On Warmer Music's Summer 2012 Mix

Now the thing about summer mixes is that no matter what you chose, you're guaranteed to have more good songs that you had to leave off than you could include. For someone like me, this can be vastly frustrating unless you can make yourself see it as ultimately liberating - no matter what you're gonna have to skip things so you might as well just pick what you like. It's an incredibly rich vein from which to mine pop culture as youth, America, writers and nostalgia all tend to trade strongly in summer images. Everyone loves either reliving their past glories or just reveling in the warm bounties of their present situation.

Within this mix you will hear: an "r" rolled for over five seconds, complaints about work, an ode to insects, more horns that you might expect, a great Irish song called "Dancing In The Moonlight" NOT by Van Morrison, a mind-blowing unreleased Mountain Goats song, Wilco get raunchy(ish) and probably some people expressing fondness for increased amounts of sunshine. Enjoy!

Artist Primer: The Oranges Band

Every music snob has at least one, if not a few, bands who never made it big that they'll never get over. It's the band that they keep telling you "should be huge" or is "just like (insert more popular/respected band here), only better." It's an inevitable part of being a devoted music fan, the need to feel that only you can recognize a unique genius that all others either gloss over or never encounter. For me, The Oranges Band fits that model to a "t".


The Oranges Band is primarily the project of lead singer/songwriter Roman Kuebler. It's a Baltimore-based band that draws a lot of water in their hometown but rarely gets out much anymore (as I discovered in college, booking them twice, only to have both tours fall apart). They've been together since 2000 and have seen multiple lineup changes and labels but have managed to put out an amazingly consistent string of albums and EPs in that time that all retain a core sound and sensibility.


The Oranges play a jangly, upbeat, only occasionally experimental brand of pop-punk/indie rock that dooms them to be forever compared with whomever the band du jour in that world is. The Smiths, Guided By Voices, Strokes, Shins and Spoon all pop up as reference points in various reviews and none of those are unfair, but they do the music an injustice. While the DNA of all those bands is in the blood of these songs, Kuebler incorporates elements of laid back 50's innocence and clean production that none of those artists touch on.

Six Song Six-Pack - Summery Songs From Summer Albums

As I might have mentioned before, summer in Chicago is a brief and glorious thing and I love it all the more for that. Unlike in the sunbelt, Chicagoans never put harsh winter too far out of our minds and thus treasure our summers all them more. We find ways to move every possible activity we can out-of-doors and pack all the sun we can into about three-and-a-half months. When you combine that "make hay while the sun shines" attitude with increased sunlight,  it's no wonder that summer days can still seem almost endless with possibility.


With that in mind, this six-pack isn't just a summer mix, it's an ode to whole albums that celebrate the season. In a month it'll be Labor Day, so for God's sake people, we've gotta spin this stuff while we can!