For summer songs, so much of it has to do with memories, so sorry I'm doing this to you, but I'm going to have a trip down memory lane at your expense.

For instance, Run to the Hills - Iron Maiden is not most people's immediate choice for a summer jam. But I have memories of driving in my shitty little Hyundai Accent, 3 of my best friends crammed in, with my cd player patched in to my radio via one of these bad boys, all of the windows down, volume cranked, as we drove to the beer store to get some Labatt Genuine Honey (its only virtue was being less bad than other buck-a-beers).

Stuff like this is my high school summers condensed. I knew it was bad then, I know it's bad now, and i still don't care. I still scream these lyrics out loud. Then I met long-time bandmates, who introduced me to the Misfits (or alternatively, this ). Along with bands like Alkaline Trio, these guys never fail to make me feel like I'm an angry 19 year old kid.

When I washed up in Newfoundland for university, I traded those tunes out for things like this and this, and this. I was swimming in a sea of depression at that point (I hadn't gotten help yet), and folk music felt like rediscovering my own history and ancestry.

I moved to Ottawa to finish university, and worked in warehouses over the summer. Dvorak kept me company in my car on the way, and while I was in the warehouse there was a playlist of about 20 songs that repeated over and over every shift. I definitely remember Alice Cooper's Poison, as well as a few songs that were pop music so bad that it doesn't even make it onto mainstream radio. I can't even find them on youtube they're so bad.

Now I'm here in Ohio, about to head back to Ottawa for a summer of musicmaking. Right now it looks like Dallas Green and Lorde are going to be getting some heavy listening in my car, but who knows.

thanks for the memories, even if they weren't so great.