Citronella Serenades - The On Warmer Music 2013 Summer Mix

Photo By bandoodie

In my ongoing education called “life”, last summer taught me a few lessons about that season we call summer. Having been raised mostly in the centrally aired rooms of suburbia, I appreciated summer’s heart with the unspoken assumption that, when it became overbearing, I could always retire to a nicely chilled environment to lounge and slumber in comfort. My first full summer without the convenience of AC was an unusually chilly one, which fed my hubris about my body’s ability to deal with prolonged heat. Then came summer 2012 which, like the machinations of fate in a Greek tragedy, brought me abruptly back in contact with my own fallibility.

Days were spent baking next to box fans that circulated furnace-ready air in a pitiful attempt to provide an illusion of coolness. Nights were spent trying to sleep whilst sweating through my sheets. It's hard to describe just how dispiriting to wake up from a night of unrestful slumber to find oneself already soaked in a sweat that you know will be your constant companion all day, save for a few mercifully cool showers. Also, it's hard to over-emphasize just how satisfying it is to step into one of a few cool showers on a sweltering summer day.

This year I finally broke down and accepted an excess window unit from a friend, but I've determined to only use it on truly uncomfortable nights. There's something satisfying about getting to know the heat and sun. About living with a raised body temperature for a few months. Around this time of year I often feel like a solar camel, soaking in heat now so I can draw on that feeling in six months when I'm stamping my feet at a cold bus stop and cursing myself for forgetting my gloves.

So here we are again, Chicago, sweaty-but-happy and overwhelmed by street fests and cookouts. May this celebration of summer society keep you warm until next year!

Covering Our Bases: The Complete Titus Andronicus Covers

It's no secret how much I love covers. I mean, if I had an kickass rock band, God knows that I'd spend a lot of time kicking out my favorite jams. I think that most musicians are also music nerds and although they get to have the fun of getting up their and making music while I just write about it, when I see them geek out over some Modern Lovers song a band that no one's heard of I can see that we're not so different, they and I. I've had Titus on the brain, what with listening to their latest record non-stop, so I decided that I might as well get all those covers in one place throw, slap a bow on it and send it your way.

New Jersey's finest Newly-minted New Yorkers Titus Andronicus (does it pain you to read those words as much as it did me to write them?) have always been particularly generous with their covers. Between the tour singles, free mixtapes and raucous live singalongs, they've amassed quite the list. Fortunately for you, dear reader, On Warmer Music has them all right here, just for you.

Titus cuts a wide swath of musical territory with their cover choices. The list runs the gamut from punk icons to jukebox favorites. There are bands I needed to look up (and could barely find anything on), mid-level cult acts, as well as a healthy swath of alt cannon from the Reed to Richman, Westerberg to Cobain. They even play with their audience at times (I mean, Coldplay and Lana Del Ray - honest appreciation, hipster baiting or both?) but it's all in good fun. The quality of these recordings varies greatly from nearly-unlistenable bass-heavy messes to studio masters and everywhere in-between.

So enjoy and remember, they may not all be the best recordings you've ever heard, but there are undeniably a lot of them. And they're free.

Six Song Six-Pack - #WeAreTrayvonMartin

With each new twist, I can't decide what the worst part is. Obviously the shooting death of seventeen year-old Trayvon Martin by an over-zealous gated community vigilante is tragedy enough by itself. But each new detail seems to make it that much harder to swallow. Whether it's the fact that that 911 instructed him to stop following Martin or the fact that despite multiple recorded phone calls including one where Martin is shot asking his attacker to stop, no arrest has been made. Of course, I know that every year there are dozens of other Trayvon Martins with equally shocking stories, he's not unique. And yet, the fact that this story has grabbed national headlines, that every ounce of available evidence save the killer's own testimony, points to directly to manslaughter if not murder and yet still nothing has been done makes it all the more atrocious.

Covering Our Bases - Bob Dylan

I've already gone on at length about Bob Dylan's cult of inscrutability and mercurial musical career, so I won't bore you with further description. However, despite this reputation his catalog of work due to its amazing depth and breadth has led to him being the second most covered artist after only the Beatles. In recent years multi-disc tributes such as 2007's I'm Not There Soundtrack and this year's Chimes Of Freedom have wrangled nearly everyone whose anyone from the indie rock world (not to mention your odd Miley Cyrus or Jack Johnson) into putting their stamp on one of Dylan's 500+ songs.

