It's Officially Summer

The sun is shining, birds are tweeting (everyone does it these days) and finally it seems that Summer has come in kicking over a chair as it entered. Summer will last only a week and I expect over that week The Sun newspaper to have a headline along the likes of What A Scorcher!

Whilst I was writing The Beatles review I got to thinking about those great songs that let you know its summer, that don't whisper it, but shout from the rooftops ITS SUMMER!!!!!

Clearly for the purposes of the next five tunes there is not going to be any Walking on Sunshine, Sealed with a Kiss or any Macarenas. This is my five songs that tell you Summer is here, add in the comments your suggestions.



The first two are inexplicably linked so I am going to roll them into one. Don't Falter by Mint Royale featuring Lauren Laverne and Hey Fever by Arab Strap. Youtube doesnt seem to have Hey Fever, which is a pity so I put something together, its the music that is important, remember that.



Hey! Fever by Arab Strap

Laverne was at one point the partner of one half of grumpy Scots duo Arab Strap, she may still be, I wouldn't know. What I do know is that she used the It's Officially Summer line from Hey Fever for the chorus of her own tune, Don't Falter. Its hard to dislike either tune, and I have tried, believe me, when it comes to Arab Strap I have tried, but both tunes are as infectious as yawning certainly in the case of Mint Royale it is difficult not to walk with it playing in your headphones without bobbing slightly. Lauren Laverne stopped being a musician some time back for some reason, it's a shame really, I hear she DJ's now, I wouldn't be knowing about that.



Don't Falter by Mint Royale Featuring Lauren Laverne

Next one, and bear with me here, next one, no really it IS, the next track for me that herald summer is Ice Cube's 1993 single It Was A Good Day. As far as hip hop goes one of my favourite tracks. Essentially a remake of Big Rock Candy Mountain. When I hear it I am sat in an drop top and with a flick of a switch I can make its ass drop, I am invariably riding around South Central like a baller. Not really, but that's the feeling the song invokes, its sunny, and that may be down to the Isley Brother sample, it might be down to the feel good nature of the song. For me though it really IS summer and its difficult not to listen to and imagine the sun on your back.



It Was A Good Day by Ice Cube


Less than Jake next and a song that appears on just about every tape/CD/MP3 playlist I make for a roadtrip to a festival, that alone guarantees its sunshiney summery-ness. That song is All My Best Friends Are Metalheads, a ska tune from their 98 album, Hello Rockview, a pretty faultless album as far ska punk albums go but All My Best Friends.. is easily the standout track, it is their career standout track if you ask me but I am just a fair-weather fan. The summeryness I think potentially stems from the inch high private eye that is my wife dancing along to them at Reading Festival one year, they played this song, I may have had a drink, the sun was shining. An excellent song.



All My Best Friends Are Metalheads by Less Than Jake

Finally summer and cheer go hand in hand in hand whenever I hear Summer Here Kids by Granddaddy. A band that it seems have now split up, Jason Lyttle the lead singer has a solo record out, it may be a hiatus but this track was from their 97 album, Under The Western Freeway. I know this isn't Here Comes The Sun, but Grandaddy always, for me at least, exude summer. Be it AM 180 or Sikh in a Baja VW Bug, I think as far as instrumentation, vocals and feel of Grandaddy typify summer, and Summer Here Kids typify it more than anything elese by them.



Summer Here Kids by Granddaddy

The Week Never Starts Round Here

I have learned not to trust weathermen, or in the case of GMTV, weathergirls (why is it weathergirls and weather men and not weather boys?) The weather girl this morning, not the delightful Claire Nazir I might add, but some Scots woman drafted in to cover her holiday/sick/maternity leave, delete as applicable. Anyway, Scots weathergirl said it would be fine, it wasn’t fine, it was grim, it was very grim, and it was made all the more grimmer by Arab Strap, for they provided the soundtrack and that soundtrack was The Week Never Starts Round Here.
Arab Strap, certainly on this album are the musical equivalent of The Dementors from Harry Potter, sucking every bit of life, joy and optimism out my commute, I entered a fog of despair in Stafford and didn’t come out of the other side until I was minutes away from Coleshill.
Arab Strap I daresay have never had a review where somewhere it doesn't say dour. I don’t even know what dour means, but I bet they are it.
That all said, some Arab Strap songs feature amongst my favourites, namely The Love Detective, Hey Fever and The First Big Weekend, and it was the latter that influenced me into buying this album, and even that doesn’t lift it from the depths of overriding ennui. You see, on songs like The First Big Weekend, where the vocal is effectively a monologue, you have to listen, but as the vocals on the album are so low in the mix, you are craning to hear, it’s the same for all of the album, you really can’t hear things too well, which on a song that’s chorus driven, it really doesn’t matter, after all you don’t really need to have “Hey Mickey, you’re so fine, you’re so fine, you blow my mind” really loud over the instruments, as it is repeated, you get the gist of it, well you may need to hear it better if you are an acquaintance of Toni Basil, you are named Michael, you are wondering if you are fine, and what Toni Basils mind does in your presence, then, and only then perhaps you might need the instrumentation turned down a notch. This isn’t Toni Basil though, this is Aiden Moffatt, telling a story, mumbled at best, over instruments, I still do not know what they did on their first big weekend.
So, I quite like one track on a dreadful dreadful album, how does that equate in my scoring system, 1 out of 13



The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap