Vol. 2 🍓🏖️💃
Summer: A look that can take you from day to night
Hello hello I cannot believe it’s already been two weeks and we’re ready for another volume of Fruit Bars. My objective to listen to more tunes is already working- I’ve spent hours with new music these past couple weeks. and damn. The gays are producing at HIGH volumes. And the non-gays too. The music is stacked up tall. And as summer bursts into full-effect, there is only one logical theme for Volume 2- Summer: A look that can take you from day to night.
Living in a four season climate means I get the absolute pleasure of attaching music to seasonal memories. And the music of summer is simply the shit. It’s daytime bops, dreamy beach grooves, sunburnt sing-alongs, club club classics. It’s communal, buoyant, glossy, messy, impulsive, motivated. And compiling this playlist had me digging into the mental scrapbooks to investigate summer music memories a lil further…
As a teen, summers meant doing whatever the hellllll I wanted to. I’m a taurus, this time of freedom was important. A casual day usually looked like: wake up at 11am, make pancakes, watch tv, borrow my parents car (with a 6 disc cd system that my much cooler older sister stocked 💅🏻) to go sling pasta at my Noodles and Co. gig, meet up with whatever friends were still hanging out, get home and go straight to the basement to watch Blind Date until 2am. But if I wasn’t working that evening, you could find me watching movies. So many movies. My favorites in rotation were Dazed and Confused, Now & Then, Empire Records, and Bring it On. And to me, these are summer classics. And their soundtracks play on repeat in my head to this day the minute the temp gets above 70. Songs of teen freedom. Picture tween me rollin down the street on my bike listening to ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’ by Stevie Wonder. Not because I was a Stevie devotee (yet), but because I was daydreaming of Teeny being my best friend (girlfriend). #Teenyforever
In my 20’s I was blessed by mother god herself with spending most of my time in Chicago. The energy of summertime Chicago cannot be beat. Backyard bbqs, street fests with lineups I could only dream of now, biking from Logan to Andersonville to visit the jukebox gays at Simon’s, catching a free show at the Empty Bottle, loosing all sense of time and space at Smartbar, the summer music memories go on and on. I was recently reminiscing with my sister Marie and sisterwife Emily about how lucky we were to witness Robyn and Royksopp at Millenium Park FOR FREE in 2014 (can you tell I was broke for my entire stint there). Pure magic. I wish I could bottle up the music and the smells of summertime Chicago and sniff it like poppers on the dance floor. It makes me feel so much.
Summers since the OG Covid summer of 2020 have been a little different. I’ve spent sweet sunsets at Gay beach, biked the streets of Northeast Minneapolis looking for that one bar I really liked with live music, tubed down the finest rivers Southern Minnesota has to offer. But this summer is actually proving quite difficult. The tough circumstances that ravaged my winter (getting laid off, hospitalization, chronic pain, never ending health care drama) seem to be sticking around longer than I hoped. The things I’ve come up against in my physical and mental health will likely be topics I go into more detail with in the future but for now I’ll just say- this is not the hot brat bitch summer I was promised! But alas, we do what we can. And something I can do is bump music in my apartment. And at the beach with friends. And I can fall in new love with these new classics, while reminiscing about the gems that will live on forever as summer staples.
Alright let’s get into the music. Like any good 90’s movie, Vol. 2 takes you on a full Summer’s day journey. The general flow goes something like:
Morning coffee → Afternoon at the (gay) beach → Disco nap → Humid dance party → It’s 3am go to bed → Seriously go to bed I’m putting on Lynyrd Skynyrd
Free Footnotes
Info on gems included on this list
“The 90’s are sooooo back”- every instagram/publication/every millennial walking through Target. And I’m sorry but it’s true. The direct callbacks are too obvious to not mention. For example:
Lenny Kravitz is featured on Peggy Gou’s new album. Not to mention the big ATC energy she brings in Lobster Telephone.
‘Double’ by Wet feels like the biological relative of ‘Please Forgive Me’ by David Grey. I couldn’t bring myself to put David Grey on this mix for… personal reasons.
I’m very very into this band TWEN. Idk where/when I came across them but the new music they’re putting out is a much welcomed 90s wet dream. It’s like if Daria started making catchy alt music? maybe? Anyways they play in Minneapolis in August- join me! Or find them somewhere closer to where you are.
Hanif Abdurraqib recently posted that All Again by Queen of Jeans is his album of the summer so far. I honestly think I need more time with this record, but that man has never sent me in the wrong direction before so I’ll be putting in the time. His sign-off + lyrics like “The night's nearing towards its end, Spent the better part of an hour, Trapped by the saddest lesbian, Crying it out there on the dance floor” = a no brainer.
Both members of The xx linking up with different pop legends to release new dance music is just so wonderful. I have nothing to add to the discussion I just want to express my gratitude. You’re giving me life. Both tracks can be found on this volume.
I’m 100% obsessed with Nilüfer Yanya. And this new release is my fav song of the moment.
A new artist for me is AURORA (did Bjork and Kate Bush genetically engineer this child?). It appears she’s been making music for years but her newest release is really beautiful. A 25 year old Norwegian contemplating the body as metaphor for Earth as metaphor for suffering and healing through synth-pop music? Count me in. And bonus points because her Personal Life section on Wikipedia confirms she’s “in the community”. Her music video for Your Blood is also pretty top notch.
The backlog I have for this summer mix is like over 60 songs. Of all new music. Music that is good! So I’ll be spreading some of that into the future months for sure. I will say the big releases were fun but nothing blew me away. I’m loving what some “smaller” artists are doing more. HOWEVER, Megan gave us the lyric “That ain’t my bae, he really more like my bidet…” and that is 10/10. No notes.
Cruising the Scene
Things I’m looking forward to in music
HUGE LILITH FAIR NEWS- Ally Pankiw is directing a new doc with never-before-seen footage. I think this deserves an outdoor screening when it’s released (I’m looking at you Shay).
Some great artists linked up on Just Cause Vol. 1 - with 100% of the proceeds going to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF). Read more about it here or head over to Bandcamp on 7/12.
Cannot not mention (and promote) the music video sweeping the nation. I’m sending Drake my thoughts and prayers. Excited to see where this epic takes us.
Alright there you have it friends and lovers. I hope your summer is sweet and giving you whatever you need. I love you all.
The Set List
Cheers!
Crying over this and feeling joy in memory.
Sweet memories. I was at Millennium Park for that Robyn and Royksopp show! When everything else has shit the bed, Chicago summer and music rarely disappoints. Looking forward to listening….and speaking of 90’s, have you been turned onto Nation of Language yet?