Six Song Six-Pack - The Musical Coup D'Etat

I hate Bluetooth. And YouTube. And smartphones. 

This will come as no surprise to those who know me but let me reassure them that this isn't one of my usual high-minded, technology-is-forever-altering-humans-attention-span style rants. This time I'm being far more narcissistic.

You see, my college glory days took place at the perfect time for an opinionated music fan such as myself. It was when mp3 players became ubiquitous (by which I mean that I had one - I rarely own a technology before it's already become ubiquitous) but before people always had one with them via their smartphones. This was also before most stereos could be wirelessly connected with such music players or with YouTube, aka the free world's free music library.

Back in those halcyon days of yore, most parties were reliant on whatever actual music libraries were available via computer or mp3 or other headphone jack technology. As you know, most sane people don't lug their iPods around for a Saturday night of partying. Therein lay my advantage.

Six Song Six-Pack: Veterans Day

Every year Veterans Day comes and goes and every year it seems like there's less and less of an attempt made to give some sort of weight to the tradition that, for many people, is just a day off for government workers and school children. I'm not one to shake my finger at people about forgetting the old ways, but it does seem to me that the lessons of November 11th are probably worth remembering.

In an era of instant connectivity and information, it's paradoxical that we're often far less connected to reality than were generations of the past. November 11th was originally known as Armistice Day, celebrating the end of the most calamitous and pointless wars of the modern era, World War I, which ended on the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. It was a fittingly pointless ending that cost a final few needless lives, chasing the deaths of needles millions over the preceding five years.

Hailed at the time as "The War To End All Wars," Americans saw their entrance into World War I as a noble enterprise to make the world safe for democracy and ensure that hereafter we would no longer need to send troops across the world into harms way. Most Americans in 1918 would scarcely believe that less than a century later America would become a global hegemon, spending more on its military than the next ten countries in the world combined. Veteran's Day grew out of the Armistice Day celebrations as a way to honor those who had sacrificed their bodies, youth and, potentially, lives in what they saw as service to their countrymen. It was also a reminder of the cost of war and the need to avoid at all cost both conflict and those things which make conflict more likely.

In hopes of escaping the mistaken paradigms both of those who blame the warriors for the wars, as well as those who would equate questioning the mission with demeaning honest service, On Warmer Music hereby presents a series of songs that I hope will help, in some tiny way, illustrate the burdens of war and how they are born by those who fight.

Six Song Six-Pack: Wake Up!

I can still remember those early summer mornings. My parents would wake me up around four or five, before it was even light out and I'd grab the bag I'd packed the night before and hurry downstairs and out to the car. August always meant a vacation when I was growing up, which meant a road trip and when you were driving from Chicago to South Carolina, a road trip meant getting up early. Usually a surly and unwilling riser even at much more reasonable hours, I would be actually be a little buzzed on these mornings, excited to leave the house. Inevitably my father would keep my mother and I waiting in the car at least twenty minutes grabbing last-minute items before we could roll onto the road.



Sitting the backseat of the car, happily munching on some McDonald's breakfast (a rare and wonderful treat during my childhood), I remember feeling just how surreal yet satisfying it was to watch the sun actually come up and rouse the world into action. As I would later discover while mowing golf greens before the sun came up, watching the world awake provides an strangely settling and serene feeling, like you know something that everyone else doesn't by the mere fact that you conscious while they slumbered. Today's six-pack gives you six songs to perfectly soundtrack those early-to-rise days (and here's hoping they remain a novelty for all my readers, bless your souls). Next time you have a long road trip, early appointment or good old-fashioned insomnia, this playlist might help you take the heeding of Ben Franklin's annoyingly industrious advice to heart.

Six Song Six-Pack: All You Fascists Are Bound To Lose

"When fascism comes to America it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis 

Famously Jeff Tweedy didn't go into the Mermaid Avenue sessions with Billy Bragg too excited about the prospect of recording old material. He felt that there wasn't much relevance in reclaiming songs about fascists and union marches from the Great Depression. He felt that Woody was more than that and that living in the past would do him a disservice. As a child of Bush II, of Abu Gharib and "enhanced interrogation", of the Family Research Council and American apartheid, basically someone who came of age under Reagan II and has seen far too little rollback since, I have always strongly gravitated towards messages in those songs that Tweedy sees little reason for.

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.

