Summer Jamz ’08 #10: What Is
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Each Summer Jam is proudly co-hosted with Screw Rock N Roll and What Was it Anyway.
01. Baka Pygmies – Hut Song
02. Disco Inferno – It’s a Kid’s World
03. Lord Melody – Carnival Proclamation
04. Junior Murvin – Roots Train
05. The Who – Mary Anne With the Shaky Hand
06. Tabu Ley Rochereau – Aon Aon
07. Johnny Osbourne – Murderer (Heavenless Riddim)
08. Mouse on Mars – Catching Butterflies With Hands
09. Allen Toussaint – Southern Nights
10. Bennie Maupin – Past is Past
11. Animal Collective – Street Flash
12.Wally Badarou – Voices
13.Kate & Anna McGarrigle – Heartbeats Accelerating
14.Kid Creole – Off the Coast of Me
15. Junior Byles – Cutting Razor
16. Prince Far I – Jamaican Heroes
17. Jackie Mittoo – Ayatollah
My primary concern with the summer jam is the winter jam. By which I mean only the exceptionally stupid and antisocial have a hard time celebrating summer. Daylight lasts longer in summer; summer is also hotter. People traffic public walkways in greater numbers. They wear less and drink more. From subway cars of commuters arises a syncopation of grunts and pants; Rorschach blots of sweat form over butterfly tattoos and the lip of leather belts. It is gross and rather beautiful, mostly because we all suffer.
And yet the summer mix—full of hot tunes advocating general irresponsibility—is basically a sham: You will have a few opportunities to press your moistness against that of another, perhaps in a pool house or a deserted side-street, but most likely you will spend the summer at work. Your victories outside it—day trips, solitary nights outdoors—will come as spiritual coups buried amongst long afternoons of daydreaming in temperature-regulated rooms.
So I guess I was appealing to the idea of summer, if not summer itself. Which, for me, turns out to mean pigmy chanting (1), Congolese pop (6, 17); reggae (4, 7, 15, 18) played by unshakably melancholic (16) white women accompanied by Celtic fiddle (13). And some other stuff, I suppose.
But when I look this all over, I realize that I have no winter jamz—I have only jamz. Summer is a synonym for liberation, an association held over from a time when the season actually meant we didn’t have anything to do (unless your parents were farmers; if that’s the case, and you worked the farm, I find that pretty admirable, for the record). This is the same music I listen to in the winter, it’s just that now I forgo long johns and scotch for wit’s-end concoctions of Smirnoff and sweetened lime juice (which I just choked on in a kind of alarming manner). Hold your head high: summer is a feeling; summer’s what you make it—if you don’t have it now, you can always have it in December.
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More summer:
Summer Jamz ’08 #9: Compiled by Nate DeYoung & Todd Hutlock
“If we have a theme for this mix, it would be ‘nothing from the new milennium.’ Well, for Hutlock’s portion of the mix…”
Summer Jamz ’08 #8: Privately Owned by Theon Weber
“I’m typing this from a studio apartment in Portland, Oregon, at the tail end of a hazy First of July…”
Summer Jamz ’08 #7: Daydreamin’ by Andrew Gaerig and John M. Cunningham
“For this mix we focused on the theme of “daydreams.” Pour yourself a drink that requires an umbrella, kick off your flip-flops, and take a listen.”
Summer Jamz ’08 #6: It’s Not the Heat by Jeff Siegel and Kevin J. Elliott
“This mix is a reflection of soupy, unrelenting humidity. A heat mirage. A little dancing, but not too much, because we must lie down and rehydrate.”
Summer Jamz ’08 #5: Compiled by Jayson Greene and Stewart Voegtlin
“Oh, geezus. Didn’t we all wanna give up the goose when the sweat ceased to dribble and ran?”
Summer Jamz ’08 #4: Compiled by Paul Scott and Ian Mathers
For their summer mix, Paul and Ian decided to have a conversation, or maybe an argument, thanks to one inarguable fact: Ian hates summer.
Summer Jamz ’08 #3: Dear Summer… by Jonathan Bradley
“My mix is for the times everything is still and quiet and perfect … I haven’t included any yacht rock or Eagles tunes, but that’s all I can guarantee.”
Summer Jamz ’08 #2: State of the Union, Jack by Mike Orme and Nick Southall
“Two former Stylus Magazine compatriots … celebrate the summer by splitting halves of a mix CD, each trying to fill their side with songs the other writer would put on a summer mix.”
Summer Jamz ’08 #1: Compiled by Alfred Soto and Dan Weiss
“In the context of summer, vastness suggests the abrogation of responsibility: school and relationships, mostly…”