On Warmer Music likes nothing better than a good cover and I thought this onslaught of new Dylan tributes warranted a look back at some of my favorite memorable, important or underlooked Dylan covers. As always with these lists, it was a tough choice, especially given the breadth of musical love that Dylan gets but here are ten songs reimaginings of his work that won't leave you hanging.

Six Song Six-Pack - The Valentine's Day Edition

Does anyone actually LIKE Valentine's Day? Someone has to, right? Every year it approaches followed closely by groans and eye rolling, yet there it is on every TV show and coating every Walgreens candy aisle, seemingly stronger with with each iteration. How does that happen?

Some would say that it's merely the inexorable machinations of a capitalist system that demands seasonal grist for it's consumerist mill and they wouldn't be wrong, but I suspect there's more to it than that. February is a rough month, especially here in Chicago. It's cold, it's grey, the Bears are done and the Sox are not yet playing in Arizona. Given that the next holiday on the horizon is followed by forty days of fasting, it's fair to say that we could use a little psychic sustenance to pull us through. And what's better than l'amour to give succor to those suffering in the cold? Romantics get to gush over flowers, cynics get to look forward to some guarenteed lovin' and everyone else gets to mock it from afar.

Windy City Christmas Holiday - The On Warmer Music 2011 Christmas Mix

I'm an only child. Indeed, the only offspring on one whole side of my family. Needless to say, this meant that Christmas was a holiday that was kind to me while growing up. But even looking beyond the consumptive orgy that went with it, Christmas was a favorite time of mine. The ritualistic nature of the holiday, the anticipation, the changing seasons, all of these things held my imagination as a child, creating warm associations that still tug mercilessly at me every December.

My family had a few old Christmas tapes that my father had made years before I was born for winter drives from Chicago to New Jersey with my mother to visit his family. They were mixtures of hymns, secular standards and a few (relatively) newer holiday pop songs. The juxtaposition of old and new along with the pacing and selection that is a feature of any good mix lent the tapes a timeless quality. Those tapes were Christmas to me as a child.

Six Song Six-Pack - Pictures From Life's Other Side

This week has finally seen the media start to recognize and give full weight to the protests of economic inequality which started on Wall Street but have spread throughout the nation. Any rational measure would show that most Americans have a lot to be angry about. Currently we enjoy the most unequal distribution of total wealth since 1929. Indeed, the top 23% of Americans control 80% of assets and the richest 400 people in our great land have as much wealth at the poorest 150 million.


What makes this especially galling is how separated the worlds of the haves and the have-nots have become. The current recession (which may have technically ended, but, let's face it, still grasps the throats of most Americans) has pushed tens of millions of families to or over the brink of ruin while leaving those in the upper echelons of society relatively untouched. These separate worlds can be seen in microcosm with trends such as shelters being flooded by abandoned pets while elsewhere organic foods and doggie beds sell like hotcakes.



It is with this in mind that On Warmer Music offers up a six-pack of songs looking at the difficulties of life faced by those on the bottom of the economic ladder. Since honestly, indie (or whatever you wanna call it) music is the realm of a mostly educated (not necessarily a precursor to wealth) and originally well-off (bingo!) audience, it's helpful to remind those who are doing well (or at least getting by) about the realities faced by those a lot, or a little farther down the economic ladder. These are songs that don't preach but merely offer a window into what people suffer through, the solutions are up to you.

Six Song Six-Pack - Growin' Up

Childhood is perhaps the most important part of our lives. It structures our expectations and way of seeing the world. They're called formative years for a reason. I mean people don't pay therapists good money to either recapture or escape from those early years for nothing.

Science has also shown that, after smell/taste, sound, specifically music, is the most evocative stimulus for our brains. So it's no wonder that pop music is littered with reminiscences and tales pleasant, painful and sometimes frightening from musicians' salad days. This week we've got six songs for you that manage to give you lovable nostalgia without the treacle, enjoy!