The Groove Music Life

Summer is my favorite season of the year, and a lot of things remind me of that season: Nice hot weather (which has made me a bit of a masochist in the past decade and a half, because of how easily I get heat prostration as I get older), air conditioning (which I used to leave on 24/7 all summer when I lived at home; now my wife draws the line at that), ice cream (which doesn’t agree with me anymore – I’m seriously lactose intolerant to the point where I should just say fuck it and turn vegan)… and maybe I should stop there because this is starting to sound like a rant on how much it sucks to get older, except I left out one favorite thing about summer… mixtapes! (I know, another remark where I reveal that I’m twenty years younger than Iggy Pop. Sorry!)

OK, I know that nobody outside of the hip-hop world calls them mixtapes anymore considering that the primary sound carriers of these things are either CD-Rs or iTunes/iPod playlists, but the concept is still the same. You make a mix that you’ll be playing on the regular when you’re driving to the beach, lying on the beach, driving home from the beach, going on vacation… you get idea. The kind of tape where, if immaculately mixed and sequenced, will stay in your car all summer – maybe even during the fall and winter, too – until it either gets lost, borrowed, or left on the dashboard absentmindedly (where it’ll get fried by the sun).

And there is an art to making good mixes. You don’t just throw together eighty minutes worth of songs and call it a mix. You make the sequence as perfect as possible. You try not to be clever by putting ten-minute track from your brother’s favorite Yes album, or hip by slipping some American pop tartlet like Katy Perry inbetween tracks by Anthrax and Bright Eyes.

It’s been said by some aficionados of mixtape culture that mixtapes are going the way of the Edsel, thanks to the presence of iPods. Given that there are still plenty of participants on sites like Zen Running Order and Art of the Mix, that isn’t true. In my case, iPod/iTunes playlists have served to be the perfect test lab for making mixes. Ever since I first started using the program in 2004, I’ve used iTunes to do multiple drafts of mixes, playing the sequences on either my iPod or right on my laptop, fine-tuning the tracks until I have a sequence that a) flows well, and b) fits within the limitations of an 80-minute CD-R. That last parameter is of utmost importance – I’ve lost track of how many cassette mixes I’ve done back in the day where the tape ran out just as my carefully-chosen closing track was prematurely ended by the sudden appearance of the cassette’s plastic leader. Of course, if one could still find blank cassettes and the machines to record and playback with, one could pre-master their sequences on CD-R’s and then transfer those to cassettes – but unless one was being a retro hipster, why would you? (Hmmm… maybe I should do an eBay search for a good stereo reel-to-reel recorder and some blank reels… that would really be retro!)

Anyway, since this is the IntlWota Summer Refreshment Program we’re dealing with here, I’m contractually obligated to display both the refreshment that this program funded for me (in this case, a can from case of Arizona Green Tea – about the only goddamn thing I drink regularly thanks to being both straight-edge and lactose intolerant) and the tools that helped put this article together – my loyal laptop and one of my two iPods. Wait a minute, you’re asking: Two iPods? Yeah. They’d both be in the shot, but I had to use the other one just to take the picture.

I should explain about the two iPods – the one in the picture is a 160GB iPod Classic; a 64GB iPod Touch that is basically used like a miniature iPad/phoneless iPhone is what I took the picture with, and it’s been a rather handy device. I was on a first-anniversary weekend trip with my wonderful wife Tara and was using the hotel’s free WiFi to catch up on e-mail with the iPod Touch, when I got the go-ahead from International Wota to do this. I immediately started putting together the initial sequence right in the iPad Touch, sequenced it, and even gave it an initial spin via a very useful and very fun DJ app – wherein I discovered that my original track sequence was over 90 minutes long. Barely OK for a cassette mix – but we’re dealing with CD limits, so at least ten minutes of music had to eventually be chopped.

Summer, itself, was the basis for picking out the tracks. If it came out in summer, had a summer memory attached to it, or just reminded me of or even sounded like summer in some way to me, it went in. And, befitting this blog’s general ethos – that ethos basically being putting J-Pop and Western music on equal footing – I didn’t restrict my choices to just J-Pop material.

Once I was back home, I got myself the aforementioned fresh case of tea (I’m already halfway through it as I write this – it’s been one of those fucking hot weeks up here in Pennsylvania), sat down with the laptop, and got to editing and resequencing. Below is the final result: My soundtrack for the rest of the Summer of 2011.

1. WHITEBERRY “Natsu Matsuri” – A no-brainer of a logical choice to kick off this mix. When I started to get more seriously into Japanese music, it was Whiteberry that led me on my current path. I owe them a great deal of gratitude for that. I’ve long since heard the Jitterin’ Jinn original and I must say, Whiteberry’s version has the upper hand. Yuki Madea’s voice reminds me of J Mascis as far as her somewhat raw delivery goes; her post-Whiteberry recordings, first with the band Yukki and currently with The Husky have seen her get better with age.

2. REINA TANAKA “Manatsu No Kousen” – Yep, the idol who drives my wotahood (to paraphrase something Ray said at American Wota a few years back). It’s probably no surprise that all of her recently released solo singles are on my hard drive (thank you, US iTunes!) – the surprise is how well she pulls off her solo rendition of the early MoMusu summer classic.

3. HUSKER DU “Celebrated Summer” – Another no-brainer of a selection and the first representation of Western music in general and classic punk/indie in particular on this track list. It was probably my reading Bob Mould’s recent autobiography See A Little Light as well as a book about the Huskers from earlier this year that spurred me to include this choice a lot quicker than I otherwise would have. But then again, I miss the Huskers big time and wish they’d never split up in 1988.

