Uncategorized

Hey, wow! Welcome back to Summer Fridays now in its unbelievable eighth year. You’d think I’d run out of songs by now. (“He has!”) We kick things off with a typically curious mix that manages to start with Hawkwind, make room for Swedish indiepop like Eggstone and Pelle Calberg, as well as 10CC, and wrap things up with FFS (Franz Ferdinand + Sparks). There’s also awesome new songs by Destroyer, Tame Impala, Stealing Sheep, onetime Girls frontman Christopher Owens, and more. It all works, at least I think so.

Frequent contributor Kate Bryant illustrated this week’s cover art and she did an awesome job as usual. Actual Summer Fridays Shark Beer coming soon to a distributor near you. If you’re downloading this mix, remember: no shuffling. You can also stream it too:

DOWNLOAD SUMMER FRIDAYS 8.1

Summer Fridays 8.1 by Soundbitesnyc on Mixcloud

And here’s the tracklist:
1) Hawkwind – Assault & Battery Pt. 1
2) Tame Impala – Let It Happen
3) DJango Django – Vibrations
4) Eggstone – Birds in Cages
5) 10CC – The Things We Do For Love
6) Pelle Carlberg – Clever Girls Like Clever Boys Much More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls
7) Juan Wauters – Grey Matter
8) Stealing Sheep – Deadlock
9) Kate – Strange Girl
10) BC Camplight – Thieves in Antigua
11) Steely Dan – Caves of Altamira
12) Part Time – Fallin’ 4 U
13) Christopher Owens – Another Loser Fuckup
14) Destroyer – Dream Lover
15) Amason – NFB
16) FFS – The Man Without a Tan

Enjoy! See you next week.

Some of you may have been wondering if I’d be back with these this year, being as it’s a later start than usual, but here we are. Yay! I was waiting till actual summer, but as tomorrow is the solstice, I thought I’d jump the gun by a day. Hopefully I’ll have this every Friday through the whole season. We’ll see. I’m a busy guy these days, ok? I’ve been wanting to use this Equals song since I heard it back in February so it inspired this first mix of the season. (That’s Eddy Grant’s old band, btw.) Please enjoy.

DOWNLOAD SUMMER FRIDAYS 7.1

TRACKLIST:
1. The Equals – Michael and Slipper Tree
2. Super Furry Animals – Play it Cool
3. Doug Gillard – Ready for Death
4. Stephen Steinbrink – Now You See Everything
5. Metronomy – Resevoir
6. Tommy Roe – Jam Up Jelly Tight
7. Kiss Kiss Karate Passion – Hope the Sky’ll Never Fall
8. Sloan – Take Good Care of the Poor Boy
9. The Notwist – Kong
10. Liam Finn – Snug As Fuck
11. Teleman – In Your Fur
12. Paul McCartney & Wings – Mrs Vanderbilt
13. Alvvays – Adult Diversion
14. Rocketship – I Love You Like the Way I Used to Do
15. Trans – Thinking About a Friend
16. Ohio Express – Sausalito (Is the Place to Go)
17. The Bangles – Live
18. J.C. Satan – Italian Summer
19. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Lariat

DISCLAIMER/WARNING: This mix is indeed “mixed,” the songs flow together. Don’t listen on shuffle!

Summer’s almost over and this weekend is the last show of this year’s Sound Bites Series at South Street Seaport. The final band was supposed to be Leapling but had to pull out, unfortunately. While I’m sad they can’t play, I’m very very happy to have Boston’s Bent Shapes fill in at the last minute. It’s kind of appropriate, actually, as both bands are on Father/Daughter records. Bent Shapes’ new album, Feels Weird, just came out this week and is full of the kind of smart, hooky, highly-quotable songs that gives indiepop a good name. You can stream the whole thing via Spotify (or P4k for the time being) and a few songs right here:

Alright here are the details of Sunday’s show. (August 25.) It’s at the Front/Row stage at South Street Seaport on the corner of Front and Fulton. (It’s where Smorgasbar is.) I’ll be DJing from around 3PM and Bent Shapes will be on at 4PM sharp! It’s free, there’s a giant astroturf field you can stretch out on, the weather will be sunny and beautiful Why wouldn’t you come down?

I should say that Bent Shapes are also playing Cake Shop on Saturday as part of a crazy-good show that also has Gross Relations, Butter the Children and Two Inch Astronaut. You should go to that AND come to Sound Bites.

Bent Shapes’ Andy, Supriya and Ben indulged my questions about food and their answers are below. Food tubes will be available at Smorgasbar, btw.

