bobkast #27: Polaroids at the Beach

"Leave The City Behind"
(photo by margaret zyro)
Ok, here's the plan: We're all going to quit our day jobs and shack up at my grandparent's beach house for the summer. (They're old and forgot they have a beach house.) Then we'll get sweet jobs like, Ice Cream Man, Italian Ice Guy, Fish Delivery Dude and Badge Checker Chick. We'll live off grilled cheese sandwiches and milkshakes. And margaritas. We'll have unlimited ice cream, and freeze pops. You can buy like 500 freezepops at the gas station for like $5. It's sick. We'll just wear Umbro's every day. No shoes. And it won't even matter when you jump into the ocean with your clothes on at 4 in the morning and your cell phone dies, cause, well, it just won't matter. And well ride bikes. It's gonna be so rad.

Boobkast #27: Polaroid's at the Beach


Quiet Village- Victoria's Secret
Real Estate- Beach Comber
Beach Fossils- Vacation
Holiday Shores- Phones Don't Feud
Ganglians- Lost Word
Strawberry Fair- Give Up
Ducktails- Let's Rock The Beach
Juana Molina- No Llama
The Tough Alliance- Hung Up On A Dream (Zombies cover)
The Ruby Suns- Ole Rinka
High Places- From Stardust to Sentence
The Mayfair Set- Desert Fun
Jacuzzi Boys- Island Ave
The Meanest Boys- I Don't
Ms. Tyree "Sugar" Jones- If You Feel It
Rodriquez- Sugar Man
Reefer- Blue Moon
Sore Eros- Whisper Me
tUne-YaRdS- FIYA
Wilson Simonal- Escola em Luto
Sandbar- Fresh Life
Stag Hare- Allah

Download Bobkast #27: Polaroids at the Beach (PC: Right Click + Save As; Mac; option + click)

mp3: Strawberry Fair "Give Up"

"How Happy I Would Be"
"What is this? Is this Dusty Springfield? Nah, maybe the Heavenly's. Hmmm. Nah, it sounds, I don't know, hmmm. I can't put my finger one it."

I can imagine more than one person thinking this while listening to Strawberry Fair, the stage moniker of Sweden's Jenny Franzén. Franzén crafts insanely chipper, melodic and jangly pop that, for all intents and purposes, sounds like it was crafted by Phil Spector in between sessions with the Ronettes. Her 2008 EP I Can't Do Anything, which I only recently became familiar with, is, um, absolutely adorable in all the right spots; from the subtle bop of the brass section to the girl group harmonies to the gentle jangle of the tambourine, it's all here, and not in the cliche, tongue-in-cheek fashion the Pipette's made so fashionable a few years back. Rather, Strawberry Fair's "Give Up" sounds like something Jens Lekman would put on a mix tape for baking blueberry crumble or canning preserves. With a chorus of "Tell Myself 'Give Up' He Doesn't Like You Anyway/ But How Can I/ When All I Can Think Of Is Him Everyday", "Give Up" is both sweet and sad, but mostly sweet, and one of the finest straight up pop songs I've heard in a long time.

Her label, Alltid Hela Tiden, has also made Strawberry Fair's cover of The Elgins/The Supremes/Chris Clark/The Isley Brothers song "Put Yourself In My Place" available for free download. The cover was originally released on a "3" CD that came with (the now sold out) fanzine Cloudberry 404." Download both "Put Yourself In My Place" and "Give Up" below.

Strawberry Fair- Give Up
Strawberry Fair- Put Yourself In My Place