Summer Mix Vol. 1

So here we are... It's already mid-Summer. There's already seeing 50% sales on Summer related goods like beach balls, squirt guns, towels, and the like. I've even seen a few Back-to-School displays out already! How offensive! There's plenty of Summer left and this mix here is perfect for your Summer listening! After a few weeks of frequent rain and thunder storms, we've finally had some consistent sun and warm weather. I gave this mix a test run in my car a few days ago and it's absolutely perfect for Summer driving. Even if you're not heading to the beach, pool, or 50's style burger joint, and just making a trip to something as boring as the DMV, I guarantee that this mix will make your drive delightful!

The majority of this mix is from the late 50's and 1960's. It's hard to deny that the best, most iconic, and timeless Summer music is from that period. Plus as 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, the music of that decade is just as relevant now as it ever was.
Most of what I've included from that era directly references Summer in some way, though a few of them are my own subjective interpretations. "Green Onions" for example is entirely instrumental, though I included it due to its classic association with baseball. Plus it's use in The Sandlot, also certainly helps its case. "Sunshine Superman" is another more subjective inclusion, though I'm sure I'm not the only one who associates that song and its very distinct feel with the Summer. After a Grease standard, the mix changes directions with Alice Cooper's "School's Out". However rather than keeping with the 70's, it shifts to the 80's with the Tom Tom Club covering the Drifter's "Under the Boardwalk." I know the original would have fit in perfectly earlier in the mix, though I find this cover to be, well...more Summery. The mix ends then with three tracks from the 90's, including one of my personal favorite songs from The Adventures of Pete & Pete, "The Sunburn Song." Lastly, I decided to close things out with a nostalgic and somewhat somber Jonathan Richman track, "That Summer Feeling." It's a great one. Enjoy the mix! I'm really proud of this one.

Summer Mix Vol. 1 (sharebee)
Link 2 - Ipod version
(all songs have "Summer Mix Vol. 1" as the artist for easy categorization)

1. The Jamies - Summertime, Summertime
2. The Lovin' Spoonful - Summer in the City
3. Booker T and the MG's - Green Onions
4. The Surfaris - Wipe Out
5. The Beach Boys - All Summer Long
6. Martha Reeves & the Vandellas - (Love Is Like A) Heat Wave
7. Eddie Cochran - Summertime Blues
8. Mungo Jerry - In the Summertime
9. Shangri-Las - Remember (Walkin' In the Sand)
10. The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon
11. Donovan - Sunshine Superman
12. Marianne Faithfull - Summer Nights
13. Love - Bummer in the Summer
14. Seals & Crofts - Summer Breeze
15. Frank Sinatra - Summer Wind
16. Roy Orbison - Summer Song
17. Harry Nilsson - Just Wait Till the Summer Comes
18. The Zombies - Summertime
19. Chad & Jeremy - A Summer Song
20. The Doors - Summer's Almost Gone
21. Grease OST - Summer Nights
22. Alice Cooper - School's Out
23. Tom Tom Club - Under the Boardwalk
24. Yo La Tengo - The Summer
25. Semi-Gloss - The Sunburn Song
26. Jonathan Richman - That Summer Feeling

Sigur Ros - Untitled #3 (Samskeyti)

Have you ever had a completely unexpected environmental circumstance that somehow worked perfectly with what you were listening to? That just happened to me. Earlier this afternoon I was driving home from Worcester MA. The weather was very hot and humid before I left, the temperature reading 88. I decided to put on Sigur Ros's ( ) for the ride, as its been almost two years since I last heard it. Soon enough we got to track #3, Samskeyti, one of my favorites from the album. The song is built around a repeating piano line that eventually shifts octaves in the most glorious way possible. Its very repeative yet the way its constructed makes it sound like it is constantly moving forward. Remarkable song.

So about 20 seconds into the song I notice a drop of water hit my windshield. Not a tiny drop, but a large one. Another one happens after a few seconds. It wasn't like the way rain usually starts where its very small drops and a bunch of them - this was single drop large rain. Well this didn't last for too long as no longer than 15 seconds later full rain began to break out. Its like the clouds just broke as it went from droplets to dozens in a second. I'm constantly adjusting my wipers as the the amount of rain is steadily increasing. There's now a huge cloud in the sky that was clear a minute earlier. The amount of rain continues to reach until it reaches its peak only seconds after the octave shift in the song. I now have the wipers at the second highest level. The rain remains relatively constant for the next minute and then completely stops, just as the song is fading out. The timing was insane. Soon enough the sun came back out and was even brighter than it was earlier.

