This summer, Visible will be interviewing employees from across the organization on their musical tastes and preferences, and most importantly, the songs they’ll be listening to all summer long.
In a series of interviews crafted by our resident music junkies, Jonny and Hunter, we’ll learn about what our team listens to while they work, and their musical guilty pleasures. Each person’s top 3 songs will be added to our very own Spotify Visible Summer Playlist. Check back each week for new additions.
This week, we’re spotlighting the founders of the Visible Summer Playlist: Jonny Kaufman, Head of Social, and Hunter Mathews, Senior Art Director, Visible.
Hunter:
Q: What are your top 3, cruising with the windows down, soaking in the sun, all-time-favorite songs of summer?
A:
- King of the beach — Wavves
- Motorcycle drive by — Third Eye Blind
- Superbike — Jay Som
Q: You’re stuck on a desert island that inexplicably allows you to listen to ONE album for the rest of your life…what is it?:
A: Wilco — Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Q: Best concert you’ve ever been to?
A: Built To Spill at Stubbs BBQ
Q: Do you have a go-to artist or genre you listen to while working?:
A: Classic jazz like Miles Davis, Coltrane, or Art Blakey
Q: No one is around and you can blare it as loud as you want without any judgement...what’s your musical guilty pleasure?:
A: Beyoncé’s Halo
Q: An older sibling introducing you to the next big thing, your cool best friend sharing back-issues of Rolling Stone, or a local radio DJ — who has most influenced your musical taste?:
A: All my friends and I in high school were in bands and would play shows out of our garage so it kinda spun out from there.
Q: Some of us practiced the moonwalk, dreamt of scorching guitars on fire, or running from screaming hoards of fans. If you could be any musician, who would it be?:
A: Jeff Tweedy
Jonny:
Q: What are your top 3, cruising with the windows down, soaking in the sun, all-time-favorite songs of summer?
A:
- Closed for Inventory — The Night Marchers — Swami John Reis is a brilliant songwriter, and to me, he’s at his pinnacle in The Night Marchers. Combining rockabilly’s swing, the rawness of 90s punk rock and the surfer vibes… this album just ROCKS.
- Fake I.D. — Joyce Manor — Singer/Guitarist Barry Johnson compares this song to a Clickhole. The ludicrousy of young love is on full display here, and Barry’s tongue-in-cheek lyrics match the tone — it’s not even fair to compare Kanye to Steinbeck. But here are, all wrapped up in a dancy punk rock ballad. And as a LA kid who grew up in this circle, the nostalgia of my early twenties — the sticky venue floors, the goofy dance of early romance — are all embodied in the Joyce Manor SoCal sound, especially on this album, Cody.
- Dance Yrself Clean — LCD Soundsystem — I really don’t have to explain this one, right? This song has everything you could possibly want from a cruising song: a simple progression that continues to build, Murphy’s signature 00s Brooklyn hipster sneer, and a beat that is groovy (but not necessarily danceable) and a beat drop that is simply like no other. LCD SoundSystem are the masters of Dance Punk, and Dance Yrself Clean is their opus.
Q: You’re stuck on a desert island that inexplicably allows you to listen to ONE album for the rest of your life…what is it?:
A: Yellow & Green by Baroness
Q: Best concert you’ve ever been to?
A: Sharon Van Etten and the National at Red Rocks
Q: Do you have a go-to artist or genre you listen to while working?:
A: Anything rock that’s interesting and has a groove that calms my ADHD
Q: No one is around and you can blare it as loud as you want without any judgement…what’s your musical guilty pleasure?:
A: Atmospheric black metal, a la Deafheaven & Alcest
Q: An older sibling introducing you to the next big thing, your cool best friend sharing back-issues of Rolling Stone, or a local radio DJ — who has most influenced your musical taste?:
A: Myspace and Alternative Press magazine
Q: Some of us practiced the moonwalk, dreamt of scorching guitars on fire, or running from screaming hoards of fans. If you could be any musician, who would it be?:
A: Chuck Ragan. Give me a gruff voice, a fly rod, and a Martin guitar.
