[transmission from...Tyler S]

Well, it looks like my 23rd summer's drawing to a close. This is also fairly momentous, since one week ago marked one year for me in Washington, DC. I wasn't going to spill out my guts in a retrospective entry, since I likes my nostalgia in concentrated chunks. Plus, one year really isn't that long in the grand scheme of things. I have, however, met so many incredible people and become involved with so many great things that I couldn't possibly fit them all into one succinct diatribe. I.E. you all know who you are.

So I did this mix thing last summer and it came together fairly well, mostly because I spent most of Summer '05 running a small radio station in Maine. This one was a little more difficult to lay out, but that's because my life hasn't slowed down enough at any given time to actually think this one though. This is also the third time I've tried to explain the merits and/or significance of these songs. I'm a nerd, which you already know, but in this case I'm an especially exhausted nerd. Take it from me: a normal person would not construct this, and I'm damn proud of that.

MY SUMMER 2006 IN YOUR EARS

1. The Adolescents - "No Way"
They opened with this when I saw them at the Black Cat in July. It was certainly the most bizarre concert I’ve seen in a while. To think they were about 17-18 when they came out of nowhere in O.C. and turned out a masterpiece in 1981. Now, they’re in their early 40’s (except for guitarist Frank Agnew’s son, who plays second guitar now on tour, which is weird but cool) and have no qualms about still calling themselves The Adolescents. Their singer Tony [insert last name variation here] told me his recollection of a classic photo that Glen Friedman took of him when he was 17. Now he’s 43 and those songs still hold up. THAT’s a testament to how incredible the blue album is. I found their reunion album from last year, “O.C. Confidential” for $2 at CD Cellar, and half of the leads and harmonies are lifted from their earlier work anyway.

2. Lifetime - "Turnpike Gates"
What a band Lifetime were… and again are, I suppose. This recent reunion is somewhat suspect, especially since they’re associating with Pete Wentz’s label. Whatever; they may breathe life into it, being as how Fall Out Boy and billions of other bands bit on them for years and are now making billions. The way of the biz, I guess. I listed to Lifetime a ton this summer, and now I can tally the number of great things to emerge from Jersey at about five. This song kicks off Jersey’s Best Dancers and it’s ending formulates the most riveting 40 seconds of pop-punk I’ve ever heard.

3. Wes Mann - "If Only You Knew"
Oooooh, look at me, I’m Wes Mann and I’m moving to the West Coast. La dee dah! I’ll bet Tyler’s going to include my song in his mix just as an excuse to put the awesome video he directed back on his website for a spell. That’s right, I use the word spell.



Okay, seriously, Wes is one swell dude (in the first half of the video, at least…once it turns to color, he’s a cool dude), and I had a great time making this video with him. I heard it about 6 million times this summer for that reason, and I’m not even sick of it. Someday, Slayer will cover this song. For now, though, enjoy Wes being poignant.

4. So Many Dynamos – “Search Party” LISTEN
This high-octane, hype-worthy, hype-getting quartet from Saint Louie contributed infinitely to one of my best weekends this summer. It all started when I ran into all-around dude Saadat Awan (drummer for Metropolitan, the Travis Morrison Hellfighters, the Cassettes, Lori Carson, Beauty Pill, the Bay City Rollers, Kid Ory’s Creole Jazz Band, and about 354 other bands), outside of the oasis that is Murky Coffee after coming home from a day of tubing in West Virginia. It all ended as I said goodbye to Aaron, Norm, Ryan, Griffin, as well as Dismemberment Plan superfan Alina and Travis (who had something to do with that band Alina likes) outside of a Mexican restaurant in Tenleytown. Lots of great discussion and chicanery and a cluster of quality performances happened in between. Remember this palindromic name! You’ll be screaming it later… at their concerts. What?

5. Dr. Dooom – “You Live at Home With Your Mom”
Seeing Kool Keith was a harrowing experience, even if he was fairly unfocused. No crazy shit, aside from handing out some porno mags to lucky members of the audience. According to his excruciatingly white DJ/co-producer Kutmasta Kurt, the Dr. Dooom album is pretty hard to find. Imagine Dr. Octagon as Jeffrey Dahmer. Yes, it’s that pleasant, but it’s got some great flows and beats to it.

6. Pinback – “Blood’s on Fire”
I listened to Summer in Abaddon on a loop back in June/July, and this song simply kicks ass and the chorus formulates everything that’s great about Pinback, mid-tempo-yet-interesting rock, and hell, harmony in general. I don’t even know what this song’s about.

7. Dillinger Four – “Suckers Intl. Has gone Public”
When I first heard Versus God, I wondered why I denied myself this incredible band for so long. Any band with titles like this, “Portrait of the Artist as a Fucking Asshole,” “Music is None of my Business,” “Define ‘Learning Disorder,’” and “Who Didn’t Kill Bambi?” should be illegal to dislike. Plus, they absolutely rip, and this song is the rippingest. I flashed back to overhearing various punker-than-thou friends referencing this band in high school when I saw it on the shelves at Revolution Records and indulged. I’m still thanking myself.

8. Twilight Singers – “Candy Cane Crawl”
Dulli and Co. brought it at the 9:30 Club back in June. It was easily the best show I saw all summer, and possibly the greatest experience I’ve had at a concert in my life. I was amazed that I’d forgotten how incredible so many of these songs were (he pulled out a fair number of Afghan Whigs classics). But the show’s greatest moment came during their impassioned performance of this song, whereabouts Greg Dulli started to scream/sing in the last chorus, stood up abruptly as if he was pissed off at his piano, fished a lovely, coy young woman out of the front row and ballroom-danced through the song’s finale. God DAMN. If I was 41 and spent the last two decades doing as many drugs as he has, I’d be concerning myself over other things, like taking a shit under my own power. More power to Greg Dulli.

