Listening Party: The Official Spartanburg Spark Fall Mix CD

Next Tuesday marks the official start of fall, thus rendering our Official Spark Summer Mix CD a useless artifact of antiquity. The weather is cooling, leaves are starting to turn color here and there, and any day now people without body-image issues will start wearing hoodies again.

So, breaking from the standard Listening Party format once again, I’m asking you — the people who love local music with a passion — to help me make a definitive local music mix CD that’s perfect for the mood of the season.

Think about the poetic meaning of falling leaves. Think about the end of summertime flings, and the chance of new romance as the school year returns. Think about the return of darkness, and the merits of a nice, long night out. Think about chill breezes, brisk, solitary walks. Think about the coming holiday season, family and friends reuniting, and how terrible and wonderful that can be. We’re looking for music that really captures this mood.

To make the compilation, I need suggestions for the most interesting cool-weather songs by the best local musicians, and I need to know where I can download them from (or cleverly rip them using software that exists in a legal gray area). And I can’t do this without your help.

Here’s how it works: You suggest a song by a particular local artist in the comments, making sure you leave a link to a place where I can hear the song in question. If you actually are the artist, you can even send me the song as an mp3 to publisher@spartanburgspark.com. I’ll add a few suggestions of my own, too. Then, next week, I’ll announce the playlist for the “official” Spartanburg Spark Fall Mix CD, with links to the relevant songs, so that you can make your own.

While there’s no prize associated with this compilation, being selected could be quite a bragging right for a local band or musician. I mean, it is “official” after all.

The possibility exists that only a very few people will submit song suggestions, in which case I’ll compile the rest of it myself. Alone. The weight of the grim solitude of the modern day existence weighing on my pathetic, isolated soul. So help a guy out and submit a few song suggestions, if you would.