Music of Summer

   Summer is a time for sprinklers in front yards. Dog walks in the late evening as the sun is setting. Children running to and fro. Bonfires that reach up to the night's sky. Green trees and gardens. Endless bike rides winding throughout the city. Summer is for sitting out on the rocks and listening to waves lap the shore as the stars wink in the sky. Shorts and t-shirts, water gun fights. A thousand books to read about adventures and romance and everything in between. Night kite flying, which I fully intend to do. Dancing in the street to the music in our heads and the bands playing at the street corner bars. Its a time for block parties and volley ball. Temperatures so hot the whole world feels like a sauna. Friends, long talks about nothing in particular. Road trips to the end of the world. Swimming 'til your lungs give out just to see how far you can go. Thunder storms that shake the sky as well as the foundations of building. Bubbles blown into gusts of wind. Rolled eyes at silly puns and climbing trees.

Summer is about all of these things and more, and so the music of summer should invoke these things as well. That I believe for sure. Here are some songs to get your summer started right. We'll start out with the effervescent shine put out by Kishi Bashi with his song Bright Whites. Its a song that might be about a breakup, but that doesn't stop it from making you want to get up and dance. Then we have Givers playing a wonderful zydeco cover of Paul Simon's That Was Your Mother off his Graceland album. From there we have Surfer Blood with a surf, rock, noise infused song to get to through to the other side. Finally there's The Lumineers with Ho Hey, a bit of folk rock full of stomps and claps. You might recognize the last one from the new Bing commercial.


Kishi Bashi
Bright Whites



Givers
That Was Your Mother (Paul Simon Cover)




Surfer Blood
Swim



The Lumineers
Ho Hey

Fighting the Cold

It might be under zero degrees out there, there might be ice, it might be cloudy, it might be unbearably sunny. Jack Frost or Mother Nature or Old man Global Warming might be playing dirty, but that does not mean we have let them win. We can fight the cold. It may feel like the tundra out there, but it doesn't have to. Well unless you are actually physically in the Tundra right now. If that is so I have to ask, sir/madam, what pray-tell are you doing in such a place? If the answer be "to hunt the great white bears that roam this frozen land", then shame on you, those Polar bears are endangered. There for a Science research project? Well, that's marginally better, but you are one crazy person(tell me how it goes).

I digress.

Back to what I was saying. We can fight the Cold. No, not with a sword, well try it, it could work; what do I know? Nay, I propose a different method. It involves something called Music, a particular type in fact-Dance Music. See we may not be able to completely stay warm physically, but we can warm up our souls, and that can be just as good. Also you can be smart and layer up out there, so you are partially not cold. But yes, I believe through Dance Music, perhaps this foe can be beaten. Maybe we can't be warm, but we can be happy.

Justice
D.A.N.C.E.




Feeling warmer? I am.