Six Song Six-Pack - Valentine's Day Is Over

"Men can stop domestic violence."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a cliche, we all know that, we don't need the lecture, blah, blah, blah. It's easy to dismiss messages like this because we feel like they're self-evident and no one WE know would do something like that. But the thing is, that's just not true. Almost two-thirds of women reported being the victims of rape, domestic violence or other forms of harassment in the past year. That means that every person reading this knows someone whose been a victim or perpetrated such actions. Of course most people who do such things aren't out there bragging about it and a lot probably don't even think that what they're doing is wrong. The system (if it can be called that) isn't working.

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.

Six Song Six-Pack - Billy Bragg's Best One-Liners

Billy Bragg's songs inhabit a world of their own. Sure it's not too different from the actual world that he wrote them in (by and large, Thatcherite England) only it's somehow sharper. Everything's more packed with meaning and purpose (be it good or bad). Oh, and everyone's a lot wittier. 


Given that he started out playing pubs with just his voice and a guitar, it's not surprising that Bragg is a wordsmith of the highest order. Whether shouting blunt political barbs, making wounded romantic observations or treading the murky waters where those two realities intersect, Bragg manages to fill his songs with lively joi de vivre, snarling cynicism, genuine love and wry humor, often all at the same time. It's writing that consistently sticks in your head, first for the melody, then for the laugh and ultimately for the message - a bar most songwriters aspire to reach even once.


His is a talent that can't ever be fully described and must be experienced, so with that in mind, On Warmer Music is proud to present the Bard of Barking's six best musical one-liners. (Fair warning, I've just finished a marvelous book in the defense of puns, so I might be a bit bullish, use these at your own discretion).

Six Song Six-Pack - Albums To Get You Through Your Twenties

#firstworldproblems


Until at least the middle of the twentieth century there would be no need for "music to get you through your twenties". Once most people graduated high school, or (for those lucky few) college, they would marry, get a job (or, if you were female, quite your job) start having kids and work till retirement. It was a straightforward life with perhaps less self-discovery but also less self-exploration and its attendant self-recrimination.


For a lot modern Americans however, the twenties are an increasingly complex period containing a slow and erratic shift from adolescence to mature adulthood. If you're in your twenties with a college education odds are you're spending that post-grad decade trying different jobs, cities, mates, ideas and attitudes on for size before taking the big plunge. It's a life of late nights AND early meetings. Paying bills AND playing in bands. You're not quite ready to give up the ghost and "settle down" but you're also working your ass off to make a career and define a place for yourself in the world. It's not as bad as being a teenager but, like pretty much every stage in life, once you're there you find that it's nowhere as easy as you thought it'd be.


If there ever were a medium that would understand the feeling of being an overgrown teenager (or immature adult?) it's rock n' roll. Here are six of best records that will help get you through your third decade alive.

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 - Sweet Pop, Hold The Saccharin

I went to another wedding this weekend. Besides (hopefully) good company, free food and free booze, dancing is always my favorite part of the wedding celebration. As a large, ill-coordinated white boy, I've come to accept that I am not anywhere close to a good dancer. But at weddings, with an alcoholically-lowered self-consciousness, I'm much more likely to not only dance but to dance uninhibitedly. Admittedly this mostly consists of me singing along and moving my body just enough to please my date, but it's a system that works.


This weekend was no exception, I started dancing to the initial crowd-pleasing oldies ("Shout", "The Twist", etc.) and thoroughly enjoyed embarrassing myself for about a half-hour before taking a break. I intended to keep going but upon my return I decided to wait for a song I didn't hate before jumping in (because, frankly, if I don't have a certain baseline enthusiasm for the song, my dancing quickly becomes a sad sight indeed). However, I was disheartened as the DJ started taking requests and the offerings went from Lynyrd Skynyrd bad (just once, I want to hear "Southrern Man" at a wedding!) to Black-Eyed Peas (and other shitty Top 40) worse. By the time "A Kiss With A Fist" came on, I had officially given up on the evening, save for a slow dance.

Six Song Six-Pack - Back To School

I never know how to feel around this time of year. On the one hand I love summer and all the freedom represented therein with emotion deep and abiding. On the other hand, by the time early September hits, the cool air, pennant races and lure of Captial Brewery's Autumnal Fire are pretty tough to resist. Of course, when you're a kid there's always on big tie-breaker - school. Even as an admitted geek, I never really looked forward to hitting the hallowed halls (before college, of course, that's a whole 'nother can of worms) every year.

