|
thefinn: Summertime and Music by thefinn
If it's Saturday morning, it must be thefinn time. Just a reminder to our readers that this is thefinn's regular spot now, so expect something from him here every Saturday morning. Probably Sunday mornings, too. We love his writing and he has some excellent, creative ideas for future stories and we hope you guys enjoy his stuff as much as we do. Thanks again to thefinn for joining us at FTTW. - T/M There's a multitude of reasons why I hate the summer.... The humidity, the sweat that always drips in my eyes, the way the asphalt seems to buckle underneath my feet every time I take a step... Don't even get me started on the bugs and the fact that half of the East Coast was built on top of marshlands.... It's August and oppressive here in South Philthy…..
So, those are some of the things I only listen to when it’s too hot out for most people to think….. What’ve you got ? ---thefinn The Kinks - She's Got Everything
| Permalink
| Del.icio.us It
| Fark It
| Digg It| |
The Kinks – When I was about fourteen, nothing in my life was stable…. I'd just started living with my father again and more often than not, whenever we'd go somewhere in the car, there was more awkward silence than conversation.... We would continue this way for a few minutes, just looking at each other and then away again, and eventually the old man would turn the radio on…. Something came on the radio on a bright July day and my father proceeded to wax poetically on the first time he’d heard “Where Have All The Good Times Gone” and how much he loved the Kinks when he was younger…. Intrigued by a band that would make my father discuss any aspect of his closely guarded younger days, I went to the PX the next day and picked up a copy of “Face To Face”. It was the only Kinks album they had and it stayed in my walkman for a week as I listened to it over and again…. “Sunny Afternoon”, “Little Miss Queen of Darkness”, “Session Man”…. Simple chord progressions, simple lyrics and catchy as hell…. All the while, in the back of my head, thinking that I’d finally have something to talk to the old man about….. I love “She’s Got Everything”… Whenever I hear it, regardless of where it is, I get taken back to that one summer where my father and I learned how to talk to each other….
Thee Headcoatees – All jangly guitars and girl group goodness… Say what you will about Billy Childish, I think the man’s a genius…. First time I heard “Ca Plane Pour Moi”, I was really digging on this little California expat DJ chick who, I believed, had done the impossible…. She had grabbed a hold of my attention and would not let go…. And I was more than willing to let her keep it….. She was hot, surly and loved this song…. Dancing around her darkened living room, a little bit loaded, the sign from the piercing place downstairs providing the only illumination…. Mentally I kept running the same thoughts in my head, “Fuck Annette Funicello…. This is what surf girls should be… Surly, bent and just a little bit sad….. Damn that’d make the beach a lot more fun….” Okay, so I have an interesting imagination…. But she was and I loved this song just as much as she did…. And still does….
The English Beat – I don’t remember the first time I heard the Beat… It seems like they’ve been in my head forever, like “I’m a Little Teapot” and …. I do know that after a long day, I jump in the car, put the windows down and put on “Click, Click”… and suddenly, the heat and the humidity and everything else just melts away in that damn bass line. Frenetic, moving and grooving and goddamn, I can’t stop skanking when it’s over (just a side note…. I have never been able to play the song once…. immediately after it’s over, I have to rewind it and play it again)… And it’s nice to know that at the end of a crappy, hot day, “I Just Can’t Stop It” is there and waiting for me…..
Stumble It!
Comments
Funny, The English Beat is summertime music for me, too. Especially "I Confess," which I associate with waiting on line to get into some new wave club on a very hot, humid August night.
My other summer music -
The Police, Synchronicity. That's forever tied to the summer of 83.
Van Halen I - any song on this album will immediately make me think of driving to Jones Beach
Husker Du - New Day Rising - I played this album out one particularly sticky, sweaty summer.
Ramones -s/t. Summer of 77. NYC blackout, son of sam, reggie jackson. The second iIhit any song from this album, it's a hot august night and I am 14 years old. It's like a time machine.
