Fallen love inspires album
By Fauzia Arain
Magazine Editor

     Passion is what’s achingly missing from today’s popular music. It’s often dry, contrived, formulaic and weakly thin, leaving the listener with little more than a flimsy melody or an electronic, repetitive beat jingling through their heads. “Songs for Summer,” a charity compilation album released March 21, is saturated with passion—from the liner notes to the musical kind—making it a soul-soothing experience.

     The bands range from highly recognizable (Ben Folds Five, Soul Coughing, The B-52s) to sinfully hidden treasures (Neutral Milk Hotel, Babacar, Jonathan Richman). The story behind it and the music presented ventures deep into your heart, making you feel more than the vibrations of the bass.

     Sadly, the development of this album is due to the loss of a young San Diego woman to the devastating illness of kidney cancer. At the age of 21, a mere seven weeks after her initial hospitalization and diagnosis, Summer Brannin passed away. But not without leaving legions of friends with memories of her boundlessly sunny disposition.

     “As soon as she was diagnosed, the love she’d given came back in a big way. She had more people wanting to help and visit her than the hospital had ever seen,” said Adam Gimbel, Brannin’s boyfriend. “She was never alone. She couldn’t have left feeling more loved, but she couldn’t have lived with the amount of spreading the cancer did in just seven weeks. Doctors said it was more like seven months worth. She was never well enough to start any treatment or undergo any surgery.”

     Gimbel, instead of falling into a depressed paralysis, did what came naturally. Realizing the gift that their love had been, Gimbel was inspired to begin work on putting together what basically amounts to a mix tape for Brannin, an avid music fan—one that would eventually transfer their gift to the masses.

     “Music was such a big part of her life that a charity record full of her favorite groups seemed like a great way to show people what kind of person she was and support a worthy cause. She would’ve loved it,” Gimbel said.

     With the help of his friend Mike Byer at Oglio Records, he was able to do just that. Lucky for the rest of us, we get to listen in, too. Given all of the bands’ agreement to donate 100 percent of their profits, a portion of the proceeds will go to a charity benefiting Free Arts For Abused Children, a Los Angeles-based organization.

     The bands that appear on Gimbel’s resulting project, “Songs for Summer,” are some of Brannin’s favorite artists, but more than that, each is included for the specific part they played in her life. Beasley, a Southern California-spawned band, offers a track entitled “Summer,” which was written expressly for Brannin. Beasley’s vocalist, Kristine Kunego, wrote the lyrics for the track, touched by her short acquaintanceship with the extraordinary Brannin.  “She never really knew Summer. Her only experience was seeing her at the hospital. I think she was so impressed by all the people that came to visit her and the things they had to say, that she just got a good sense for what Summer was all about,” said Beasley bassist and Brannin’s longtime friend Chris Clough.

            Included in the ranks with songs written specifically for Brannin are those she      from the artists’ collections. Former Jellyfish and Grays member Jason Falkner, who has since put out two standard-breaking solo albums, contributed “Song for Her,” an outtake from his latest studio effort “Can You Still Feel?”

     “Once they came to visit me in the studio in L.A. and I gave them a tape of a bunch of new stuff, and I guess she just really liked that song, and I wanted to do something for [the charity album] that she liked,” Falkner said. “We made a DAT of that song with and without the vocals, so I took the one without the vocals and put it into my tape machine I had at my apartment and just sang it again, only because the original vocals suck. That’s why it didn’t end up on the record (“Can You Still Feel?”). As it is now I would put it on the album.”

     Falkner did indeed emerge victorious the second time around in harnessing the honest and gently aching vocals on the song, making the track the complete and well-rounded pop song that one would expect from him.     

     In the album’s liner notes a short paragraph accompanies each track, relaying the significance of the band or song to Brannin. It may prove difficult to spare the notes a few tear streaks by the time you’ve read through to the last track, but the lasting impression is one of inspiring beauty and withstanding love.

     The music captures an upbeat, celebratory mood, in line with the life led by Brannin. The disc features rare and original tracks, including an eyebrow-raising if unlikely cover of “Funky Cold Medina” by Irish group The Frank & Walters and live tracks by Squirrel Nut Zippers and Soul Coughing.

     The entire album is a no-skipping-necessary keeper, but particularly noteworthy tracks include the hauntingly beautiful “Midsummer” by Babacar, “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” by Neutral Milk Hotel, “Where’s Summer B?” by Ben Folds Five and the Jazz Butcher’s rendition of the Beat Happening song “Indian Summer.”

     Gimbel has also made an entire Web site dedicated to Brannin and the charity album (www.vintageparts.com/songsforsummer/index.html), on which each week a different track from the album is featured. The particular song of the week’s dedicated page includes a lengthy account, courtesy of Gimbel, of the significance of the track, stories about encounters with the artist and any drawings that Brannin may have done in relation to the musicians.

     In her 21 years on earth, Brannin left a lasting and positive mark on those around her. “Some of her best friends were over 80 years old. Kids loved her. She adored animals of all kinds. She was funnier than any comedian. Her artwork was pure genius. Everyone she ever met remembers her fondly,” Gimbel said.