Sound Bites

Summer Fridays 2.13

Where did it go? Summer's over folks. Yes I know it doesn't technically end till September 21 but Labor Day signifies the end of the season. Back to school, network TV shows less crappy reality shows, we can start eating oysters again without fear. And so finishes 13 weeks of mixes from yours truly. Like last year, I decided to make the last one a double, divided into day (pop) and night (dance, or at least "dance-y" you be the judge). I hope you made the most of the summer and enjoyed these.

Art for the Day mix was done by my most frequent contributor, Kate Bryant, who did the first mix of Summer 2009. It reeks of Summer In Brooklyn, don't you think? The art for the Night mix was done by me, in my living room, using a long shutter on the camera and the LED light on my cable remote as a pen. This will be my last opportunity to remind you that these mixes are actually mixed together, the songs blend, so no shuffle please. It will sound jarring and unpleasing to the ear. And nobody needs that. 

Have a great long weekend.  

DOWNLOAD SUMMER FRIDAYS 2.13: DAY

DOWNLOAD SUMMER FRIDAYS 2.13: NIGHT

 


Summer Fridays 2.13 Day tracklist:

1. The Cribs - We Share the Same Skies
2. The Hidden Cameras - The Na
3. Adventures in Stereo - You Hurt Me More Than You Know
4. Bye Bye Bicycle - Navigation
5. JEFF the Brotherhood - Bone Jam
6. The Wedding Present - It's a Gas
7. The High Dials - My Heart is Pinned to Your Sleeve
8. Tap Tap - Codeine
9. Hospitality - Liberal Arts
10. Kings of Convenience - Mrs. Cold
11. Virgin Sleep - Love
12. Atlas Sound w/ Laetitia Sadier - Quick Canal
13. Pastels/Tenniscoats - Vivid Youth
14. Princeton - I Left My Love in Nagasaki
15. Your Twenties - Billionaires
16. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Higher Than the Stars
17. The Magnetic Fields - The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Dancing
18. The Kinks - Autumn Almanac

  



Summer Fridays 2.13 Night tracklist:

1. Bent - Invisible Pedestrian
2. The Weathermen - Poison
3. Friendly Fires - Kiss of Life
4. Jack Penate - Everything is New
5. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Higher Than The Stars (Saint Etienne visits Lord Spank Remix)
6. Metronomy - Not Made For Love (Astronomer Remix)
7. OMD - Genetic Engineering
8. Zoot Woman - Just a Friend of Mine
9. Delorean - Seasun
10. Pop Will Eat Itself - Another Man's Rhubarb
11. Stardeath & White Dwarfs - Return to the Sun
12. Dan Black - Alone
13. The Golden Silvers - True Romance (True No. 9 Blues)
14. Super Furry Animals - The Very Best of Neil Diamond
15. Caribou - Lord Leopard

Liner notes follow after the jump.

Summer Fridays 2.12

So this is, I think, going to be the penultimate Summer Fridays mix for 2009. I know it's sad. Only one more. But on the bright side... still one more! A lot more new stuff this week, including such states as Florida, California, Indiana and Brooklyn. I'm pretty sure Brooklyn is a state, I live here. This week's cover is courtesy SB reader (and graphic designer/illustrator) Olivia Todd who delivered some swell mixed media. That's three excellent covers in a row. Here's where I would normally beg for submissions for art, but I've got the last one covered, thanks. Aren't you sad you didn't write in? Also, you know the drill: this is an actual mix, the songs segue together, so putting this on shuffle would be a bad thing.

DOWNLOAD SUMMER FRIDAYS 2.12

Tracklist:
 
1.   Billy Nicholls - Would You Believe?
2.   Car-Sick Cars - Zhong Man Hai
3.   Moose - Don't Bring Me Down
4.   Holiday Shores - Bradley Bear
5.   Love Tractor - Venice
6.   The Bats - Never Said Goodbye
7.   The Fresh & Onlys - Grey Eyed Girl
8.   Miracle Legion - All for the Best
9.   Robyn Hitchcock - I Watch the Cars
10. Surfer Blood - Floating Vibes
11. Sugarplastic - Talk Back
12. The Zombies - These Friends of Mine
13. Brown Recluse - Night Train
14. The Jazz Butcher - Rain
15. The Babies - Meet Me in the City
16. Sic Alps - L.Mansion
17. Fire - My Father's Name Was Dad
18. Blue Jungle - Here We Go Again
19. Marmoset - Strawbery Shortcakes
20. The Postmarks - No One Said This Would Be Easy

Have a great weekend! "Liner Notes" after the jump.