Posted by: Michele | August 12, 2006 8:10 AM
I have winter bands. Rainy day bands, but summer bands?
hm
Sleater Kinney - Dig Me Out. That was a hot summer in San Francisco and they played at some daytime free park show. God that was hot.
Like at least 80.
Posted by: the turtle | August 12, 2006 8:47 AM
I actually have more winter and fall bands than anything else.
*marks that down for future posts*
Posted by: Michele | August 12, 2006 8:52 AM
Summer music is all about Boston for me.
Posted by: Beth | August 12, 2006 9:49 AM
Oh, yea! That first album on 8-track. Playing it at the park all summer long.
Posted by: Michele | August 12, 2006 9:51 AM
Journeys first album was great too.
Posted by: the turtle | August 12, 2006 9:54 AM
I think I've been mocked.
Everyone knows that Journey wasn't any good until their fourth album, anyhow.
Posted by: Michele | August 12, 2006 9:56 AM
so was molly hatchet. i still remember the times drinking corn whiskey while running 'shin thru the back woods, while the sheriff, my brother Tom, chased us. But the General Turtle would get us thru anything.
/i just love fucking around on this site
Posted by: the turtle | August 12, 2006 9:57 AM
Hey. Molly Hatchet ruled the summer of 79.
At least I can sit here and admit my past musical transgressions.
Unlike some people. Who hide their love of Madonna.
Posted by: Michele | August 12, 2006 9:59 AM
fourth album?
i thought the state shot them all before the second album in some sort of "last cigarette" type of thing
or maybe that was motley crue
little lesson for you all. don't use too many umlats in your name or the governor will have you executed in front of a firing squad
Posted by: the turtle | August 12, 2006 10:00 AM
Who hide their love of Madonna.
that was something between you and me. Jeez, next you are gonna tell everyone I cry when "It's a beautiful life" comes on.
Which I don't, dammit.
But an angel got his wings....
an angel got his wings....
I need a moment
Posted by: the turtle | August 12, 2006 10:03 AM
madonna - don't say
I'll cop to it.I love this song and it reminds me of being in the desert wearing a cowboy hat in the sun.
so there
Posted by: the turtle | August 12, 2006 10:05 AM
that sounds almost brokeback mountain like....
Posted by: Michele | August 12, 2006 10:07 AM
if by "brokeback mountain" you mean "passing out with assless chaps with a bulls cock in front of you when you wake up", sure then.
Posted by: the turtle | August 12, 2006 10:13 AM
i have no idea why the who always reminds me of the summer.
something about the "out here in the fields" line really makes me think of standing in a field with my fellow migrant workers picking strawberrys
la migra! la migra!
Posted by: the turtle | August 12, 2006 10:20 AM
I think I have more summer songs than bands.
The song that reminds me of summer more than any other is...
Freebird.
Posted by: Michele | August 12, 2006 10:25 AM
The Minutemen have always been a summery band to me. Them and the Aquabats and the Mr. T Experience.
Man I could've put a great Descendents pun in there.
Posted by: Tim | August 12, 2006 11:53 AM
Bob Marley is my summer music. No particular song, though. Always nice to sit on a porch with an acoustic and play along, wishing i was somewhere on a beach with palm trees and turquoise water and all the weed i could smoke. Wait did i just say that? I mean all the Red Stripe i could drink. Of course.
Posted by: pril | August 12, 2006 2:11 PM
o yeah and i dont know if you've checked email yet but i sent the tale of the most rocknroll moment ever, and later i'll throw some more stuff down the wire for youse guys.
Posted by: pril | August 12, 2006 2:13 PM
thanks pril
we will try to get this all done this weekend to get everything in order.
thank you
Posted by: the turtle | August 12, 2006 3:07 PM
i'll second bob.
and i'll think of something to write. and then i'll write it. and then i'll send it.
ska too. summer bands, i mean. toasters, specials, murphy's law, specials, selector, desmond dekker, toots...
dancehall. barrington levy, garnett silk, cutty ranks
Posted by: kali | August 12, 2006 7:02 PM