Summer Brannin lived for 21 years with the innocence of a child and the artistry of a creative genius. She was always able to look at life with the fascination of someone half her age. In her "adult life", she was a full-time college student and healthfood store employee before she was diagnosed with kidney cancer, but never lost her appreciation for being a kid. She loved watching groups of little girls just being little girls, sometimes drawing them and writing down things she overheard them saying. She was a huge music fan and one of her favorite bands was the LA group that dog. With their lowercase name and songs glorifying teenage romances and indierock crushes, they were Summer's favorite band to sing along with. She wrote about them, put them on countless mixtapes and was lucky enough to see them perform, opening for Blur in San Diego in 1996. She also saw singer Anna Waronker sing at a Redd Kross/Sloan show that same year and talked to her briefly. Like she did at many shows, she took along a notepad and drew the pictures on this page.

In 1999, Anna was asked to be part of Songs For Summer, a memorial charity record featuring 15 of Summer's favorite musicians, including Ben Folds Five, Neutral Milk Hotel, the B-52's and Jonathan Richman. She responded by recording something especially for the record, something only one other artist did. The song was a favorite of both Waronker and Brannin's: "Catch" by the Cure. Anna sang and played melotron flutes, her husband Steve McDonald (of Redd Kross, another Brannin favorite) played the stand-up bass, Jeff Watson played piano, and Kenny Woods played guitar and percussion.

Unfortunately, the song was unable to be included on the record but it's finally available here for the very first time as a free mp3 download. Summer was keen on spreading the word about the music that she loved. It wasn't uncommon for her to convince people to love her favorite bands by singing to them, letting them borrow cd's or making mixtapes for strangers with cool stickers on their car. It is in that spirit that we make it available here and hope that you will tell others about Summer Click here to hear "Catch" by Anna Waronker. 

To read more about Summer Brannin, her artwork and the Songs For Summer charity record, please visit the Summer Site at http://www.thesummersite.org