4. BUZZCOCKS “What Do I Get?” – Yes, this is one of those tracks that reminds me of summer – specifically, one time back in the summer of 1994 when I found a copy of their box set in a used CD store in Bloomsburg, bought it on sight, and listened to it in the car on the way home. Plus, I’m starting to make some serious plans for getting a new band together – first time for me since 1997, first time back on guitar since my first band split up in 1984, and first time ever singing lead vocals full-time – and this is one of a long list of candidates that are going to be on the prospective band’s set list.

5. MORNING MUSUME “Souda! We’re Alive!” – Throwing one of my favorite songs by my favorite band of all time into the mix, specifically one from a classic lineup of the group. Gotta love those big powerchords in the intro/chorus/outro.

6. ROKY ERICKSON “Bermuda” – I threw this classic in – specifically this superior version from the Don’t Slander Me album – to add a bit of travel-related paranoia to the proceedings. Yes, this is another selection from my soon-to-be band’s list, too.

7. SAN NIN MATSURI “Chu! Natsu Party” – I had to throw in at least one of the Hello! Project Shuffle Units, and this classic collaboration between Ai Kago, Rika Ishikawa and Aya Matsuura was begging to be heard.

8. BORIS “Hope” – Attention Please and Heavy Rocks 2011 – both reviewed a month or so ago here at TGML – came out just as summer was unofficially starting. With lead guitarist Wata singing in a fragile manner over her own driving Jesus And Mary Chain guitar riffing, the song is a perfect fit.

9. SCANDAL “Koi Moyo” – That opening chord sequence sounds very summery, even beachy. I find myself playing it on guitar a lot when I’m warming up.

10. 11WATER “BE ALL RIGHT!” – the second representation of the H!P Shuffle Groups in this mix. Eleven H!P members take on some Bosstones-esque ska punk. Love this one even though I’m a little more used to MiniMoni’s version from their second album.

11. THE BEATLES “All You Need Is Love” – This one is here for a very personal reason: The day Capitol Records put this 45 out on the racks is also the day I was born.

12. THE MINUTEMEN “Search” – When I got into my first semi-pro band after graduating high school – this was the Summer of 1985 – one of the tapes I frequently carried was the My First Bells compilation tape of all of the Minutemen’s releases prior to Double Nickels on the Dime. I find myself associating that tape with summer weather and car travel a lot.

13. SCANDAL “Secret Base” – The Osaka Four covering the Zone classic. Sometimes I think the basic story line as seen in the Zone PV reminds me of a summer romance that never got off the ground any more come September. The keyboards, however – no matter whether it’s the original or SCANDAL’s retake – remind me of early King Crimson. And I got my first King Crimson records in the summer of ’81, too, if that counts for extra credit…

14. JUNIOR MURVIN “Police and Thieves”
15. MAX ROMEO – “War in a Babylon”
I’ve been in a serious reggae mood lately – the recent Peter Tosh reissues are partly to blame – and so, rather than slip 7nin Matsuri’s “Summer Reggae Rainbow” into the set list, which would have been a little too obvious, and even though I love the song, I opted for putting some more authentic classic reggae in instead. And one can’t get more authentic and classic with reggae without gravitating towards the Bob Marley canon, than by culling from the work of the great Lee “Scratch” Perry. Both tracks sourced from the great box set Arkology – do yourself a favor and find a copy.

16. AKB48 “Heavy Rotation” - One of the best things AKB48 did last summer, if not, all of last year.

17. BUONO “My Boy” - This single might have come out a month early for the Summer of 2009, but by the time the last weekend of May rolled around, it was a perfect fit and stayed that way for the whole season and then some, making it one of Buono’s best ever singles to date.

18. BERRYZ KOUBOU “Waracchaou yo BOYFRIEND” – Likewise, this came out while there was still one month of summer left in 2006, but the 50’s style musical arrangement never fails to evoke summer nights, car hops, crusing, and the like… even if, at the time the song was recorded, most of the girls weren’t even old enough to get learner’s permits.

19. THE SEX PISTOLS “God Save The Queen” – Another deliberately personal summer memory creeping in here, this time of more recent vintage: When Tara and I were finalizing our first-dance and bridal-party song selections with the DJ we hired for our wedding reception last year, he told us to feel free to e-mail him if there were any specific songs we wanted him to play that night. Tara didn’t think of anything, but I asked for this song – admittedly, my favorite song of all time, period point blank – and got it, and got Tara to dance with me to it near the end of the night. Afterwards, our wedding photographer came up to us and said, “I never thought I’d ever hear the Sex Pistols at a wedding reception – that was fucking awesome!!”

20. THE BEACH BOYS “All Summer Long” – Yes, picking a Beach Boys track is pretty obvious for a summer mix, but I needed a good closer, and since this track closes out the American Graffiti soundtrack double-album (a favorite album since I was 7!) it was the perfect track to use. Also, there’s another summer memory attached to this song and the entire soundtrack album – the movie was available on an early pay-per-view hotel system when my family and I stayed at the Inn On The Park hotel in Toronto in 1974 (Around the same time Glenn Gould was using one of the other rooms in the building as a makeshift tape-editing studio for his recordings, I later found out), which is when I first saw the movie and heard most of the music from it. Ironically, while the movie takes place in 1962, this song didn’t come out until two years later. Go figure.

Have a good summer, everyone!

BONUS: Here’s a streaming version of the mix as I originally did it with the dJay app on my iPod Touch, before I discovered that I had to chop at least ten minutes off of the track sequence. Can you pick out the songs that didn’t make the final cut?

IW Summer Refreshment Test Mix 1 by TGML/IW Summer Refeshment