Since, let's be honest here, many rock bands start off as nothing more than a way to be loud, get chicks and voice adolescent complaints with distorted guitars, the canon is filled with screeds about compulsory education. Obviously, as someone who works in education, my position has now somewhat changed. I still say that there a fundamental understanding of alienation of industrialized education and bureaucratic thinking that any teacher can take to heart. Besides, I think we all know that the pain that is high school has been the catalyst of many a great band. So here it is, you're back to school six-pack, enjoy!

Six Song Six-Pack (Pt. 2) - Marriage Is When We Admit Our Parents Were Right

I can't believe it! I can't believe we're here at Labor Day weekend already! When one of my best friends asked me to be his best man some 18 months ago I was honored and couldn't do anything but accept. Now that the time to live up to that is almost here, though, I'm increasingly incredulous that all that time has passed. This isn't the first friend I've had get married, but it is the first one from my far early childhood and I can't help but get a little soppy about it.


Don't worry, I'm gonna save all the really mushy stuff for the folks that are already liquor'd up at the reception but I do have a few things to say. Marriage is an embattled and increasingly territorial institution in America that seems to be more the butt of jokes than an object of appreciation. But I will say this. Marriage is, ultimately the glue society rests on. Don't believe me? Think to yourself how many people you know who were products of divorce, separation and unhappy marriages and think of how many of them would wan the same for their kid. Commitment, perseverance and genuine love may not be the easiest sells but they're timeless human needs that will outlast all our self-centered asses. So here's to love, marriage and those who can make that work with all the joy implied therein! 

Six Song Six-Pack (Pt. 1) - When A Man Takes A Wife It's Like Going To Jail For Life

When I was growing up my nana had a saying, "take your time friend of mine" that I soon adopted and used as my own for years. It wasn't until I was nearly out of college that she told me the beginning of the saying - "when a man takes a wife, it's like going to jail for life, take your time, friend of mine." An interesting twist, but also one from a bygone era, one where divorce was rare and adolescence didn't stretch across one's twenties.

I tell this tale because this weekend I'm heading down to St. Louis for the wedding of one of my closest childhood friends. As I've been sweating over writing my toast, I've been listening to wedding songs to get me in the mood. Of course, not all of them are really the best way to prepare to celebrate love and I wanted to get them out of my system early. Today I'm sending you six songs guarenteed to sour you on marriage before giving you the good stuff tomorrow with six love songs so heart-melting they'll have you flying to Vegas for a quickie wedding with the next good-looking guy/girl who walks by. Enjoy!

Six Song Six-Pack - Gone Drinkin' (Pt. 1)

Thanks Onion!

Wellsir, today's the day everyone dreams about. It's a glorious late summer afternoon and I'm off to the Midwest Brewers Festival in beautiful Plainfield, Illinois! Although, I'm genuinely excited to sample beers from across the region and the country because I'm one of those poor benighted beer geeks you've all seen stroking their beards down at the local microbrewery, I figured it was a good time to indulge in a little irresponsibility as well.


With that in mind, this Six-Pack is a musical celebration of that blessed inebriation with six songs about the (beer) bottle and why we love (and hate) it so. I've called this Part 1 because something tells me that this will be too rich a vein to mine only once. So as the Poles say, "Napijmy się! Lepiej być znanym pijakiem, niż anonimowym alkoholikiem!" ("Let's drink! It's better to be a famous drunk than an anonymous alcoholic!")

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!

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!

Six Song Six-Pack - Let It Rain

Chicagoans once again woke up this morning to puddles, blinking stoplights and alarm clocks flashing 12:00 as last night’s thunderstorms made this our wettest July on record. Assuming you have power, On Warmer Music has your back with six songs about rain to make your day a little better.

1. Rain Dance (feat. M.I.A.) – The Very Best  Buy Warm Heart Of Africa.

The Very Best are comprised of English DJ Radioclit and the African singer Esau Mwamwaya. They’re perfect summer music with danceable, poppy hooks combined with booty-shakin’ beats. This is off their debut album, The Warm Heart Of Africa and features not only everyone’s favorite agit-pop controversy diva, M.I.A. but a great rainstick intro, which I’m a sucker for.

They've also got some free mixtapes worth checking out.