Last Saturday, I attended a massive all-day concert down by Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal. With a dry heat hovering around 75 degrees, the weather was freakishly perfect for New York, and the wind blew in just the right direction so the gonorrhea-ridden inlet rippled with shiny waves, emitting barely any of its usual stench. It got me thinking about the almighty summer mixtape, and I began plotting what songs to burn on CDs to take on vacation with me later this month. The experimental metal scene I profiled last month is full of innovation, but even dark, tortured souls like myself have moms who invite them to the beach once in a while. In these situations, a soundtrack of irregular crashes won’t do, but that doesn’t mean you have have to listen to shitty radio. The following tracks are summery without being stupid, hence they are going in my mix. What's going in yours?

High Places-“New Grace”

All tropical tinkling, sweet vocals, and muffled, pitch-shifted steel pan drums, this song will make you feel like you’re dancing the congo deep at the bottom of a haunted lake on the mythical Caribbean island in The Tempest. The lyrics, which tumble like pretty pebbles from singer Mary Pearson’s mouth, are just evocative enough to spark your imagination without dictating exactly what to picture:

Instead of dank dark night it's all light and warm hues/
The nighttime puts on diff'rent clothes and she takes off her shoes/
She looks so much nicer familiar and softer in December greens and blues/
I can't imagine how we made it through those months of crushing gloom.

That last line resonates on days when the slushy, miserable two thirds of the year seem as far away as can be. Turn up the bass, or better yet, see them live, and you’ll find the sunny highs balanced out by thumping drum hits that will make you want to do a happy booty shake.

CSS-“Left Behind”



By the time the sun sets on the all-day party, you will most likely have had a few. Let’s say hypothetically you see your ex and start dwelling on how much you hate his stupid pretty face, pretentious tone of voice, and the fact that he found a new lover before you, without even trying. When this happens, you must immediately find a club that has angsty '80’s dance tunes, strong drinks, and equal parts girls, gays, and guys you can make out with. With drum machines, synthesizers, and a deadpan reference to “a suitcase in Helsinki full of things I wanna set on fire,” this song is both a campy portrayal of, and suitable soundtrack for, just such a scenario:

I’m gonna jump onto the table and dance my ass off til I die/
And then I’ll hopefully forget you, and quit those nightmares I’ve been having every night…

Some think the Brazilian dance rockers are veering more towards '90s alt-rock than new wave, and that would be ok with me, but this song is pure '80s throwback in the vein of Pat Benatar, so I guess I’ll have to wait for their forthcoming album, Donkey, to see whether this holds true for the other songs.

Vivian Girls-“Tell the World”

This track is a perfect mixture of ‘60s pop, surf, garage, and shoegaze-y reverb. The three female voices harmonize to create an effect similar to The Mamas and the Papas’ "California Dreamin’", proving once again that not all New York bands play ear splitting noise or radio-ready dance rock (not that there’s anything wrong with those). The peppy bass and drum lines are loud in the mix, adding punk energy in much the same way as the Black Lips; neither band is overtly punk, but can get a crowd raging nonetheless. You can sway along to this one without messing up your hair, though if you see them live, be advised that they’re playing faster and louder these days and you might sweat a little. I’d play this constantly by my pool, if I had a pool, and do that dance where it looks like you're swimming in my yellow polka dot bikini. (Does that dance have a name?)


The Death Set-“Negative Thinking”

Remember how much shit I talked about “paper-thin party songs” last month? Perhaps I was too harsh in my judgments. I spent some time at a recent Death Set show sweating balls and jumping around like a crazy chick, and if anyone there read my column, they totes would have called me out. With a beat that grows in volume but not complexity, constantly intensifying distorted guitar lines, bouncy synths taken straight from A-ha and a singalong refrain, "Negative Thinking" makes you want to rock out harder with each second that passes.

Ninjasonik-The Mix #3

This downloads as one track, but is actually composed of many. The hip hop "mixtape," for the uninitiated, was conceived as a way for artists to circulate their constantly evolving jams quickly through the underground. These mixes are still viewed as bootlegs by the RIAA, as they often contain unauthorized samples, but fuck that noise. Mixtapes are about deconstructing and rapping over hot shit as soon as it drops, and I’m pretty sure of the samples Ninjasonik used are from consenting parties; tour buddies Team Robespierre and the Death Set appear remixed frequently. The whole thing is over an hour long, basically an album unto itself, but here are some highlights:

It’s a picture party and I’m ready to leave it

In which Jah Jah, a.k.a. the Reverend McFly, calls out lame Manhattan parties like the late Misshapes for being full of “hipsters lookin’ way too stiff” and girls who wear "slutty clothes they bought with their parents' money," but who are not actually down to fuck, and who pose for pictures before "bumping coke up their noses," which they also bought with their parents’ money (the coke, but maybe the noses too).

I love art school girls

In which Jah travels back to Brooklyn from the island to express his love of girls who make ‘zines and paint pictures:

You’re very abstract…We should collaborate…Do you stretch your own canvas? Maybe you could teach me sometime...And then get a coffee, but not from Starbucks. We should go to that really danky shop, you know on the corner of…

The fun he pokes towards artistes is gentler, because he knows we’re all a little silly here in North Brooklyn, including guys who rap about how tight their pants are (Ninjasonik's Tight Pants EP came out on Chief Records this month), and anyway, at the end of the day what really matters about a girl is not how pretentious her art is, but whether she will suck your dick from the back.

From Brooklyn to England, we get the dancefloor jumpin’

In which Jah shows us that, in addition to shouting, “I’m a tight pants wearin’ ass nigga!” in a bad ass way and rocking said tight pants, he can actually rap as well, and engages in the time honored tradition of talking shit about how he's a better rapper than everyone else. He may not be “the new O.D.B.” like he fronts, but we love him just the same.

She and Him-“Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?”



Unlike most “music” made by actors, the songs on She and Him’s debut album, Volume One, are all addictively good, and not even in a “guilty pleasure” type of way. This one is no exception: a confection of June Carter-era country, '60s girl group harmonies, descending choruses of “aahs” and “ba bas,” and hooks galore, it’s a perfect vehicle for Zooey Deschanel’s perky, quirky voice. The song’s weird video undercuts all the cheesiness nicely: donning various cute outfits, the heartbreakingly adorable Zooey grins and skips through shootings, stabbings, and a downright Vaudevillian death that leaves her lying in a pool of cartoon blood as vultures close in. Girly lyrics like "Why don’t you sit right down and stay a while/We like the same things and I like your style" are simultaneously modern and classic. The icing on the cake? Deschanel wrote most of the music herself. Girl power!

Abe Vigoda-"Dead City Waste Wilderness"

Denizens of Los Angeles D.I.Y. hot spot The Smell, these tropicali-punksters do a cool take on world pop that is considerably more likeable than that of certain other collegiate, world music-pillaging, Paul Simon-loving bands. Yes, this track has a rollicking tribal beat and steel pan drums, but you get the idea that their hearts are in the right place with it. With a less polished vocal style, fuzzier production, and more room given over to noise and chaos reminiscent of an actual Caribbean island, these kids make music you can enjoy even if you've never owned anything from Louis Vuitton. Would my old pals Vampire Weekend ever write a song called "Dead City Waste Wilderness"? I think not. Then again, I'd be a big liar if I said I wasn't bringing Vampire Weekend to the beach as well. They don't get their own entry because I'm assuming they're already in all of your mixes, and also because I'm tired. I guess this would be as good a time as any to reveal that I'll be passing through the Afro-pop capital of the world on the way to my destination, and will quite literally "get out" of Cape Cod, via ferry, at night. Glass houses, etc. I can't wait.