Entertainment For Lively Minds
Which album says "Summer" to you?
Posted by Gavin Adam on 10 June 2009 - 3:28pm.
Driving home from a meeting on a sunnny evening last week, the iPod threw up Unhalfbricking and, in a flash, I was transported back to the summer of '69. For me, it was the end of my first year at Uni and I was ready for anything (and everything) and wanted to do it all. If memory serves, I failed in that aspiration but did have a really good time.
Unhalfbricking was the soundtrack of my summer and is still high on my playlist. 'Who knows where the time goes' will always, always be one of my all-time top 10.
Any albums have a similar effect for others?
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Ah, memories...
These (and many more) were the background to many a summer afternoon's high-jinks between 1988 and 94 - my secondary/tertiary education years.
Free Fire and Water
The first two sides of The Beatles, which a school chum had on a tape. Took me more than a few years to realise there were another two.
Stevie Wonder's Talking Book
Nick Drake Way to Blue
All unblemished by repetition.
Abbey Road
From the first ringing notes of Here Comes The Sun, it's 1971, it's summer, I'm 16 and I'm trying to get off with my mate Allen's girlfriend's sister Liz. We're in her dad's music room, playing the album on his excellent hi-fi, and the lawn stretches away outside the sliding doors, right down to the tennis court at the bottom of the garden. The sun is shining and the world is full of exciting possibilities.
Ramones "Rocket To Russia"
Has to be in the car when the sun comes out along with The Barracudas and the usual Monkees and Beach Boys.
seconded
it's the sound of summer for me too
Athlete - Vehicles & Animals
Reminds me of a great week on the beach in San Sebastian in 2003.
Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66: The Greatest Hits
or anything bossa nova ish.
Failing that Rattlesnakes/Lloyd Cole & the Commotions.
I hate to admit it, but...
"Stay" by Shakespear's Sister reminds me of a holiday in Switzerland many summers ago. Shit. I'll fetch me coat.
Sit down.
Leave the coat where it is. We like diversity here. Merciless piss-taking is reserved for those who conform to some ghastly common denominator orthodoxy, not those who like the occasional blast of Siobhan and co.
Roy Harper
HQ.
It was bought after 1st year exams at the start of that hot summer of 1975. It has one of the great summer songs in Old Cricketer. Every time I play it, even after all these years, I feel the temperature rising into the 80s.
Do you mean 76?
I went back to University early that summer, just so I could lounge by the pool for free, guzzling cheap beers and watching the girls swim. It was torrid and baking.
No I mean 75
We had two hot summers in a row. 1976 was longer and I thought more unpleasant with a lot more humidity.
Its indelibly stamped on my memory. A load of us went to see Harper at Birmingham Town Hall on the first night of the tour in support of HQ. There were flyers on the seats which you could take to Virgin and buy the album for, I think, £1:70. You can cross reference the release date of the album.
Fantastic gig. The first ever live performance of Old Cricketer. The band was Chris Spedding, Bill Bruford and Dave Cochrane. I went and bought HQ the next day.
I also fell in love. Luckily she fell in love with me too, which gives those days a bit more of a golden glow.
Beach Boys Live
But not the ancient scream bedecked candystripe shirt effort, but the merely really quite old mid 70s double, when the Boys were grizzled men, even Mike Love seemed cool, and Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar werein charge of all the new stuff. That and the fact I was 17 made the world a better place.
P.S. Summers of 75 and 76 were both scorchers the like of which etc, marred by A levels and first year uni exams but the thought was always there.
(What thought? A:THE thought of teenage boys in their late teens)
Cesaria Evora's 'Cabo Verde'...
compliments those long, balmy days beautifully.
Gosh yes,
she slipped my mind. Sodade from the Miss Perfumado album is practically sonic summer evening sultriness encapsulated.
'Rumours'
I know, I know but I was 17, just left school and driving round the countryside in an old MG Midget with the top down listening to 'Dreams' on the tape deck, looking for a Stevie Nicks. Who knew it would ever end?
'Live & Direct' - Aswad
Creates a carnival wherever you play it. Ideal for playing in the car with the roof down.
