Track of the Week: Traffic, "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys"

The hot sticky weather we experienced up here in the Garden State this weekend means that summer has arrived for good.  My moods and thoughts are strongly attuned to the seasons, perhaps as a consequence of having grown up on the Great Plains, where seasonal change is awesomely violent.  When the sun starts to crackle the back of my neck and the haze rises from the sidewalk, I aim to sit back in the shade with a bottle of a Belgian wheat beer (preferably Allagash) and listen to some appropriate music.

Over the years, Traffic's "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" has shot to the top of the charts on my preferred summer chillaxation soundtrack.  It's a nice long tune, clocking in at over eleven minutes, and has the languid feel of a comforting summer breeze.  The low, jazzy groove slowly builds, like the condensation on my sweating bottle of beer, and the psychedelic, droning guitar is ever present like the rays of the hot sun. Just another example of why Traffic is one of the most criminally underrated bands in rock history.