Summer Fridays 2.11

We may be running out of Summer (not that the thermometer is currently any indication) but I'm not running out of songs. That said, I'm pretty sure this mix features the least new music of any of this season's sets, but I've tried to put in a little of every decade. A lot of Scandinavia on this one too, that would be lily-white without them anyway. That said, I think this one is really strong in that if you like the first song, you're gonna like the whole thing. 

Cover art is by my friend Kelly who recently left NYC to go to grad school for landscape architecture at UVA. The cover is based on "a project from landscape summer school. it's the summer solstice sunrise over some mexican heather grass in charlottesville." It's one of the best Summer Fridays covers yet, I think. If you think you can do better,  I'm gonna do these mixes through the end of Summer proper, so get in touch. In the meantime, I'll remind you that these songs segue together so no shuffle!

DOWNLOAD SUMMER FRIDAYS 2.1

Here's the tracklist:

1. The Pernice Brothers - Working Girls
2. The Mary Onettes - Puzzles
3. Jens Lekman - Maple Leaves
4. Ride - Making Judy Smile
5. The Woodentops - Travelling Man
6. The Wannadies - Friends
7. Cast - Alright
8. The Byrds - So You Want to Be a Rock & Roll Star
9. The Grapes of Wrath - Do You Want to Tell Me?
10. The The - Slow Emotion Replay
11. Sondre Lerche - I Cannot Let You Go
12. Prefab Sprout - Appetite
13. The Left Banke - I've Got Something on My Mind
14. Pale Saints - Colours and Shapes
15. New Pornographers - Laws Have Changed
16. Superheroes - What's Going On?
17. The Stone Roses - What the World is Waiting For
18. Eggstone - Waiting for the Bell

 Liner notes after the jump.

Summer Fridays 2.10

This week's is another that wildly swings from genre to genre but I think it works. Dig the pro artwork this week, from my friend Greg who is an illustrator and toy designer. Clearly my mixes have always had a K-Tel vibe about them, and I like the way he worked the numbering into it subtly. Very clever! He wrote the text too, or at least copied from Wikipedia, and you can read it clearly in the hi-res cover that's included in the download. There did seem to be a sentence missing: "No shuffling!"

DOWNLOAD SUMMER FRIDAYS 2.10 

Tracklist:

1.  Lovvers - OCD Go Go Girls 
2.  The Cribs - You Were Always the One 
3.  Horace Andy - Sky Larking 
4.  Big Audio Dynamite - Sambadrome 
5.  Simian Mobile Disco - Bad Blood (feat Alexis Taylor) 
6.  The Walker Brothers - If I Promise 
7.  The Apartments - The Shyest Time 
8.  Easterhouse - Whistling in the Dark 
9.  Grass Widow - To Where 
10. [ingenting] - Halleluja! 
11. Beach Fossils - Vacation 
12. Brilliant Colors - Should I Tell You? 
13. Trashcan Sinatras - Hayfever 
14. Generationals - Nobody Could Change Your Mind 
15. A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head 
16. Gorky's Zygotic Monkey - Meyhu Aros Tan Haf 
17. Fluffy Lumber - Cruisers 
18. Luna - Lost in Space 
19. BOAT - Name Tossers

Liner notes after the jump.

Summer Fridays 2.9

Number nine in our summer series was an attempt not to sound kitchen sink-y, with a definite point of view: light, airy, fun. Hopefully I pulled that off. For the cover art this week, my friend Kirstie Shanley let me use (and crop) this photo of Chicago's Windy City Rubber Ducky Derby. The original photo is here. Hope you enjoy this one, which features three songs you could call "hip hop." I'm only slightly out of my element here. Have a good weekend...and no shuffling!