The SUNDAYS / Reading, Writing and Arithmetic
Sheer summer of 1990 nostalgia. They tested the PA at a Prince gig in Manchester by playing the entire album and i was hooked from then on.
Also it IS very english summer-y and wistful sounding even though it came out in January of '90.
Seconded
Static & Silence is a good record too.
Long hazy and lazy summer days for me means
Tears For Fears and The Blow Monkeys.
Hey you at the back, we can't all have the Stones or Led Zep you know.
Massive Attack
Blue Lines.
Just gorgeous.
1974
Had a few quid to spare and bought Full Sail by Loggins & Messina (on the back of an OGWT film featuring Watching The River Run), Wild Tales by Graham Nash and Sunflower by The Beach Boys. To this day I still play them every June and, truly, Summer never seems to kick in until then. Ah, those days of innocence and youth.
Teenage Fanclub's Grand Prix
Summer on a CD...
1985 - Bryan Adams "Reckless"
Sounded great to the 19 year old me.
I'd suggest a new Summer classic
Seventh Tree by Goldfrapp
Not an album but a track (and the worst song posted here yet!)
Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, 1971,Newquay and first love as an innocent 11 year old.
Santana - Caravanserai: definitively summer
Just check out the sound of the crickets...
"It's damnably hot Carruthers - hope there's a cold Carlsberg at the next mirage"
"Shall I put on some ol' Devadip to cool you down sir?"
Now you're talking!
And Abraxas is no slouch either.
Oh by the way Sheev
Did you know the next bit (that languid, atmospheric Fender Rhodes/guitar/bass thing in is it 5/4 time?) is a direct steal from Pharaoh Sanders' Thembi album? Doesn't make the Santana any less great, though.
Santana/Pharoah
Thanks for introducing me to Pharaoh. Something wholly new to me. Quick listen on Spotify - v.good. Title track of "Thembi" below
http://open.spotify.com/track/6x4WAXhYazOoc0vCg2sybO
As for Caravanserai, I put it on as we had dinner and even The Light said "oh this is good". It was the track below I believe - but frankly, it could have been any one
You're welcome
and try dipping gently into the cerebral end of jazz with Alice Coltrane's Journey in Satchidananda, Keith Jarrett's Survivor's Suite or Köln Concert, or Art Ensemble of Chicago's People in Sorrow or Nice Guys. And are you aware of the ECM label? Good hunting.
Caravanserai and the Triumph 1300
My mate Richard and I used to tear around Farnborough in his Triumph 1300 listening to this, pretending to be Mike Shrieve hammering on the dashboard.
In fact as Carlos was the only thing he played in the early seventies, we christened him DevaDick!
St Germain - Tourist
Silver Sun's eponymous debut
I'd agree with Grand Prix too.
The Lilac Time - The Lilac Time (1987)
Kate Bush - Aerial
Koop - Waltz For Koop
Citay - Little Kingdom
Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
Sorry, but there's so many....
The Cardigans - Life
Charlotte Hatherley - Grey Will Fade
(Just noticed the video features David Walliams and Simon Pegg)
Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas
Bloody hell, bisto
give someone else a seat on the gravy train.....
Two Words - Dub and Reggae
Black Uhuru in Dub
Burning Spear in Dub
Lee Perry, Scientist - pretty much anything
It is scientifically impossible to listen to these on a rainy day. Rather, second year at University, sitting out in the back garden listening to these on my friend's boombox on tapes, drinking Red Stripe.
Seconded
I know it is summer when Reggae just sounds right.
And I can listen to about a quarter of my ipod that I skip the rest of the year (I have a King Tubby addiction).
Julian Cope - Fried
Prefab Sprout - From Langley Park to Memphis
The Shins - Oh Inverted World!
Super Furry Animals - Radiator
15, last year at school
holiday in Majorca with family - Alice Coopers Killer - young German Girl, very pretty. Bought the album when I got home. Stayed in touch with the family for a short while and got a visit from ...... her obnoxious brother who stayed with us for 2 weeks and spun a yarn to my parents that he had his money stolen at the airport.Some things just aint meant to be.
