For me, every mix I create presents a perfect opportunity to share something of myself with you, the reader. Sometimes it’s a reminder of something you may have missed or I believe merits a re/discovery. Other times it’s a collection of some larger, macro, idea that serves as a stand-in for a particular feeling or a certain season.
Then, you have days much like today when I dig deep within my own memories to touch on music I feel has been “foundational” to who I am as a person (or what I believe the power of music can inspire). Today it’s something as simple as a three-minute song, played on three simple chords (on three simple instruments), as heard on my latest LYL Radio mix.
You may not know it but I’ll share this info now: I love power pop, as much as I love all the rest of the music I’ve shared with you. From a young age, I didn’t have much (or any) money to afford records. All my earliest musical memories came from turning on the radio and simply listening to what was out there.
Living on the U.S./Mexico border gave me access to all sorts of stations. From Tex-Mex to full-Mex(ican) radio. My tiny ears, though, were most entranced with what emanated out of the local “oldies” station. And it was the music of The Beatles, The Who, The Young Rascals, Beach Boys and other bands of that ilk that would follow – Badfinger, REO Speedwagon, Raspberries etc. – that, somehow, spoke to this shy little boy.
Looking back, I can sense the reasons why. When you’re growing up certain music speaks to your experience. For some, it might be music couched in large sentiments (and even larger arrangements). For others, like me, it’s very simple songs that seem to precisely hit at the vagaries of life, things one can barely understand then. Songs that speak of heartbreak, yearning, loneliness, joy, anger, and love, silly, little teenage feelings that seem like “grown-folk” sentiment, one can still barely understand now. What I did feel was that what I, sometimes, can’t say or explain in person I could share with a song.
Fast-forward years later, can you believe this, now, somewhat, older/wiser man, with years of collecting other misfit music (Big Star, Shoes, Dwight Twilley, etc.), can still go back and feel a certain unexplained something that this kind of music conjures for this still, quietly, innocent kid (at heart) living in those heady, younger, years? Listening to this music still feels like the promise of spring. You can’t be twenty on Sugar Mountain but you sorta can live there, in three-minute increments….or as at least I hope this mix does that for you, as it did for me…
Sunflower
Tracklist:
Big Star – Watch The Sunrise
The Three O’Clock – When She Becomes My Girl
Ginji Ito (伊藤銀次) – Sunflower
Shoes – Your Very Eyes
The Flamin’ Groovies – Yes It’s True
The Searchers – Silver
Marshall Crenshaw – Mary Anne
The Elvis Brothers – Movin’ Up
The Records – Hearts Will Be Broken
The 77s – Happy Roy
The Korgis – If It’s Alright With You Baby
The dB’s – From A Window
Dwight Twilley Band – Sleeping
Jack Lee – From Time To Time
Game Theory – Where You Going Northern
Tommy Hoehn – I Know I Love You Now
Badfinger – Love Time
Michel Polnareff – Jesus For Tonite