My Own Summer (Shove It)

I don’t have what scientists would refer to as a “good” memory.

Blame the fact that I don’t eat carrots.
Or years of watching shows featuring John Stamos.
Or any number of intoxicants known to cause memory loss.

And that’s why Montpelier is the capital of Vermont.
Wait.

My remembory does seem to work, however, when past events are tied intrinsically to specific songs. For example: I’ll never forget my first kiss because the first single from Silverchair’s debut album was playing. I’ll never forget the first time I got dumped because the second single from Silverchair’s debut album was playing. So as an exercise in self-reacquaintance (not the same thing that killed David Carradine), I’ve decided to take a look back at the past decade by examining my own summer anthems.

(Note: If you don’t want to read all my egocentric rambling, at least listen to the songs. They’re all pretty badass.)

2001 – Burning Airlines “Outside The Aviary”
At the beginning of the summer of 2001, I was working at an amazing two-story record store in a part of town that was just unattractive enough for the corporate suits to ever visit. That left us ample opportunity to blast albums like this one from the Jawbox spin-off, ride CD racks down the stairs and load backpacks full of CDs at the end of the night that we fully intended to one day return. Unsurprisingly, the store was shut down and by the end of the summer, I was transferred to another branch in a posh part of town—ironically enough, with the instructions to help limit internal theft. That store promptly closed down, too… (I debated changing this anthem choice because it’s a bad year to link up with a band name like this, but, hey, imagine being in the band then.)

2002 – Queens Of The Stone Age “No One Knows”
By this time, I’d taken a job writing obituaries full-time. Yes, it was depressing and morbid, but I dare you to find a better way to teach an aspiring writer not to misspell names. One wrong letter and I’d hear swearing from 87-year-old ladies far too offensive to repeat here. On the internet. This album was in my headphones almost the entire time.

2003 – Thrice “The Abolition Of Man”
Honestly, 2003 is a little hazy because it was the height of the brief window when I would stay out most nights until 1 p.m. the next day. But I remember routinely playing this song at 4:30 a.m. to rejuvenate my fading friends, screaming the first line along with Dustin Kensrue. Go back and listen.

2004 – Head Automatica “Brooklyn Is Burning”
Granted, Head Automatica’s first album didn’t come out till the end of this summer, but I was writing for a free weekly in Upstate New York and somehow came into a promo far earlier. I’m a sucker for big beats (I still own three Fatboy Slim albums) and I was also huge into Glassjaw, so this was like a genetically engineered track I couldn’t resist. It was chemical. This song kept me as sane as possible in a city where a graveyard is the top tourist attraction.

2005 – Team Sleep “Ataraxia”
If this is the soundtrack to your summer, you probably had a pretty shitty summer. I’m not saying this song from the side project of Deftones’ Chino Moreno isn’t unbelievably awesome. I’m just saying, try to imagine playing it at some summer party with potato salad. Clearly, I was far removed from potato salad.
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2006 – Muse “Map Of The Problematique”
Easily the gayest song on Muse’s Black Holes And Revelations, this was the song I played repeatedly during my four-hour trip to interview for AP in Cleveland. The track is like some effeminate amalgam of a rave standard, a European soccer anthem and the Bloodhound Gang’s “Bad Touch.” Plus, it reminds me of the theme from this old VH1 show about fashion that was the only way my 11-year-old self could see anything resembling a nipple.

2007 – Paramore “Misery Business”
This was the first summer AP sent me on Warped Tour, albeit only for a few weeks. But during that time, I ventured outside the Eastern time zone for the first time, hitchhiked in Arizona, made one of my best friends ever, fell in love with a girl and heard Paramore play this song 19 times. Scott Heisel and Rachel Lux both were sent on the tour after me, and each of us can still repeat Hayley’s intro to “Misery Business” verbatim.

2008 – Anthony Green “Dear Child (I’ve Been Dying To Reach You)”
I might never be more emotionally tied to a song than I was at the time this came out. I was assigned the cover story on Anthony for his solo album, and within minutes of meeting, we were sure we were separated at birth (he has much, much better hair). I listened to this song (about the strain of a long-distance relationship) probably 700 times as I was writing the story on a train from Boston to Philly and then on a three-day cross-country road trip taking my then-girlfriend from my town of Cleveland to her new job in L.A., knowing that the end of the trip meant saying goodbye. I felt like this was Anthony’s unintentional way of comforting me. After I finished the story, I couldn’t really listen to it again for about a year. (Easily the gayest description on this list.)

2009 – Everything Everything “Suffragette Suffragette”
My first full summer on Warped Tour and by Day 2, I was sure I wouldn’t survive. Luckily, my bus was filled with a motley assortment of amazing people including the guys from British clothing company Babycakes—who I immediately latched onto more than any of the Americans I’d met in three decades as an American. One of them introduced me to this track by their countrymen Everything Everything, and although the lyric is “Who’s gonna sit on your fence when I’m gone?” we sang it “Who’s gonna sit on your face when I’m gone?” over and over and over again. To me, it just makes more sense.

2010 – Sleigh Bells “Tell ‘Em”
I was this close to naming a Norma Jean song to this spot. But there’s probably no song more summery than the opening track from Sleigh Bells’ debut. Hand claps, snapping, distorted (huge) beats and glacier-thick guitars paired with overtly girly vocals just hits a special synapse in my frontal lobe. Unless Daryl Palumbo has something up his sleeve, this will likely keep the top spot for me all summer.
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So what about you? What are your summer anthems from the same timeframe? (You don’t have to do all the superfluous self-examination unless you really want to.)