Here's two videos of the song. The first is a fan video for the album version, and the second a live performance from the Heima DVD.

The Essential Field Mice

Personally, I feel like the Field Mice remain one of the most overlooked and criminally underrated bands of the last 25 years. Oh they definitely have a devoted cult of fans, and are recognized by most anyone with a more than passive interest in twee pop, but in terms of being regarded as one of the most influential bands of the 80's, they still have a ways to go. It's remarkable how fresh this music still sounds, something that I can't help but attribute to how stale the "indie pop" genre is becoming at this point. For example, one of the internet's most recent blog bands is The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. They're a solid group, but I don't feel they aren't doing anything different than what the Field Mice were doing more than 20 years ago, and the tunes aren't nearly as solid. Still, their most popular song "Young Adult Friction" nears 4,000 plays a week on last.fm, yet the Field Mice's "Emma's House", gets less than 400. Life just isn't fair.

But back to the Mice- They only released three albums: Snowball in 1989, Skywriting in 1990, and For Keeps in 1991. Their formation was only a year before Snowball's release and they broke up shortly after the For Keeps tour. Despite this brief 3 year existence, they created a remarkably consistent output of material, with less than a handful of songs that are subpar ("Humblebee" as one.) The best collection of the band's material is the 1998 Where'd You Learn to Kiss That Way? compilation which takes 36 of the band's best songs, both from the original albums and various 7" singles. Though it comes close, there's still 15 recorded tracks by the band that do not make the compilation, so pursuing the actual albums is a necessity. Still, just about everyone's personal favorite Field Mice song is likely to be on Where'd You Learn to Kiss That Way?

However, I decided to take this compilation one step further. What if I cut down the 36 tracks to the essential essentials, enough to make a one disc compilation of the band's material? I did just that, and deciding what to include and what to omit was more difficult than expected. I ended up listening to the band's entire discography, and rated every song on a scale from 1-5. Everything on this mix got at least a 4 and five songs got the 5rating (Sensitive, Below the Stars, Emma's Hose, End of the Affair and Willow. ) This posed problems though, as there were still great songs left over that wouldn't fit. For example, "This Is Not Here" (a 4.5 for me) didn't make the cut. I guess compilations need to be this way in some regard, as if they weren't, there would be no incentive to pursue the artist any further. You just can't have ALL the greats. Also, I tried to organize the mix in a way that varies from the released compilation, yet still works well as a mix. This is how it turned out:

The Essential Field Mice

1. Sensitive
2. Emma's House
3. If You Need Someone
4. Couldn't Feel Safer
5. Everything About You
6. September's Not So Far Away
7. End of the Affair
8. Willow
9. A Wrong Turn and Raindrops
10. Let's Kiss and Make Up
11. This Love Is Not Wrong
12. An Earlier Autumn
13. Canada
14. So Said Kay
15. Between Hello and Goodbye
16. And Before the First Kiss
17. White
18. When Morning Comes to Town
19. Below the Stars

Bonus- This is Not Here (I just had to include this somehow. Let's just say it's track 20 for those listening with ipods or just straight from the folder.)

The Field Mice @Amazon.com

The Essential Sebadoh Vol. 4

Here it is! The fourth and final volume of my custom "best-of" Sebadoh mixes. To think this all started with one mix, a mix that I thought at the time was pretty comprehensive. Yet over the last few months I've been obsessively listening to Sebadoh, and soon enough I found enough great songs to fill up three more volumes. Crazy!

More so, I still have yet to give a thorough listen to the Folk Implosion. Maybe in the future there will be a custom essential mix for them! Also, I intend to put together a collection of Sebadoh b-sides from all of the 7"/CD singles. There's already a good custom b-sides complitation floating around, though it concentrates most on their earliest material. Anyways, here's the link to volume 4 and the included tracks. As always, these mixes are just below 80 minutes in length, and appropriate for CD burning.