DOWNLOAD SUMMER FRIDAYS 2.9

Here's the tracklist:

1. Jon Astley - Jane's Getting Serious
2. The Big Pink - Dominos
3. De La Soul - A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays"
4. General Public - Where's the Line?
5. Almond Marzipan - Summer Love
6. Princeton - Calypso Gold
7. Javelin - Tell Me, What Will It Be?
8. Steely Dan - Peg
9. Tahiti 80 - Heartbeat
10. JJ - Things Will Never Be The Same Again
11. Estelle - 1980
12. The Baja Marimba Band - Flyin' High
13. Stereolab - Captain Easychord
14. Saint Etienne - Goodnight Jack
15. The Experimental Pop Band - Dead Sea
16. Spearmint - A Week Away
17. Speech Debelle -Spinnin' 

"Liner notes" after the jump.

Summer Fridays 2.8

Hope you're not getting tired of these, I still enjoy making them. This is Number Nine in the Sound Bites Summer Fridays series, designed specifically to eliviate seasonal stress and alergies. This week's edition features fake reggae, real reggae, fake Thin Lizzy, French pop, goth pop, Swedish pop, an appearance from the Elephant Six roster, various aural ephemera and new tracks from BOAT, The Xx, Champagne Socialists and Cornershop. That's exciting, isn't it? Cover art this week was done by me, mainly because I forgot to get back to the people who've actually offered make one. (Will get back to you, I promise.) Have a swell weekend, and no shuffling!

DOWNLOAD SUMMER FRIDAYS 2.8

Here's the tracklist:

1. 10CC - Dreadlock Holiday
2. Hot Chip - The Warning
3. Augustus Pablo - King Tubby Meets the Rockers Downtown
4. The Blue Nile - Tinseltown in the Rain
5. Broadcast - Come on Let's Go
6. Belle & Sebastian - I'm a Cuckoo
7. BOAT - Lately
8. The Boo Radleys - Wish I Was Skinny
9. The Xx - Basic Space
10. The Chrysler - While the Tide is High
11. The Olivia Tremor Control - Courtyard
12. The Champagne Socialists - Blue Genes
13. Imperial Teen - Ivanka
14. Phoenix - Consolation Prizes
15. Modern English - Life in the Gladhouse
16. Cornershop - The Roll Off Characteristics (Of History In The Making)
17. Max Eider - Who Loves You Now?

If you're interested in making cover art for one of these, do get in touch.

Liner notes after the jump.

Summer Fridays 2.7

This week's mix is a little schizo: some goth shoegaze, some new 7" finds, and a lot of '90s indie rock nuggets. And then there's the '80s rockin' "Free Energy" which is total top down convertible fodder dumb fun. The Archers of Loaf track was chosen by this week's cover art contributor KOTS. That's his tag name. KOTS loves grafitti, but he also hates defacing other people's property so he does his work completely in MS Paint. If you'd like to do a cover, do get in touch. Have a swell weekend, folks. And no shuffling!

DOWNLOAND SUMMER FRIDAYS 2.7

Here's the tracklist. I'll try and get liner notes up over the weekend.

1.  The Horrors - Scarlet Fields
2.  Archers of Loaf - Wrong
3.  Free Energy - Free Energy
4.  Zaza - Sooner or Later
5.  Engineers - Sometimes I Realize
6.  Number One Cup - Waiting for the Lions
7.  Flaming Lips - Silver Trembling Hands
8.  Uninhabitable Mansions - Do You Have a Strategy?
9.  Fergus & Geronimo - Harder Than It's Ever Been
10. Jale - Not Happy
11. Pavement - Gold Soundz
12. Echo & the Bunnymen - Rescue
13. Blow Up - Good to Me
14. Sex Clark Five - Detention Girls
15. Nodzz - True to Life
16. Let's Active - In Little Ways
17. Official Secrets Act - The Girl from the BBC
18. Unrest - Makeout Club

Summer Fridays 2.6

After last week's unintentional vacation from these mixes, we're back, rested and ready. In NYC it finally got hot and humid and I think that stickiness permates Summer Fridays 2.6. At least until we get to The Duckworth Lewis Method, but by then it's almost over. I also raided my early-'90s CD collection for this one a bit, but tried to put a bunch of new stuff on here too. Cover photo is Coney Island at the end of last year's Siren Festival. I remind you: if you'd like to contribute cover art, I'd love to have you do it. Just drop a line via email. 

