Summer Crushes

Summer heat has finally stumbled upon the Pacific Northwest, and I’ve stuck myself in the basement of somebody else’s house with friends who don’t even live there for hours at a time, all for the sake of music. When I’m not writing for free and working a day job, I do what I can to compose. I say compose, but what I really mean is rock away on my Yamaha P-120 keyboard. I write music probably for the same reason I write words, and that’s because I admire the respective work of others. I carry around these huge, embarrassing crushes on musicians and writers who do exactly what I always hope I can one day achieve. It’s nice to find out that others do too, especially when those others are a couple of the very people with whom I’m so infatuated.

June 15, alt-pop, marital arch-duo Jason Hammel and Kori Gardner, known as Mates of State, released an entire album devoted to their own crushes, aptly titled Crushes (The Covers Mixtape), following up their 2008, flawless, fifth studio album, Re-Arrange Us.

And, if you haven’t been listening to Mates of State, I can’t think of a better time to start. The sound of summer itself couldn’t be any catchier, any more carefree and melodic, harmonic—any happier!—than tracks one through ten of keyboards paired with drums paired with wife paired with husband. Crushes is Mates of State, just as fun as ever; and, Mates of State is wild with admiration for the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Death Cab for Cutie, Nick Cave, and Tom Waits.

Maybe you’ve heard “Second Hand News,” but maybe that was back in ’77. Sure, Fleetwood Mac does it best, but maybe Mates of State are the only other people who should even try.

For me, a song like “Technicolor Girls” goes either way. Peers on the indie music scene, Death Cab for Cutie gives a fraternal flavor to the song, whereas Mates are more parental. Not like they’re regular parents—like they’re cool parents. I landed on Kori Gardner’s blog last week, because Twitter makes this sort of accident all too easy, and it only served to confirm that finding a musical counterpart who also happens to be my domestic counterpart, and take family vacations that strongly resemble performance tours in major world cities, sounds like a pretty awesome deal to me. I’d give seventeen pink sugar elephants to be that kind of parent.

Which brings me to my next point: Vashti Bunyan’s “17 Pink Sugar Elephants” has been getting serious cover-play in the last year or so. You might also recognize its alternative version, “Train Song,” which was covered by Ben Gibbard and Feist and appeared on the epic Dark Was the Night collection in February 2009.

For me, the apex crush is “Love Letter,” a ballad originating from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The song is compelling and simple, powerful and subtle in ways that make you forget Mates of State didn’t write it. You might also forget that Nick Cave is also a novelist. A writer-musician spells a special kind of possibility for me.

From the hip-twisting “Laura” (Girls) to the clap-able “True Love Will Find You in the End” (Daniel Johnston), Crushes is the album for the summer in all the best sorts of ways. I fell in love with Mates of State over Labor Day weekend 2006, on the lawn of an annual music festival in downtown Seattle. I danced. I laughed. I felt my heart grow larger. Now, four summers later, I’m recording my own music in a basement in Bellingham, Washington, still singing too loudly along with “Fraud In the ’80s” and “Blue and Gold Print” on my commutes to the studio. You can bet my finished songs will sound a bit like I’m a schoolboy with a major crush.