SUMMER GOLD 2011

Listening to music has become an exclusively active pastime. Each of us is a constant DJ, making meticulously crafted playlists from individual songs we've downloaded from the world's largest record store. Even when we want something new, we find some niche internet radio station that narrows the spectrum of what we hear to the width of a human hair.

But there was a simpler time.

All of us, even Heather, is of an age where a summer afternoon at the beach or barbecue was soundtracked by a portable radio. And sometimes, if you were very lucky and out of the range of your normal FM waystations (WMET represent!), you could tune in some miraculous low-wattage signal pumping out a weird hybrid of songs you knew, more songs you sorta knew, and lots of songs you wished you knew.

There was a thrill of discovery then that is decidedly NOT equaled by blog-trawling for mp3s. A show of hands - how many of you sat by the radio with your tape deck on "Pause" waiting for your new favorite song to hit the airwaves? When your mix was finally complete, the first second and a half of each song warbled in, but after a few listens you knew what was next anyway and the phasey snaredrum that started "Centerfold" became part of your personal version of the song.

This is the experience that we here at WALV aim to provide. Let it ring from your rooftops. Let it fly through your open car windows. Let the good times roll, brothers and sisters.

SUMMER GOLD 2011

The critics agree: SG2011 is the perfect antidote to modern malaise!

"Right from fingerpicked opening notes of Air Supply's Lost in Love, I was transported back to the Clayton Pool during the Summer between 7th and 8th grade, lying on my back along the tiered platforms amidst a gaggle of friends, eating juju bees, staring up at the lone tin speaker on a post high above, my mind surging with the adolescent longing and possibility which swept in on the summer breeze over the trees and park benches of Shaw Park." - M. Night Simonalan, The Jimmycox Gazette