9. Husker Du – “New Day Rising”
Perhaps the “biggest” moment I experienced all summer came on the evening of July 14th in Baltimore. I was MC’ing at the Comedy Factory for Nick DiPaolo and feature act Joe List (remember that name, by the way). The DJ informed me I could have my own theme music as I walked onstage. It just so happened that the only appropriate song I had on me that didn’t have lyrics for the first 20 seconds or so was this, so I got to walk onstage not once, not twice, but three times to the sounds of Grant Hart banging the shit out of his drums and Bob Mould cranking out some quality noise. What a weekend.

10. Ween – “reggaejunkiejew”


Yes, I’m on a Ween kick again. Yes, this song is fucking awesome.

11. Orange Juice – “Louise Louise”
This is the greatest song on a single collection packed full of great songs (The Glasgow School). Edwin Collins is one of the few people I can sing along with without making an ass of myself and alienating everyone who loves and cares about me. It's odd to think they started out as a brash garage band that played Ramones covers. At least their story is more believeable than the Edge's "oh, we won an audition playing a Ramones song" story. The guy's never played a power chord in his life. Plus, as good as Boy was, it couldn't equal the quality of OJ's You Can't Hide Your Love Forever. It had dolphins on the cover! Kids love those things. No one can deny that Orange Juice had charm flowing from their pores, and they laid the artsy but unpretentious foundation for…

12. Belle and Sebastian – “Sukie in the Graveyard”
The greatest band in the world (eh, they're up there, at least) brought it big time with The Life Pursuit this year, and I’ve had the distinct pleasure of seeing them not once but twice over the course of my first illustrious year in DC. Once at the 9:30 Club, which I documented right here, and a second time at the Merriweather Post, which they headlined. “God,” said my roommate as he turned to me, “Talk about the little indie band that could.”

13. American Music Club – “At My Mercy”
I think this song’s chorus should enter a cage with the chorus to Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s “Nomadic Revery (All Around)” just to decide once and for all which is more fucking incredible. They’ve both come off a long streak of breaking hearts and rendering young music nerds incapable of moving for minutes at a time, but given that I prefer Mark Eitzel as a songwriter, I’d cheer for “At My Mercy.” Plus, if Mark Eitzel met Will Oldham in a drinking contest, he would school Oldham’s bearded, quivery-voiced ass.

14. Ducky Boys – “Alone Tonight”
There’s something about that Boston sound. Brings to mind images of running through Copley Plaza with a baseball bat in the heat of the summer. I didn’t realize the Ducky Boys were out of commission for so long. 3 Chords and the Truth is a good listen, given those circumstances. Remember when Dropkick Murphy’s were awesome? They name-checked the Ducky Boys a lot back in the day. Damnit, I’m calling 1997 ‘back in the day.’

15. Jimes - "Bunk Bed" LISTEN
Congrats to my friends Brandon and Kathryn for tying the knot recently out on the West Coast. As for the rest of you, you should wed your ears to the sounds of what could be one of the greatest songs ever recorded. GET IT? WED YOUR EARS? I'm not even going to start trying to explain why, I'm just going to let my awesome play on words there sink in and slowly but surely rock your worlds into submission, not unlike the style in which Brandon does telling a tale of a Tacoma, WA monk with two bad knees. "BYE BYE BUNK BED!!..."

[transmission from... Tyler S]

I started to prepare a big end of summer/one full year in DC entry that included what's sure to be a pretty kickass mix, but between my inevitable need for sleep and a bizarre software error buried somewhere between my wireless device's driver and my assorted music programs, it has to wait for a bit.

I'm not going to lie. The last week, especially this weekend were excruciating. The Laughing Lizard was great per usual, I returned in full force to my second job, met some interesting people, and slept for a sum total of about 10 hours this whole weekend. You probably don't envy me, and I accept that. What I'm going to do is break down my penchant for serving humanity through web site postings to the lowest common denominator and spit out a couple of the most surreal things I've found on YouTube in the past week. The thing that bothers me the most about what you're about to watch if you click on those play arrows is the fact that there are people out there with enough dead time to sit around and crap out these works of internet video "art," and I don't even have five goddamn minutes to call someone to tell them I care about them. I'm angry, because it's 4 in the morning and I swore I'd be in bed by 3. What a life I lead. One full year in DC and my night-owl ass still can't get my act together. I'll have something of substance up by the end of this week, I promise.

This first thing I found thanks to the people over at Pitchfork. Whenever I spot a band I care about cited in their news section, I jump on it, and this time it led me to this video montage that some hideously undersexed and overstimulated person pieced together (no, it wasn't me, you person who thinks you're incredibly clever for thinking, 'It Was probably Tyler who did this, hardy har har!').



As someone who's never seen an episode of American Idol, Katherine McPhee strikes me as a borderline generic girl next door. But provided the soundtrack of the Afghan Whigs' "66" and a few well-placed edits, she gets ridiculously hot. It's ironic, since the song is loaded with hardcore drug references. But, that doesn't deter me from picking 1965 as my all-time favorite album to have sex to. Am I getting a little personal? Reaching into the box of T.M.I? Deal with it - it's 4:15 AM.

And here's a perfect example of what happens when you give Vegas Video to someone who's under house arrest, has lost every viable means of entertainment other than his laptop, and has been huffing more scotchguard than Gene and Dean Ween combined during the Pure Guava sessions. Absorb this:



I don't understand it either. But the interjection at 0:44 is pretty damn funny. For those of you who didn't get my Ween reference, I may as well throw this in, too. I shouldn't have to mention that it's not his real singing voice. I'll talk to you all soon.