SUMMER SONGS 08: CHRISTINE BALANCE
Editor's Note: I first met Christine Balance a few years back, when I kept hearing about another grad student doing research on Filipino DJs. She's become a valued peer and friend since that time, not to mention soon-to-be professor at UC Irvine (salut!). Christine's interests are on music, popular culture and performance, among a range of others, and she's part of the triumvirate running the Oh Industry! blog. Her summer songs post takes us on a trip from suburban L.A. to the Philippines, to the Lower East Side, with a side trip to Hawaii for some shrimp. Tasty. --O.W.
Written by Christine Balance:
I believe deeply in the relationship between space, place, feelings, and music – that certain geographical regions encourage certain listening and music-making practices, that certain social spaces (suburban garages, driving in cars, airplane rides, downtown clubs) and times (childhood, youth, young adulthood) are informed by our own internal soundtracks. In this spirit, I chose four locations and vignettes, each with their own flashpoint songs, that invoke memories of summer.
I. SoCal Suburban jamz
Growing up an only child, summers in suburban Los Angeles always meant an influx of social activity and prolonged interactions with a network larger than just my parents and classmates. Summer was special thanks to two things – weekend-long sleepovers at my cousin’s house in the Valley and out-of-town visitors from other U.S. states and beyond. We shared ghost stories and dance moves, cinematic and real-life crushes. We pined for growing older and driver’s licenses, buying make up and going to prom. Mostly, we began shaping our identities –dancer, goth, karaoke singer, swimmer--, crafting our dreams, and understanding the world’s vastness through the endless potential we saw in the stark contrasts between each other’s lives. From those days of Slip and Slides, Cross Color overall shorts, and neon-paneled bike shorts, here’s one slow jam classic for daydreaming in your room and one dance hit for choreographing dance moves in your garage.
Force MD's: Tender Love
From Chillin' (Tommy Boy, 1985). Check out the video.
Dino: Summer Girls
From 24/7 (4th and B'Way, 1989)
II. Promdi Philippine jamz
Summertime not only meant no school and oft-forgotten birthday celebrations, for some of us children of immigrant parents, it also meant a dreaded or welcomed (depending on your relationship to family) visit to the third world country of your elders' origins. Between feeling too-big and too-monolingual American, there was the proverbial opening up to the sights and sounds of a provincial landscape - the smiling faces of a country's poorest, meats grilling on the side of a road, uncles drinking San Miguel in the dark, and cousins jamming acoustically into the early morning hours. Always a love song, to fulfill the Filipino's penchant for "senti" or sentimentality. Hot off the "promdi" ("from the province") Philippine jamz mixtape, one lilting cover song from a bluegrass-country favorite about love found, another classic jam from the island's finest about love lost, and the last a raucous rallying cry from the newest darlings of a country where texting is a revolutionary act:
Alison Krauss: Baby, Now That I've Found You
From Now That I've Found You (Rounder, 1995)
Eraserheads: Ang Huling El Bimbo
From Cutterpillow (Rollyn, 1995)
Sandwich: Sugod
From Five On The Floor (EMI, 2007)
III. Good World Party Jamz
Summer in New York City sounds like the perfect indie blockbuster, cocktail drink, and mix tape title all rolled into one. Perhaps because the event evokes the best and the worst of Gotham's full sensorium - scantily clad and browned shoulders walking through seventy percent humidity only to find relief sipping on mojitos or kava preferably on a rooftop bar at sunset; the occasional descent into the depths of hell (known more familiarly as subway stations) awaiting relief in the form of an A/C blast and open seat on the train; newly-pedicured open toes traipsing in flip flops past midnight and piles of steaming trash bags littering Midtown, K-Town, and Chinatown. All this after a winter of sensory deprivation and the absence of bodily contact. From the late 1990s to early 2000s, a generation of young Asian Americans in Nueva York, brought together by mainly Filipino American DJs (such as Cam One, Un-G, and a rotation of members from the 5th Platoon crew –Roli Rho, Neil Armstrong, and Kuttin' Kandi) partied religiously at these two spots: Good World Bar (in Chinatown) and Bob Lounge (in the Lower East Side). In homage to those evenings, two songs - the first, a high-impact and height of the evening selection and the second, a simultaneous cool down and 'last call' anthem.
Justin Timberlake: Like I Love You
From Justified (Jive, 2002)
Wayne Wonder: No Letting Go
From No Holding Back (VP, 2003)
IV. Island Cruising Jamz
Last but not least, a bit of cheating on the seasonal date for playing these two final cuts. In order to survive a few Northeastern winters, my partner and I devised a mid-season "defrost" plan - trips to Hawaii so that we could be swimming in the Pacific on Christmas Day. While cruising around the windward side of the island (from North Shore and Pupukea down to Lanikai Beach), we regularly jammed along to the local sounds of Jahwaiian music. Sometimes referred to as Hawaiian reggae music or a derivative of Jamaican reggae with a Hawaiian flair, I like to think of Jahwaiian music as a broader category that includes R&B, pop, rock influences and allowed for a sort of intra-island (Jamaica, Hawaii, New York) collaboration along musical lines. In this vein, here's one official island party jam from Maui locals and one mainland slow driving jam that I'd like to gently place in the wide embrace of the Jahwaiian sound.
