Good Thing Windin' Down: 5 Songs for the End of Summer
This week's songs are from Scott McMicken & the Ever Expanding, Pinegrove, Sinsuke Fujieda Group, Brendan Eder Ensemble, and Alex G.
RIP Terry Reid
Terry Reid flew under the radar, despite many of his contemporaries insisting he should’ve been a superstar. His death last week slipped under my radar. Reid opened for the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Jethro Tull, and Cream. What he was most famous for, was turning down invites to join what would become Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. In fact, in declining, Reid recommended Page look into both Robert Plant and John Bonham as he was putting a band together. Like many under-the-radar artists who never quite hit it, the list is long of musicians who have recorded or covered his material, trying to draw attention to his work: CSNY, John Mellencamp, and Jack White among them.
"There are only three things happening in England: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Terry Reid." - Aretha Franklin
Terry Reid - “Dean”
The guitar sound on here is so specific. One of those tunes where you can hear the guitar itself and you know its a Les Paul. The drums stutter and stop, and you can hear what Jimmy Page heard in Reid’s voice and why he got tagged with the nickname “Superlungs.” He could rip the high notes just like Robert Plant. And you also get a sense of his own musical tastes which included jazz, funk, and Latin/Brazilian rhythms—Zeppelin would eventually dabble, but at their start were a blues band. On the softer side, I would recommend checking out “May Fly.”
The whole month of August feels like a prolonged Sunday Scaries. I felt that way as a kid, and I still feel that way, even though I’m not preparing to go back to school or start anything new. I sense the extended exhale that is fall before it happens. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve adapted by trying to enjoy the sunshine and freedom of summer as much as possible as it starts to wind down. Get outside. Enjoy the leaves on the trees. Soak in the sun. Take in what it feels like before it’s gone.
So with the turning of the season, here are 5 songs that evoke that sense of warm weather and listlessness, but have that underlying sadness that comes with knowing it’s a temporary bliss.
“I never thought of myself as a maximalist, but on some basic level I'm more comfortable behind a wall of sound. So, it feels good to feel increasingly more and more musically powerful things happen with less noise.” - Scott McMicken
Scott McMicken & the Ever Expanding - “One Good Reason”
This is is the side project of Scott McMicken of Dr. Dog. Released earlier this summer, New Purple Dress is one of those albums that sets a frequency and pace that forces you to adjust to it. It’s slower. Quieter—as if everyone participating was asked to play as gently as possible lest they wake a sleeping baby in the next room. “One Good Reason” is as up-tempo as it gets. It exudes the same energy of a gorgeous, 95 degree day—sticky as hell, you’ve got a pool all to yourself, a good book, and nowhere else to be. It’s a perfect song to wake up to from an unintentional afternoon nap, where you notice the sun going down a little faster than it was just a few days ago.
Well, I can’t feel the music anymore
and I can’t feel the sun’s light anymore
The sunlight is gone
It left in the night
“I really like listening to albums that feel conceptually coherent. In fact, I’d go a step further and say I’m disappointed if there’s not conceptual coherence in an album; it’s a missed opportunity.” - Evan Stephen Hall
Pinegrove - “New Friends”
When you’re in school, summer can get weird—your whole social infrastructure changes. People you spend every day with are gone, new people show up—at camp, a summer job, a kid in the neighborhood who goes to a different school, so you rarely see them during the school year—and you can form very tight, but very temporary bonds with them, and maybe their group of friends. Pinegrove’s “New Friends” covers this terrain, and it does so very economically. The playful boredom, a willingness to try something and fail, and a sudden rush of excitement and temporary belonging. Primary songwriter Evan Stephen Hall has described the band as “Language Arts Rock,” which fits their singer/songwriter approach to emo-leaning indie rock. The album Cardinal has something of an arch to it, opening with the reflective “Old Friends” and closing with “New Friends,” where the singer finds himself deeper into unfamiliar territory over a summer. They bookend one another nicely, with “Old Friends” laying the groundwork—feeling out of place and disconnected with friends. “New Friends” finishes with a rave-up third act all about reaching the end of summer and finding yourself in the same situation you started it in, but surrounded by strangers.
“When listening and singing become one,
sound begins to appear.
In that moment, sound becomes landscape,
and I become the song within it.” - Sinsuke Fujieda
Sinsuke Fujieda Group - “Nobody Knows”
I’m not normally a big fan of alto sax, but the Sinsuke Fujieda Group’s Fukushima makes it work. It’s a kinetic album—percussive and vibrant—and yet very much has the DNA of modal jazz albums. Everything sounds very much together, but also recorded with such clarity and separation between the instruments. “Nobody Knows” is a highlight. It’s warm and vibrant and just a little bit wistful. It would be a great playlist track for a late-season barbecue, ideally after everyone’s finished dinner, but the energy hasn’t died down—it’s not quite sunset, but the orange tint is in the sky and the shadows are getting longer. Of course, this is just an imagined scenario, because nobody plays jazz at a barbecue. But maybe we should?
“It was so exciting to have this new, beautiful-sounding instrument. I started recording, just simple ideas…pretty quickly, I had the lightbulb go off. I realized I’m totally doing a concept album, and I’m gonna invent a person.” - Brendan Eder (on the creation of Edward Blankman)
Brendan Eder Ensemble feat. Edward Blankman - “Overgrown Garden”
I found Brendan Eder Ensemble after reading an article on the director Ari Aster, which is an unexpected connection given the brightness and seeming innocence of the music in contrast with the slow-burn intensity and anxiety-inducing violence of Aster’s films. But the music is good enough to forget that connection altogether.
Pretty much the whole album Cape Cod Cottage applies to this theme. It’s an ambient jazz album that sounds as idyllic and pleasant as you would expect to be in that setting. There’s a convoluted (and ultimately very sad) backstory to this concept album within a concept album that counters the otherwise welcoming, warm, and easygoing album that has just a pinch of melancholy to it. But I’ll spare you that sadness and just encourage you to spend a sunny late afternoon with it and you can thank me later.
“I can’t sit down and be like, ‘School sucks,’ or something, because I don’t know what that feels like anymore. I can only write about things that evoke some type of emotion in me, because that’s the only way I know that they’re evocative at all.” - Alex Giannascoli
Alex G - “June Guitar”
What is about Philadelphia that produces interesting and idiosyncratic bedroom-indie musicians of such high caliber? Dr. Dog, The War on Drugs, Kurt Vile, Japanese Breakfast, Hop Along…Alex G is obviously on that pretty extensive list. I’ve been listening to his new album Headlights quite a bit since its release a few weeks ago. It’s a perfect soundtrack to late summer. This song conjures the image of sunlight breaking through leaves. So I was pleased as punch to see that image pop up in the song’s video. It’s warm, inviting, and while it has an optimistic effect, it also has the twinge of sadness that belongs to the end of summer, and time passing—a good thing winding down.
Full playlists of songs featured in 5 Songs:
Thanks for introducing me to some of these greats. Now I’ll have to add them to my list of to listen to! 🎧