Hey man, it’s officially summer! I mean I think it was “official” a few weeks ago, but once you get to free Slurpee day at participating 7-11s you pretty much know it’s summer for real. I didn’t get a free Slurpee today because the only flavor I ever enjoyed was Coca Cola, and after two full weeks of not drinking soda I didn’t want to tempt myself and fall off the wagon. So…no free Slurpee for me this year. Still, it’s fucking summer now! Let’s have a party!
Okay, enough exclamation points. Instead of speed-writing excitedly like a spastic child I will calmly introduce you to this week’s summer-themed mix tape. Ready? Good.
Wow…Hmm….I really don’t have a lot of pop music on my hard drive at the moment.
RULES for uninitiated noobs: With roughly 100MB of web space, I give birth to a weekly Mix Tape to be deposited on your iPods or Zunes or Kingklangs or whatever the industry is currently pushing on you. Sometimes there will be themes that link all the songs together, other times I’ll just throw songs at a wall (not literally) and see what sticks. This week is all about summer. Because I’m late in the “Woo hoo! It’s summer!” game and this is the first chance I’ve had to celebrate it in a while. Also, I haven’t compiled a mix tape in almost a month! The goal of this endeavor, as always, is to pique your interest in these artists so you’ll support the artists and buy their albums.
Sunday Mix Tape – Number 188
In The Summer…
01. The Goats – Wake ‘N’ Bake – This song reminds me of my summers at overnight camp — especially the older years (ages 14-16) — when my bunkmates and I would spend our evenings getting very, very high and enjoying the night sky in the company of loose girls. The Goats were one of the original crossover rap/metal acts. They had one single that aired on MTV (“Rumblefish”). This was also the first CD I ever purchased that contained a parental advisory sticker. Thanks for letting me slide, Alwilk! Or…was it The Wall? I don’t even remember anymore. (buy from Amazon.com)
02. Volcano! – Fire Fire – This song comes up on shuffle a lot when I’m hiking or running. The 5/4 time signature with the frenetic guitar and synth bursts give me a late-summer feeling. Do you agree? Disagree? I don’t care! Get off this page if you disagree. Don’t come back. (buy from Amazon.com)
03. Blur – Tracy Jacks – You know, if it wasn’t for all those darker songs, Blur would be one of the poppiest bands ever! So instead of picking one of the band’s most natural, bright songs I picked one that suited my own tastes a little more. This is poppy while still kind of rocking — at least, in a Brit Pop sense — and it was always one of my favorite cuts on Parklife (“To The End” and “This Is A Low” weren’t quite summer-y enough). Oi! (buy from Amazon.com)
04. Man Or Astro-Man? – Popcorn Crabula – What’s summer without some good-old-fashioned surf music…performed by ALIENS! I love this band so, so much. (buy from Amazon.com)
05. Swirlies – Sterling Moss – Cheery vocals, kinda noisy music. That’s the Swirlies for ya! I would have used “Two Girls Kissing” but I’ve already featured that on another mix tape. This song has tambourines and jangly guitar tones, so it’s about as close to summer as the aforementioned track is. (buy from Amazon.com)
06. Herbie Hancock – The Eye Of The Hurricane – Sweltering summer jazz club alert. Or maybe it’s the sounds of pedestrians darting between cars on busy city streets during a surprise afternoon downpour. Whatever it is, it sounds like August to me. (buy from Amazon.com)
07. Os Mutatnes – Baby – Picture the organ as the one that plays “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.” Or imagine your favorite block party from childhood and tell me this wouldn’t have been the perfect soundtrack to that afternoon. Hot dogs, kids at play, parents sneaking some kids booze, maybe some psychedelics for the high schoolers…I don’t know, I lived on a main street in my hometown so the closest we got to a block party was when one of us would break a bone and we’d be rushed to the doctor’s house down the street. Party! He had a pool, too. (buy from Amazon.com)
08. Superdrag – Mr. Underground – This one takes me back to the summer after I got my license. I was driving around in a beat up car that was only two years younger than I was at the time. That year was the first I didn’t attend overnight camp, so I spent a lot of time cruising around town with friends and filled my nights with debauchery. All the best Superdrag albums were there, thanks to my tape adapter kit for the portable CD player my aunt gave me for my birthday! (buy from Amazon.com)
09. Enon – Window Display – I asked Nicci what this one made her think of, and she said, “Garage band…Weezer…These guys like Weezer…a little bit of country…barbecue.” Then she asked that I kindly not quote her on that. Too late! She’s “not that weird.” She’s “not an idiot.” “It’s late,” I’m tired, “that’s just what I felt.” These too are all quotes of hers she doesn’t want attributed to her. (buy from Amazon.com)
10. The Makes Nice – Waves Of Summer – I still quite can’t get over that Josh Smith (The Fucking Champs, ex-Weakling) is behind this album. I mean, he played guitar on the fucking Weakling record! The most influential USBM record in history, I think. And here he is, singing his pop songs about summer as if he didn’t pave the way for Xasthur, Leviathan and all those other American death metal acts. Amazing. (buy from Amazon.com)
11. Hawkwind – Ejection – This tune reminds me of what my life would have been like if I went to school with the kids from Dazed And Confused. I would have been a motor head for sure, listening to bands like Hawkwind and taking speed and boozing hard. I might have even rolled up the sleeves of my t-shirts and cuffed my jeans. All I know is, I wouldn’t have been one of those little puny freshman getting their asses beaten. I would have doled out the beatings…right after my mom finished guilting me into helping our Polish neighbor coax her kitten down from a tree. (buy from Amazon.com)
12. Weezer – The Good Life – I think Pinkerton was the album I listened to the most in high school. Most especially during the summers, as Ian, Bret and I were busy recording our version of The Blue Album during my sophomore year. Or was it my junior year? We’ll say I was a sophomore because it’s less queer if a sophomore is recording an entire Weezer album note-for-note. Shit, it was the summer of 2000 so I guess I was a junior. Oh well. I wonder where my videotape of that concert we played is — I’m pretty sure we covered “The Good Life” that night. (buy from Amazon.com)
13. The Kinks – Animal Farm – Driving through endless countryside, surrounded on all sides by beautiful farmland. That’s where I am in my mind when I hear this song. I have weird emotional connections to random songs related to memories of cross-country adventures, and “Animal Farm” is one of them. The midwest corn fields early in the morning with no other cars on the ride, the sun beginning to move across the sky towards its peak…good times. (buy from Amazon.com)
14. Friends Of Dean Martinez – Lost Horizon – Similarly, this song brings me back to the drive from Albuquerque to Tucson. It was late July — monsoon season in Arizona — and the sky darkened overhead before an ungodly storm brought the most surreal, beautiful lighting I’ve ever seen in my life to the ground. Traffic stalled as a telephone poll crashed to the ground. I was listening to this album at the time. (buy from Amazon.com)
15. Vetiver – Down At El Rio – The perfect nighttime summer song. Acoustic guitar-driven, quiet and pensive. It’s getting late and your favorite bar is beginning to empty out. Maybe autumn is approaching and the nights are starting to feel a little colder. It’s been a good ride… (buy from Amazon.com)