Ekolu: Shores of Walehu
From Shores of Waiehu (Tusnami, 2008)
Chris Brown: With You
From Exclusive (Jive, 2008)
I. SoCal Suburban jamz
Growing up an only child, summers in suburban Los Angeles always meant an influx of social activity and prolonged interactions with a network larger than just my parents and classmates. Summer was special thanks to two things – weekend-long sleepovers at my cousin’s house in the Valley and out-of-town visitors from other U.S. states and beyond. We shared ghost stories and dance moves, cinematic and real-life crushes. We pined for growing older and driver’s licenses, buying make up and going to prom. Mostly, we began shaping our identities –dancer, goth, karaoke singer, swimmer--, crafting our dreams, and understanding the world’s vastness through the endless potential we saw in the stark contrasts between each other’s lives. From those days of Slip and Slides, Cross Color overall shorts, and neon-paneled bike shorts, here’s one slow jam classic for daydreaming in your room and one dance hit for choreographing dance moves in your garage.
Force MD's: Tender Love
From Chillin' (Tommy Boy, 1985). Check out the video.
Dino: Summer Girls
From 24/7 (4th and B'Way, 1989)
II. Promdi Philippine jamz
Summertime not only meant no school and oft-forgotten birthday celebrations, for some of us children of immigrant parents, it also meant a dreaded or welcomed (depending on your relationship to family) visit to the third world country of your elders' origins. Between feeling too-big and too-monolingual American, there was the proverbial opening up to the sights and sounds of a provincial landscape - the smiling faces of a country's poorest, meats grilling on the side of a road, uncles drinking San Miguel in the dark, and cousins jamming acoustically into the early morning hours. Always a love song, to fulfill the Filipino's penchant for "senti" or sentimentality. Hot off the "promdi" ("from the province") Philippine jamz mixtape, one lilting cover song from a bluegrass-country favorite about love found, another classic jam from the island's finest about love lost, and the last a raucous rallying cry from the newest darlings of a country where texting is a revolutionary act:
Alison Krauss: Baby, Now That I've Found You
From Now That I've Found You (Rounder, 1995)
Eraserheads: Ang Huling El Bimbo
From Cutterpillow (Rollyn, 1995)
Sandwich: Sugod
From Five On The Floor (EMI, 2007)
III. Good World Party Jamz
Summer in New York City sounds like the perfect indie blockbuster, cocktail drink, and mix tape title all rolled into one. Perhaps because the event evokes the best and the worst of Gotham's full sensorium - scantily clad and browned shoulders walking through seventy percent humidity only to find relief sipping on mojitos or kava preferably on a rooftop bar at sunset; the occasional descent into the depths of hell (known more familiarly as subway stations) awaiting relief in the form of an A/C blast and open seat on the train; newly-pedicured open toes traipsing in flip flops past midnight and piles of steaming trash bags littering Midtown, K-Town, and Chinatown. All this after a winter of sensory deprivation and the absence of bodily contact. From the late 1990s to early 2000s, a generation of young Asian Americans in Nueva York, brought together by mainly Filipino American DJs (such as Cam One, Un-G, and a rotation of members from the 5th Platoon crew –Roli Rho, Neil Armstrong, and Kuttin' Kandi) partied religiously at these two spots: Good World Bar (in Chinatown) and Bob Lounge (in the Lower East Side). In homage to those evenings, two songs - the first, a high-impact and height of the evening selection and the second, a simultaneous cool down and 'last call' anthem.
Justin Timberlake: Like I Love You
From Justified (Jive, 2002)
Wayne Wonder: No Letting Go
From No Holding Back (VP, 2003)
IV. Island Cruising Jamz
Last but not least, a bit of cheating on the seasonal date for playing these two final cuts. In order to survive a few Northeastern winters, my partner and I devised a mid-season "defrost" plan - trips to Hawaii so that we could be swimming in the Pacific on Christmas Day. While cruising around the windward side of the island (from North Shore and Pupukea down to Lanikai Beach), we regularly jammed along to the local sounds of Jahwaiian music. Sometimes referred to as Hawaiian reggae music or a derivative of Jamaican reggae with a Hawaiian flair, I like to think of Jahwaiian music as a broader category that includes R&B, pop, rock influences and allowed for a sort of intra-island (Jamaica, Hawaii, New York) collaboration along musical lines. In this vein, here's one official island party jam from Maui locals and one mainland slow driving jam that I'd like to gently place in the wide embrace of the Jahwaiian sound.
Ekolu: Shores of Walehu
From Shores of Waiehu (Tusnami, 2008)
Chris Brown: With You
From Exclusive (Jive, 2008)
Labels: 2008
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