Summer Love
We all have a “summer album”, a collection that takes us back to sunscreen and long drives and laughter every time we hear it, wherever we hear it. I have many summer albums. Each year, there seems to be one that just roots itself into my brain and stays in heavy rotation from the moment school gets out until Labor Day Weekend. Sometimes, they’re also connected to those marvelous beauties we call summer loves. These are not meant to last, really. They should be like fireworks, dazzling, sparkling, spreading out over everything, then gone in the breeze but seared in your head.
In 1987, I met Andrew. Well, I formally met Andrew. We went to the same schools all our lives, and he was just a year ahead of me in school. Andrew was the youngest of eight children, and he commanded your attention as only the youngest of eight could—vibrantly, loudly, a whirlwind running through your life. We met at a moment where I needed something to sweep the past away, and he did. “Come on, let’s go,” he’d say, and off we went. Canoing, hiking the Audubon sanctuary, serving dinner to homeless people at the Pine Street Inn, where he was a volunteer. Sometimes, he’d fight with his parents and walk to my house, and he’d smoke a joint on the way. Although my parents knew, they didn’t judge, and we’d sit on my porch for hours and talk and talk and talk. We watched movies on the couch. He promised to buy my sister a nursery school when she grew up. And we listened to dozens of albums. But the one we always came back to was his favorite album, Tea For the Tillerman, by Cat Stevens.
It is entirely possible that Andrew sang “On the Road to Find Out” to me the night we met. He certainly sang it enough. I do know that he felt the need to handcuff me to his couch the first time I heard the album straight through. We went back to this album time and time again, first because he refused to believe I’d never heard it before, and later because it made us all so happy. People often say they listened to an album everyday, but we did. We listened to this album, or parts of this album every.single.day. It defined our friendship, our path in the world. It organized our memories into three minute sound bites and a jangling guitar. And it wasn’t just the two of us in this adventure; we had a gaggle of people always hanging around talking, going for rides in the car for ice cream or mozzarella sticks. We were like our own little society, with its own rules and cultural touchstones. I swear, Andrew likened himself to Valentine Michael Smith sometimes, and I swear, sometimes, we believed it, too. The purple Pied Piper of Norwood. Everyone who knew him loved him. And loving him meant loving Cat Stevens with him.
Then, school starts. More influences around. Like all summers, this one ended, too. He graduated, got into heavier drugs and weirder philosophies. I remember having a terrible conversation with a friend after a particularly erratic spell, and telling him, “we’re going to be at his funeral if he keeps this up.” Then he moved away. But, some people just become permanent fixtures in your heart, as much for their imperfections as their good qualities.
In 2003, I lost Andrew. He committed suicide in his San Francisco apartment. My friend reminded me of my premonition, and I collapsed at the thought that I had been right all those years ago, and he was gone. Really, really gone. Since 2003, there has been one fewer star in the sky, and it has only been just recently that I could listen to Cat Steven’s again without crying. But, it’s June again, and it wouldn’t be the same without these songs.
Courtney is listening to the robins' song, saying not to worry
So, in honor of Wednesday being the age-old hump day, I bring you my top five tunes to set the mood.
After hearing all that great music live, I can safely say, I hate live albums. Inevitably, they never live up to the actual experience of sweat, and pushing bodies, and bass amps in clip. However, certain live versions of songs have been able to transcend the studio version and become something magical.
Amazingly though, I didn’t take a trip to the zoo. What I did do, and what I need to do more right now, was sat on my couch, with a beer at my side, and a book in my hand, and listened to cds. We all have those songs that always make us feel better, those artists we turn to at the pivotal moments of our lives, and in my lowest moment, music kept me sane. It may have seemed like my world was caving in around me, but in those moments in the buggy twilight, the soundtrack I made for myself showed me the other side.
And maybe that was more of a coincidence than I ever realized, because each of those records are about change, and about searching. And each of those records held up a piece of my heart for me until I could hold it up on my own again.
You see, Brian may possibly be the world’s biggest KISS fan. I would go so far to say that the strength of your relationship with Brian almost entirely depends on how well you can embrace this band. Which is probably why Brian and I didn’t get along for many years; I wouldn’t buy in. Of course, we all have that secret KISS chromosome that we don’t like to admit to anyone, and one day the tide turned. Brian also has this Monkees thing, and I know only ONE PERSON who has seen the movie, “Head” independent of his influence, but today, we’re talking about KISS. In fact, the one and only time I saw KISS in concert was with him. About halfway through the show (where we were somewhere in the first 10 rows, of course), he grabs my hand and says, “Come on! Hurry!” He pulls me out of our seats and down to the soundboard. Annoyed that we were missing the spectacle, I said, “what the fuck, dude?” Paul Stanley chose that very moment to fly through the air, land on a platform by the soundboard and sing “Love Gun”. Brian is the man. 
Yes, my mother is the world’s biggest Bowie head. Aladdin Sane is her favorite album, but the Thin White Duke era look is her favorite. We have both seen him three times in concert, and two of those times, she had better seats than I did (the third time, we went together, and she kept grabbing my arm and screeching during the show, particularly when older songs popped up in the set list). Every year, on January 8, we would have David Bowie birthday cake, and be required to sing. He makes her weak in the knees. She even had his haircut in the 70’s; take a look at his hair on the Aladdin Sane album cover, and that was essentially my mother’s haircut as well, sans the red dye and lightning bolt. Bowie is a pervasive influence in my childhood. One summer vacation, my mother decided to take my sisters and I for a ride around all the fancy beach houses near where we were staying. During this ride, we were listening to a well-worn copy of his greatest hits, and “Drive In Saturday” came on. The four of us sang every word at the top of our lungs. It is one of my favorite memories of my mom, just a small thing really, but a great thing, and I will always associate that Bowie song, well, most Bowie songs, with her.
If Bruce had grown up listening to the Clash and the Ramones, THIS is the band he would have fronted. The Hold Steady closed the loop for me. You’ve got ringing power chords, a little bit of organ, a rambling half-spoken poem about a girl who’s less than perfect but makes you want her anyway. I started walking around, asking people, “have you heard this band?” or, alternately, “what do you mean you don’t like the Hold Steady?” They’re the guys I met at all those club shows I went to in college—as a matter of fact, I WENT TO COLLEGE with Craig Finn. These guys listened to all the same bands I did and worshipped at the same musical altars. Seriously, the first time I heard that organ kick in between the verses, I almost wet myself. Punk rock songs built on three chords and a screech are fine, but sometimes, you need something more sweeping and grand, and this band gives you that, and still manages to keep that certain special sneer we all identify with. Sometimes, the love song involves both the beautiful and the profane. Sometimes, there are drugs and booze and tattoos and those things are OK.