Summer is prime farmer’s market time. What’s your favorite vegetable? And why.
B: I like zucchini, because it’s so versatile. It’s good grilled, cooked into ratatouille or jagacida, or baked into muffins with chocolate chips. Can’t go wrong.
S: I like broccoli because it tastes so nice in pizzas, soups, as a stand-alone item, oh jesus christ just everything! I might mention avocado but note that it is a fruit or a nut or something, I dunno.
A: My favorite food in the world in salad, so I will go with “mixed greens” as my favorite.

What’s your least favorite and why?
B: Never met a vegetable I didn’t like.
S: Celery because it is fucking awful, although I like it pureed to oblivion in soup context etc., etc.
A: I think “wedge of iceberg lettuce” is the most depressing sounding thing on the menu.

Bent Shapes just released their debut album. Did any particular food fuel the making of it?
B: We ate at Shanghai Village in Arlington, MA quite a bit before sessions, but the $5 Suffering Bastards had a lot more to do with it than the food, I think.
S: Yes, anything distillable and always fresh greens.
A: Also, we ate a lot of barbecue, which sounds pretty awful. Can you imagine eating ribs and then doing vocal takes? I can.

Has food ever influenced your songwriting?
B: Sure. You are what you eat. I was ingesting too much caffeine during the writing of this one, but I just quit coffee, so maybe my contributions will be mellower in the future.
S: We’ve brushed against burrito metal and pizza-tween twee.
A: We used a lot of food props in the Panel Of Experts video, does that count?

Any good food-related band anecdotes?
B: We used to go for ice cream after almost every practice, but we’re getting too old for that shit now.
S: I never fucked with that shit.
A: *sigh*

Who is the best cook in the band?
B: We all have our specialties, I think. Andy makes a mean brunch.
S: I make a mean weettucini weefredo (is that ok?).
A: I make a mean brunch.

What can you tell us about eating in Boston?
B: We’ve got some great restaurants. I think the diversity in the neighborhoods we call home guarantee variety, too, which is cool.
S: It is one of the destinations of our greatish country in which the winter food makes you fat AND the summer food makes you fat.
A: God Bless America.

What’s your favorite local restaurants?
B: Top 5 on my side of the river are probably Cantina La Mexicana, Dosa Factory, Sound Bites, Veggie Galaxy, and Chilli Garden.
S: Go to the Publick House in Brookline, order the macaroni and cheese, add broccoli, accompany the aforementioned with an Houblon Chouffe Belgian IPA, go on with your life knowing you’ve felt the pinnacle of satisfaction and nothing else matters now.
A: There is a diner in Watertown called the Deluxe Town Diner. Very very delicious. Le’s is a Vietnamese chain here in Boston and it’s also quite niiiiiiiiice.

What’s your go-to hangover food?
B: I’ve only been hungover once or twice, but I mostly just moaned a lot and ate dry toast in bed.
S: The snooze bar on the alarm clock. Cuz, yunno, “Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you.”
A: WATER

What food would you imagine Bent Shapes music being paired with?
B: Some sort of food tube (burrito, dosa, calzone)?
S: Yeah, probably Indian-fusion, which is my fault entirely. Something authentically inauthentic.
A: Def a food toob.

We’re back to dancing this week and no song has me acting dumb in my apartment that Todd Terje‘s “Strandbar” but you’ll have to wait till the end of the mix to hear it. Unless you’ve heard it already, then good for you. We’ve also got the return of Norway’s awesome Annie (with Richard X), the equally awesome return of Gramme, plus new tracks from Hot Chip, Soft Metals, Jagwar Ma, Chateau Marmont and more. Plus, some oldies (New Order, 808 State, Human League) that I’ve been listening to lately too. Kate Bryant was kind enough to do this week’s cover with almost no notice. Someone please refill her glass.

UPDATE: Kate also made an animated version of this week’s cover art, which you can watch “below the jump” as they used to say. That’s a first (and someone’s bored).

DOWNLOAD: SUMMER FRIDAYS 6.6

Tracklist:
1 Annie – Back Together
2 Chateau Marmont – Wind Blows (Yusek Remix)
3 808 State – Pacific 202
4 New Order – Special
5 Hot Chip – Dark & Stormy
6 Gramme – Rough News
7 The Human League – The Things Are Dreams Are Made Of
8 Jagwar Ma – Man I Need
9 World’s End Press – Second Day Uptown
10 Soft Metals – When I Look INto Your Eyes
11 AlunaGeorge – Attracting Flies
12 Toro Y Moi – Say That
13 **** ****** ** ****** – ************
14 Rainbow Arabia – He Is Sorceror
15 Todd Terje – Strandbar (Samba)

You know the drill: no shuffling.

Continue Reading →