The summer is 1991
I'm 18 and after a frustrating year of retakes and dull jobs I'm just waiting for September so I can leave home and go to university. The soundtrack includes:
Young Disciples - Road to Freedom
I was going to say also Saint Entienne - Foxbase Alpha but having just checked I fear my memory is playing tricks as it didn't come out until that September. But what the hell, it still says summer to me.
Soundtrack of Summer - so far
The incomparable Sprouts amd "Jordan: the Comeback"
The superb "Salinas Sessions" Various Artists mixed by Jon sa Trincha
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Salinas-Various-Artists/dp/B00005MCY7
And The Hep endorsed "What is Hip?" Remix project vol.1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Hip-Remix-Project-Vol/dp/B0002IQIXS/ref=sr_...
(much cheaper on i-Tunes)
1985, and the only thing that mattered...
...was getting home from work, to my first solo apartment (I was 22), cracking a brew, and putting on REM's Fables of The Reconstruction. Something about that slightly murky mix full of warm tones--always reminded me of early Richard Thompson and hey, wouldn't you know it, Joe Boyd's stamp is all over both--perfectly suited the long nights of my first summer of freedom. Even the album cover's dominant colours called to mind glowing campfire embers and blazing summer sunsets. I recall that in later years, when the band had a new record to promote, they would often cite Fables as an album that had gone wrong. I hate seeing that sort of thing, especially when the work being derided is something I've cherished. Trust the art, not the artist.
Summer of 2009? It's gonna be Grizzly Bear's Vickatimest and a stack of Blood & Fire dub reissues.
Flat in Camden summer 86 (not mine) and that album
Absolutely - though I think from recalling interviews that what the band really disliked was the food - the album was recorded in N22 in the locust years (centuries... millennia...) when food in the capital was SHOITE and it was only when I was living in Norf Norf Laandan in later years that I realise why they probably didn't like it very much. Its a bit like going on an exchange trip to an exotic European capital and ending up in a forgotten commuter suburb - actually that's exactly what it is. Handy for the North Circular though. Wonder why their management sent them to Edmonton - producer? Studio sound? Wide range of night buses to Wood Green? I REALLY love this album. Reminds me of the teenage/young man sensation of grasping for something that isn't quite within reach though you can SEE it
Funny little irony here...
...in that I'm from the other Edmonton, the one in Alberta, Canada, and the golden summer I describe took place there. (You haven't seen a sunset unless etc.) Went to see the North London namesake once and--nothing personal, you understand--ours does beat yours.
Funny, too, I guess, that our summer soundtrack was recorded in conditions akin to a perpetual February in outer Wroclaw.
Josh Rouse - 1972
Pretty much any Josh Rouse album gets a regular airing when the sun is out.
The Woodentops - Giant
The Sleepy Jackson - Lovers
Simple Minds - New Gold Dream
Grace Jones - Living My Life
Scritti Politti - White Bread, Brown Beer
Psychedelic Furs - Mirror Moves
Kirsty MacColl - Kite
Guy Chadwick - Lazy, Soft and Slow
Health warning
Fraser, in future when there are multiple postings like this is there any chance you can flag the thread "Warning: contains bisto"?
Yes,
I've got a bit carried away there.
I'll cease and desist.
"A bit"?
"A bit carried away"?
Blimey. I'd hate to be around when you really lose it!
In my defence
I have for years been producing - on request I should add - compilation tapes and CDs for friends of which "Music for Summer BBQs, parties, holidays" have been the staple diet.
Give me an inch when it comes to music recommendations in any context and I will take a yard.
Apologies for the effusive manner in which I monopolised the thread.
Not an album
but a song. Lovelife by Lush, a homage to London, which is odd as I'm not a great lover of the capital, but it's a lovely pop song, great melody, very shimmery. Pretty much anything by Lush makes me smile, even at their most serious, but this tune in particular does it.
If I understood the Internets, I'd post you a sample, but all I've found is a live clip on youtube and, as any fule kno, Lush were always, how shall I put it, beautifully ramshackle in concert. For those who know them, that's fine, but those who don't should search out the studio version on "Split" first off to get the proper effect. Not on the "Lovelife" album which came later and didn't feature the song "Lovelife". Cross-thread activity ahoy!
More an EP than LP - "Flesh Balloon" Pale Saints
especially the sublime Kinky Love