The Essential Sebadoh Vol. 4

1. Ladybugs (The Freed Man)
2. Cyster (The Freed Man)
3. Dance (The Freed Man)
4. Oak Street Raga (The Freed Man)
5. Jealous Evil (The Freed Man)
6. Narrow Stories (The Freed Man)
7. Bridge Was You (The Freed Man)
8. Feeding Evil (Weed Forestin)
9. Mr. Genius Eyes (Weed Forestin)
10. Wrists (The Freed Man)
11. I Can't See (Weed Forestin)
12. Three Times a Day (Weed Forestin)
13. More Simple (Weed Forestin)
14. Jealous of Jesus (Weed Forestin)
15. Sickles and Hammers [Minutemen] (III)
16. Renaissance Man (III)
17. New King (Gimme Indie Rock)
18. Soulmate II (Sebadoh Vs. Helmet)
19. Really Insane II (Rocking the Forest)
20. Junk Bonds (Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock)
21. Cliche (Bubble and Scrape)
22. Bouquet for a Siren (Bubble and Scrape)
23. No Way Out (Bubble and Scrape)
24. Temptation Tide (Bakesale)
25. Mystery Man (Bakesale)
26. Give Up (Bakesale)
27. S. Soup (Bakesale)
28. Rebound (acoustic) (Rebound EP)
29. Magnet's Coil (acoustic) (Rebound EP)
30. Social Medicine (Rebound EP)
31. Worst Thing (Harmacy)
32. Can't Give Up (Harmacy)
33. The Act of Being Polite [Residents] (Princess 7")
34. Moisture [Residents] (Princess 7")
35. Surburban Bathers [Residents] (Princess 7")
36. I Mean It (early version of "Sorry") (unreleased)
37. It's All You (The Sebadoh)
38. Weird (The Sebadoh)
39. Flame (acoustic) (Weird promo single)

Sebadon @ Amazon.com

Best of 2006 Vol. 1

Here's the original mix, made in December of 2006. It was fun to make that second mix as it allowed me to include songs from 2006 albums that I was not into at the time (Mission of Burma, the Hold Steady, TV on the Radio, Jay Reatard, Destroyer, Grizzly Bear, and Liars.) Man, what was I thinking?

Best of 2006 - Vol. 1

1. Belle & Sebastian - Another Sunny Day
2. I'm From Barcelona - We're From Barcelona
3. The Gothic Archies - Scream and Run Away
4. Islands - Rough Gem
5. Sunset Rubdown - Stadiums and Shrines
6. Beirut - Postcards from Italy
7. Band of Horses - The Funeral
8. Camera Obscura - Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken
9. Danielson - Did I Step On Your Trumpet
10. Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - You are What You Love
11. Oh No! Oh My! - Jane is Fat
12. Tilly & the Wall - Bad Education
13. Yo La Tengo - Beanbag Chair
14. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 3
15. Bob Dylan - When the Deal Goes Down
16. Cat Power - The Greatest
17. Joanna Newsom - Cosmia
18. Sufjan Stevens - Majesty Snowbird

People were so excited over the live Sufjan song that I included as the last track. This led to speculation that he would have a new album the following year. That was 2007. Now it's 2009. The guy needs to get his shit together! I mean he got SO MUCH PRESS about the whole 50 States project, and now it's been 4 years since he's released something. Still, "You Are The Blood" from the Dark Was the Night compilation was really good.

Best Songs of 2006 Vol 2.

Well, here's a minor throwback. Recently I've been re-organizing the music on my hard drive. I made sure that all of my artist folders contained the artist's name only- not their name and the name of the album, the year, the source, etc. Then upon opening the folder, all of the albums would be organized with the year in parentheses first, and the album name second. Thus if I were looking the Beat Happening album "Dreamy," I would first open the Beat Happening folder, and then find "(1991) Dreamy". Very simple, yet very effective. Also, for making yearly lists, something that I frequently do, it really is helpful to have your music files tagged by year.

Anyways, while in the process, I re-discovered a bunch of in progress mixes that I never completed. One of them was a second Best of 2006 mix. My first Mix does not exist on this blog, yet is rather over at my last.fm page, as I used to post mixes in my journal over there before this blog. Well I decided to complete the mix, and it's pretty rad. That was a great year for music. Here's the mix:

Best of 2006 - Vol 2.

1. Mission of Burma - 2wice
2. The Hold Steady - Stuck Between Stations
3 . TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me
4. Jay Reatard - Blood Visions
5. Sonic Youth - Incinerate
6. The Pipettes - Pull Shapes
7. Islands - Don't Call me Whitney, Bobby
8. Destroyer - Your Blood
9. Built to Spill - Goin Against Your Mind
10. Morrissey - You Have Killed Me
11. M. Ward - Chinese Translation
12. Grizzly Bear - Knife
13. Joanna Newsom - Sawdust & Diamonds
14. Liars - The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack
15. Animal Collective - People
16. Peter Bjorn and John - Young Folks
17. Animal Collective - People
18. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy

I'll repost the first edition of the mix soon. Also coming up soon will be the second volume of the Essential Built to Spill, and a Summer Songs mix.