I get asked a lot what I was listening to while I wrote That Summertime Sound. Usually my mind goes slack and I just want to say…Everything. I’ve done various playlists for various blogs, but in the interest of being a little more encyclopedic, whipped up this still-incomplete list of bands, albums, CDs and singles that re-caught my ear while working on TSS. I don’t usually listen to music while I write, but for this book, I made an ear-splitting exception. I wrote and revised much of it whilst blaring the most appropriate, least-conducive-to-meditative-thought music imaginable. Frankly, it was a blast, and if I never write about rock-n-roll again, I may yet repeat the experiment.

This list isn’t in any kind of order. These aren’t necessarily my favorite records ever, and they’re not meant to suggest any sort of canon. I love reading lists, but I hate making them, and I agree completely with what Don DeLillo said in his Paris Review interview: “lists are a form of cultural hysteria.” Despite which, the following substances were all ingested by me while working on That Summertime Sound, and may have some bearing on (or in) the text.

Brian Eno, “Needles in The Camel’s Eye,” “The True Wheel,” “Third Uncle,” “Baby’s On Fire,” “Fever”
MC5 – “Baby Won’t Ya,” “Over and Over,” “Lookin At You” (45 version), “Black to Comm”
The Stooges – “Gimme Danger,” everything else
Iggy Pop & James Williamson – “No Sense of Crime”
The Scientists – “Hell Beach,” “Clear Spot,” “The Raver,” “Swampland,” “We Had Love”
The Stems – “She’s A Monster,” “Make You Mine,” “Jumping To Conclusions”
God – “My Pal”
The Primevils – “Saw My Name Written on A Tombstone”
Screaming Tribesmen, “A Stand Alone,” “Igloo,” “Move a Little Closer”
The Eastern Dark, “Walking,” “Over Now”
Small Faces – “Red Balloon,” “I Feel Much Better,” “You Need Loving,” “Donkey Rides, A Penny A Glass,” “Eddie’s Dreaming”
Pink Floyd – “Lucifer Sam”
The Died Pretty – “Mirror Blues”
Opal – Early Recordings, “Rocket Machine”
13th Floor Elevators – everything, esp “Slip Inside This House,” “I’ve Got Levitation,” “Slide Machine,” “Reverberation,” “Roller Coaster,” but really…everything.
Pere Ubu – “Street Waves,” “Non-Alignment Pact,” “Final Solution”
Honolulu Mountain Daffodils – “Psychic Hitlist Victim No. 8”
Neu – “Hallogallo,” “Fur Immer,” “Negativeland,” all of Neu 75
Brightblack Morning Light – self-titled
Curtis Mayfield – everything, but especially Curtis Live!
Baby Huey & The Babysitters – “Runnin’”
Sonic’s Rendezvous Band – “City Slang”
Naked Lunch – “Teenage Blues”
The Lipstick Killers – “Sockman,” “Hindu Gods of Love”
Donny Hathaway – “The Ghetto” (Live)
The Bongos – “Certain Harbors,” “Number With Wings”
The Individuals “I Walk By Your House”
Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation, end-to-end and usually on repeat
Sly & The Family Stone, everything, especially There’s A Riot Goin’ On
Suicide – “Rocket USA,” “Dream Baby Dream,” “Harlem”
Tav Falco’s Panther Burns – “Tina The Go-Go Queen,” “Cuban Rebel Girl”
The Feelies – “Fa Ce La,” “Slipping Into Something”
Pylon – “Cool,” “Crazy”
Absolute Gray – “What Remains”
The Moles – “What’s The New Mary Jane?”
Shack – Waterpistol
Can – “Future Days,” “Bel Air,” “Mother Sky,” “Halleluwah”
Green – “Gotta Get A Record Out,” “I’m Not Giving Up”
The Pretty Things, Parachute, “Defecting Gray,” “You Don’t Believe Me,” “SF Sorrow is Born”
The Saints – “I’m Misunderstood,” “Swing For The Crime,” “Know Your Product”
Afghan Whigs – “Miles Iz Ded”
Volcano Suns – “Jak,” “Balancing Act”
Green Pajamas – “Peppermint Stick”
The Libertines (from Cincinnatti, not UK)– “Voices From The Past”
The Raspberries – “Overnight Sensation”
Todd Rundgren – Something/Anything, A Wizard, A True Star
The Nazz – “Open My Eyes”
The Charlatans – “Codine”
The Litter – “Action Woman”
Hoodoo Gurus – “Let’s All Turn On”
Mike Rep & The Quotas – “Rocket to Nowhere”
Lee Hazelwood & Nancy Sinatra – “Sand”
Halo of Flies – “DDT Fin 13”
The Bizarros – “White Screen Movies,” “Lady Doubonette”
The Mirrors – “Hands In My Pockets,” “Shirley,” “She Smiled Wild”
Rocket From The Tombs – The Day The Earth Met…
Peter Laughner – Take The Guitar Player For A Ride
The Pagans – “Street Where Nobody Lives,” “Not Now No Way”
Game Theory – The Big Shot Chronicles, Lolita Nation
Wire – “Blessed State,” “Outdoor Miner,” “I Am The Fly,” most of 154
The Who – “Glow Girl,” “Out In The Street,” “Whiskey Man,” Sell Out.
The Third Bardo – “I’m Five Years Ahead of My Time”
The Backdoor Society – “I’m The Kind”
Mott the Hoople –everything, especially Mott, All The Young Dudes and Brain Capers
T. Rex – “Buick Mackane,” “Baby Boomerang,” “Teen Riot Structure”
Alice Cooper – “Generation Landslide,” “Long Way to Go,” “Caught in A Dream,” “Ballad of Dwight Fry,” “Public Animal No. 9”
Blue Oyster Cult – “Dominance & Submission,” “Seven Screaming Dizbusters”
Cheap Trick – “Mandocello,” “Downed,” “California Man,” “Lovin’ Money”
Japan – “Automatic Gun”
Faust – IV
The Embarrassment – “Sex Drive,” “D-Rings”
Great Plains – “Dick Clark,” “Letter to a Fanzine”
The Gibson Brothers – “My Young Life”
Howard & Tim’s Paid Vacation – “That Won’t Make You Love Me”
The Flies – “Jesus Christ,” “All Hung Up”
Naked Raygun – “Managua”
The Reactions – “Don’t Look Back”
Crash – “Don’t Look Now (Now)”
The Windbreakers – “That Stupid Idea”
Barbara Manning – “(Lately I Keep) Scissors”
Mission of Burma – “Academy Fight Song”
Christmas – “True Soldier of Love,” most of In Excelsior Dayglo
Panda Bear – Person Pitch
Animal Collective – Feels, Sung Tongs
The Replacements – everything
Scrawl – “Gutterball”
The Perfect Disaster – Asylum Road
Flying Saucer Attack – Further
Spacemen 3 – The Perfect Prescription
Dr. Alimantado – The Best Dressed Chicken in Town
Caribou – Andorra
Funkadelic – America Eats Its Young, Maggot Brain, Free Your Mind…, S/T
The Rationals – singles (compiled recently on the excellent Think Rational CD)

Lots and lots and lots of other things, really. But I’d encourage you to fire up your favorite filesharing widget of choice and start searching.