Vroom.

Not me, but the same principle holds.

Lampchop – Your Fucking Sunny Day – this was one of my favorite songs to play in the music programmer/shotgun seat, but driving to it is SO MUCH BETTER. I first heard this on the kickoff to my drive to MaCrock in 2002. This was my first-ever roadtrip of sorts, as well as the first time I saw Ted Leo, the Dismemberment Plan, and Fugazi (!). Kurt Wagner’s singing is particularly warbley here, but the lyrics are so light and fun, and the horns (horns!) so perfect and, well, sunny, it’s hard to resist the urge to roll down windows and simply start yelling it at passersby.

Phosphorescent – When We Fall - The first time I saw Phosphorescent was at the Living Room in 2004. Singer Matthew Houck’s similarities to Will Oldham were immediately clear – really elegant songwriting, similar vocal styles but a bit more raw, a bit younger, really, and a sense of grace surrounding the music he made; the lyrics were the star, yes, but the music around them was so much of what made his lyrics keep their impact. I’ve loved this band ever since, (and, it has to be said, felt semi-secretly validated when William Bowers sing their praises months after they made my top ten list last year. Anyway-) it was this song that set the band apart from Oldham and his related works. Here was something totally reckless, more like Neutral Milk Hotel than like anything Palace, as Houck found a way to marry a boot-stomping rhythm to a frenzy of horns and tambourines. That, topped with the lyrics to what is basically a shy man’s love song, allows When We Fall to be really complex and cohesive, but pull in a few directions at once.

—–
Tomorrow – Jose Gonzales, Juana Molina, Psapp…!