is how you correct them mistakes. Thank you for your apology.
Now Mama got sick when I was about twelve and moved in with her mom in Nashville, TN. My dad moved me and siblings all around the country following work – a combination of construction and some kind of hustling (I’ve never been sure) – maybe gambling or selling drugs? As far as I know he never got caught.
When Mama died in late 1990 I was sixteen years old. I dropped out of high school and got a job as a roadie for Lynyrd Skynyrd as they toured their very first album since the band’s tragic plane crash fourteen years earlier. That album was Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991.
My next pick, while on the album, was not part of the set list while touring, but it reminds me of my mama. I will never forget her.
I love you Mama.
Here is Lynyrd Skynyrd with “Mama (Afraid to Say Goodbye)” on KMTJ-DB, Denver.
Mama (Afraid to Say Goodbye) Lyrics
I was in that backstage/roadie life for quite a while, doing the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll thing … and, honestly, I don’t really remember a lot of the 90’s.
Here is Pink Floyd with “Young Lust”.
Pink Floyd. “Young Lust”.
“Comfortably Numb” would fit these years pretty well too. I tried to numb the pain of my childhood and the premature loss of my mama with sex, drugs, alcohol, and music.
In the mid-90’s, while touring, I got a girl in Seattle pregnant, but didn’t find out until several years later I had a daughter. I regret that I didn’t have much of a relationship with her for most of her first two decades due to my own selfish choices.
Sharing a similar sad story is Colby Acuff with “Plastic Horses” on KMTJ-DB – Your Mix Tape Journey – Denver, Colorado.
I’m very grateful that unlike the character in that song, I had the opportunity to get sober and not completely miss out on the chance of a relationship with my daughter Amber. To be honest, our relationship still isn’t great, which is my fault – but I am working every day to earn her trust back and make my mistakes up to her.
I love her dearly, even though I did a poor job of showing it for a very long time. I had a long, hard road to sobriety. I had to first practice loving myself and having compassion for myself before I could even begin to show love and compassion to others – including my daughter.
One of the songs I use now to help motivate myself to keep trying every day is by Florida rock band Shinedown – 2018’s “GET UP”.
While I was getting sober, I met and married Jenny. We were good for each other … for a while. As we began to embrace our own sobriety it became clear we had different lives, different goals, different dreams, different futures. It wasn’t easy going through divorce and I did not enjoy it, but I’m grateful for the chance to be by myself for a while and work on becoming a better man.
Someday I’d like to explore a whole mix tape with songs about divorce, but one of the tracks that resonated with me when I was going through the big D was by Australian pop-punk band With Confidence, called “Moving Boxes”.
I’m DJ Spiller and you’re listening to KMTJ-DB – Your Mix Tape Journey – Denver, Colorado.
I’m very proud to say I eventually earned my GED. I attended a night class at the local community college – it was easier than I thought it would be. In school I thought I was dumb, but it turned out I was just overstimulated, depressed, and not being listened to – which made school much harder than it needed to be. The hate, anger, and shame I piled on myself didn’t help any either.
I just love animals. I have a brown dachshund named Caterpillar and a black cat named Princess.
Enjoy a track from 1967, Cat Stevens and “I Love My Dog”.
I’m single now and honestly, I’m not really looking. I’m working on being a better man. I’m working through my demons and learning to love myself. I have discovered the very most important relationship I have is the one I have with myself.
I realized I cannot love others until I love myself: all of me – the me I see, the me others see, and the me that can’t be seen. While I’m not there yet, I’m on my way.
JIVEjones with 2001’s “Me, Myself, and I”.
Now I’m here – with a new job that I love and a bright future. I’m grateful for the opportunities I have been given. Thank you DJ Ponyboy and KMTJ-DB for welcoming me and providing me with the opportunity to grow and thrive. I will grab hold of your kindness and trust in me and I won’t let you down.
Come back and visit me the third Sunday of every month for a new Spiller’s Corner where I – DJ Spiller – will be spillin’ the love cup – sharing with you through music everything I learned (and am still learning) that got me where I am today – emotional intelligence, self-compassion, self-love, grace for myself and others, and much more.
With today’s final song, I wish to share a message: I love you – honestly.
Here is “Stryper”.
Thank you for joining me today. I am so excited to get to know you! Email me at dj at mixtapejourney dot com with questions, comments, suggestions, song requests, theme ideas, or anything else you would like to share!
Make sure to come back next week as DJ Ponyboy hosts Side B of the Summer Water theme mix tape: Summer On the Water, and next month for another episode of Spiller’s Corner.
You have been listening to KMTJ-DB – Your Mix Tape Journey – Denver, Colorado.
I’m DJ Spiller asking you to please show love to yourselves and each other.