CHIRP: The Chicago Independent Radio Project

Tony Tschetter-Breed writes

Escape from winter with music

Although the weather outside may say otherwise (as I write this, it’s snowing,) spring is on its way, and the weather IS slowly getting better.

So try to forget this terrible Chicago winter and all its icy, slushy, snowy grossness.

It’s time for an escape! Make yourself a rum drink, crank up the heat, turn on all the lights, and put on some hot-weather tunes. Here are ten favorites to get you heated and in the mood for spring:

Haircut One Hundred – Love Plus One – Pelican West

One way I used to escape from winter, in college, was to listen to Haircut One Hundred. The sunny, Caribbean-influenced pop, with its saxophones and marimbas, makes me feel like I’m in Florida. Not for nothin’ was that album called Pelican West.

Blondie – The Tide Is High – Autoamerican

Heres’s another good Carribean-influenced song. 1978’s “Heart of Glass” was originally supposed to be a reggae song, but it ended up being disco. Then in 1980 Blondie made this cover of a Jamaican tune, and had a hit with a reggae song.

The Free Design – Bubbles – Stars/Time/Bubbles/Love

This song’s breezy, cheerful sound sounds like a sunny day in May. Free Design was a jazz-pop group from the late 60’s and early 70’s, made up of 5 brothers and sisters. “Bubbles”, about the pleasures of bubble gum (seriously), shows strong jazz-vocal influences, while being, at the same time, almost saccharine sweet; it’s like a psychedelic version of the Swingle Singers. It might be a bit much to listen to a whole album, but they are awfully fun mixed in with other music.

Jane Siberry – All the Candles in the World – When I Was a Boy

Jane Siberry’s long career encompasses a broad range of styles, and a name change (she is now called “Issa”). When I Was a Boy had harder, quirkier, and funkier sound than a lot of her other albums. The song “All the Candles in the World” has a slightly out-of-control feeling that reminds me of how I feel when it’s really really hot out.

Meryn Cadell – Voice for Gloria – Bombazine

Meryn Cadell started out as a performance artist, and her first album included a lot of spoken word. The second album had much fewer spoken word pieces, and the songs were more fully realized. “Voice for Gloria” has a heavy bassline so deep you feel it more than you hear it; thought it’s music and not spoke-word, the words are spoken impassively rather than sung. You know when it’s so hot you don’t want to move? This song sounds like that.

Sergent Garcia – Jumpi – Un Poquito Quema’o

Back to the Caribbean, this time to Cuba. The Paris-based Sergent Garcia mixes reggae, salsa, raggamuffin, rock, and other influences (as, in this song, hip-hop). The lyrics are mostly in Spanish, and the beat is infectious — you’ve just got to move your body when you listen. “Jumpi” is one of my favorite songs from the album, and it features raps in both French and Spanish (which the language geek in me just loves).

Ojos de Brujo – Color – Techarí

Crossing the Atlantic now to southern Spain, for Ojos de Brujo, a band I discovered while in Andalusia. They describe their music as “nuevo flamenco”, and it combines flamenco with various modern pop and dance sounds. The cong “Color” is particularly wild, with funky, jerky beats.

Josephine Baker – Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes – Divas Exotica

Josephine Baker’s “Don’t Touch Me Tomatoes” is a song I found on a compilation I bought years ago called Divas Exotica. The quality of the sound in this song is much better than on the Josephine Baker boxed set I have, and her voice is deeper as well; I think it must have come from one of her later performance, in the 60’s or 70’s (when she was, herself in her 60’s). It’s got great Caribbean flair.

The B-52’s – Junebug – Cosmic Thing

The B-52s’ 1989 album Cosmic Thing is, to me, very much a summer album. In an interview, one of them explained the album by saying something along the lines of, “some people stay in Athens, Georgia and write about living in New York; we were in New York and writing Athens, Georgia.” Any number of songs on it have a real hot summer feel. “Junebug” is by no means the best song on the album, but it’s fun, and a really good party tune. (Sample lyric: “go go go go go-go-go, whoah whoah whoah whoah whoah-whoah-whoah!”

Muscles – Ice Cream – Muscles Guns Babes Lemonade

From Australia, last year, where it’s summer right now. Muscles makes dance music, but with a raucous, off-kilter quality, very much like what The Mighty Mighty Bosstones brought to Ska music. The lyrics are mostly stupid-fun. The refrain of “Ice Cream” features such lines as “Ice cream is going to save the world” and “I just want to dance with my shirt off”. This says summer to me!