DOWNLOAD SUMMER FRIDAYS 2.6 

Tracklist:

1.  Love and Rockets - It Could Be Sunshine
2.  Erik Blood - Saved You
3.  Spoon - Advance Cassette
4.  The Clientele - I Wonder Who We Are?
5.  MEW - Beach
6.  Kings of Convenience - Misread
7.  Wild Beasts - We Still Got The Taste Dancing On Our Tongues
8.  The Flirtations - Nothing But a Heartbreak
9.  Novillero - The Hypothesist
10. The Smiths - What Difference Does it Make?
11. Suede- Metal Mickey
12. Lilys - Ginger
13. Lush - De-Luxe
14. Jay Reatard - Wounded
15. The Beatles - I'm Happy Just to Dance With You
16. Biblio - Ambivalence Avenue
17. Orange Juice - Hokoyo
18. The Duckworth Lewis Method - The Age of Revolution

DISCLAIMER: The songs segue together, so no shuffle please. I bet you're tired of me saying that. Liner notes after the jump.

Summer Fridays 2.5

It's a big holiday weekend, I'm already late enough so I'll spare you the liner notes you probably don't read anyway. Those are zeppoles, by the way, from the Giglio Festival in Williamsburg (which is where I live) which starts July 8. Zeppoles are the best fried bread, better than elephant ears or funnel cakes. And few things mean summer in Brooklyn more than them. Hopefully you'll find this week's mix almost as tasty. A shout-out to Toby at The Finest Kiss, whose new Basementcast is where I heard the Rose Elinor Dougall track. Enjoy the weekend.

DOWNLOAD SUMMER FRIDAYS 2.5

1.  Roxy Music - Pyjamarama
2.  McLusky - She Will Only Bring You Happiness
3.  The Mo-Dettes - Fandango
4.  The Monochrome Set - Martians Go Home
5.  Rose Elinor Dougall - Start/Stop/Synchro
6.  Ultramarine feat. Robert Wyatt - Kingdom
7.  Joe Crow - Compulsion
8.  Pete Shelley - Homosapien
9.  The Clean - Anything Could Happen
10.  Ganglians - Lost Words
11.  The Divine Comedy - The Pop Singer's Fear of the Pollen Count
12.  The Bird and the Bee - Diamond Dave
13.  Colin Blunstone - She Loves the Way They Love Her
14.  Don Gibson - Sea of Heartbreak
15.  Jacques Dutronc - Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi
16.  Pink Floyd - See Emily Play
17.  Pulp - Mile End
18.  Miracle Legion - The Backyard

Summer Fridays 2.4... Monday Edition (This Week Only)

Nobody likes Mondays, but one thing that might help make the work week (if you have a job) go by quicker is this week's Summer Fridays mix which is totally late and only arriving now. I scrapped a nearly-completed version cause it wasn't working and redid the whole thing. Which is what happened with Toy Story 2, and everybody likes the way that eventually turned out. While on this Pixar analogy, I should like to point out that there are no Randy Newman songs on this mix. Cover art this week comes courtesy five-year-old music fan Diaz, who likes hearts. I told her she could pick a song for the mix and she chose The Thompson Twins' "Hold Me Now" which ended up serving as inspiration for the whole thing when I redid it.

DOWNLOAD SUMMER FRIDAYS 2.4

TRACKLIST 

1. Johnny Boy - You Are the Generation Who Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve
2. The Thompson Twins - Hold Me Now
3. Pacific - Sunset Blvd
4. The Wave Machines - Keep the Lights On
5. Savoir Adore - Bodies
6. The Radio Dept. - David (The Rice Twins Mix)
7. The Juan Maclean - One Day
8. Esser - Work it Out
9. La Roux - Bulletproof
10. The New Sins - Feeling Have Changed
11. Sally Shapiro - Miracle
12. Bachelorette - Her Rotating Head
13. The Sound of Arrows - M.A.G.I.C.
14. Datarock - Computer Camp Love
15. Chaz Jankel - Number One
16. Ladyhawke - Manipulating Woman
17. The Dream Academy - The Edge of Forever

If you'd like to contribute artwork to a forthcoming Summer Fridays mix, please get in touch, either in the comments or via email, which can be found on this blog's right sidebar. Hope you like this one, I think it might be worth the wait. No shuffling, dammit! Since most people get Friday off for the July 4th weekend, the next Summer Fridays mix will actually go up Thursday morning. If I can get my act together.

Liner notes after the jump: