The Wily Filipino

Summer Songs.

Two of the greatest songs that mention the summer, not including five others, like Luna's "Indian Summer," Pavement's "Summer Babe (Winter Version)," Yo La Tengo's "The Summer," Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer," or even Richard Marx's "Endless Summer Nights."

1. The second-best Modest Mouse song ever (after "Dramamine"), "Summer," from the 1997 ep The Fruit That Ate Itself:

wake-up we're stealing cars.... bars

in 1996 and 1997
1998 we're all waiting for the year 2000

just the smell of the summer can make me fall in love

we go to the parties and listen to the DJ's
dance dance dance and go crazy

she's the party queen and she's in party heaven
her clock is stuck on late
got a first name basis at 7-11

we go to the parties and listen to the DJ's
dance dance dance and go crazy

just the smell of the summer can make me fall in love

hold the slip n slide taste the sweat it's salty
irrigation ditch and a swimming hole
nationwide loved the movie

just the smell of the summer can make me fall in love

2. This just has summer written all over it -- from Teenage Fanclub's 1997 album (about which I've gushed before) Songs from Northern Britain, "Ain't That Enough:"

If you can I wish you would
Only if you feel you should
Bring your loving over
All adds up with circumstance
All stood up with taking stands
Bring your loving over

Highlights glisten
Silence listens
Days that found you
Embrace that found you

Here is a sunrise Ain't that enough
True as a clear sky, ain't that enough
Toy town feelings here to remind you
Summers in the city do what you gotta do

Time can only make demands
Fill it up with grains of sand
Bring your loving over
Highlights glisten
Silence listens
Days that found you
Embrace that found you

Here is a sunrise Ain't that enough
True as a clear sky, ain't that enough
Toy town feelings here to remind you
Summers in the city do what you gotta do
Toy town feelings whose gonna argue
Summers in the city Summers in the city

Because I'm Too Busy To Write...

1. Thank you for purchasing tickets on Ticketmaster.

Your order number for this purchase is xx-xxxxx/xx.

You will receive your tickets via: Will Call - Tickets held at Will Call can only be retrieved by the cardholder with original credit card of purchase and a valid photo ID with signature such as a state ID, driver's license or passport.

You purchased 2 tickets to:
The Smashing Pumpkins
Fillmore, San Francisco, CA
Tue, Jul 31, 2007 09:00 PM

Went on sale Sunday, 8 nights sold out in 8 minutes, 3 additional nights sold out in the same amount of time... and then my psychic friend Eloise (with whom I was doing clairvoyance tests back in first year high school) does the impossible: while scrubbing the toilet, she thinks to herself, "Hey, maybe I should go check out Ticketmaster," in the incredibly slim chance that someone's credit card didn't get approved and the tickets were released to the general public... and drops the toilet wand, washes her hands, and goes to the computer, on Tuesday afternoon at 4:30.

2. And I want this T-shirt:

3. I'd post a photo of myself as a white man, but it's too damn creepy, so you have me sketched Modigliani-style instead:

From the Perception Laboratory's Face Transformer at the University of St. Andrews.

4. And you have to admit this is kind of cool news about Nora Aunor.

Killer of Sheep Soundtrack Mix.

In musical tribute to Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep, hopefully playing at a theater near you, a soundtrack / mix of sorts, more or less in chronological order:

1. Paul Robeson's "The House I Live In," from Ballad for Americans (kids playing in the ruins near the railroad tracks)

2. Paul Robeson's "Going Home," from Live at Carnegie Hall (herding sheep, and also at the closing credits I think)

3. Elmore James's "I Believe," from Let's Cut It

4. Earth, Wind & Fire's "Reasons," from That's The Way Of The World (Stan's daughter singing to a doll)

5. Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's "Mean Old Frisco Blues," from That's All Right Mama (in the liquor store, I think)

6. Scott Joplin's "Solace," from The Entertainer (after carrying the engine)

7. Dinah Washington's "This Bitter Earth," from The Complete Dinah Washington on Mercury, Vol. 6 (slow dancing)

8. Faye Adams's "Shake A Hand," from The Herald Recordings (jumping from roof to roof)

9. Little Walter's "Mean Old World," from The Essential Little Walter (killing of sheep)

10. Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues," from The Louis Armstrong Collection, Vol. 4 (off to the racetrack)

11. and a bonus, left off the re-release because the rights couldn't be cleared, but was originally playing in the last slaughterhouse scene: Dinah Washington's "Unforgettable," from Compact Jazz

I left off the third movement from William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony (playing in the first slaughterhouse scene), the section from Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 4 (playing right after "This Bitter Earth"), and Franz von Suppe's Poet and Peasant Overture (also playing in the liquor store scene). God I'm obsessed with this movie.

Your New Favorite Song.

Smog, "Say Valley Maker."

From the 2005 album A River Ain't Too Much to Love.

With the grace of a corpse
In a riptide
I let go
And I slide slide slide
Downriver
With an empty case by my side
An empty case
That’s my crime

And I sing (Say Valley Maker)
To keep from cursing
Yes I sing (Say Valley Maker)
To keep from cursing

River Oh
River End
River Oh
River End
River Go
River Bend

Take me through the sweet valley
Where your heart blooms
Take me through the sweet valley
Where your heart is covered in dew

And when the river dries
Will you bury me in wood
Where the river dries
Will you bury me in stone

Oh I never really realized
Death is what it meant
To make it on my own

Because there is no love
Where there is no obstacle
And there is no love
Where there is no bramble
There is no love
On the hacked away plateau
And there is no love
In the unerring
And there is no love
On the one true path

Oh I cantered out here
Now I’m galloping back

So bury me in wood
And I will splinter
Bury me in stone
And I will quake
Bury me in water
And I will geyser
Bury me in fire
And I’m gonna phoenix

I’m gonna phoenix

Smog's official site on Drag City.

Buy it from Amazon.