Consider this a corollary to last week's rundown of summertime songs. Basically, this is all the stuff that's been playing at my main barbecue spot so far this summer (hat tip to my most excellent hosts); perhaps you will enjoy these items at an outdoor eating event of your own.
Vetiver: Tight Knit
Andy Cabic is an exâbass player for art clatter percussionists Tussle and a sometimes sideman for Devendra Banhart. Vetiver is his vehicle for breezy, folky acoustic songs, and the band's 2009 Sub Pop album Tight Knit is impeccable music for an afternoon on the lawn or patio or, presumably, if you have the means, a yacht. I couldn't hum you any particular song from the album, because every one of them just kind of rolls by and then goes up in sweet-smelling smoke, but every song lands like the easiest, lightest thing you've ever heard.
Big Boi: Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
Leaked last week (OutKast's more earthbound half was unflappably cool about it), out in stores now, Big Boi's new solo effort is looking to be one of the finer albums of the summer, hiphop or otherwise. (Sorry, King of the Beach.) The tracks featuring T.I., Yelawolf, and Janelle MonĂĄe ("Tangerine," "You Ain't No DJ," and "Be Still," respectively) are all outstanding, as is the operatic bombast and swagger of "General Patton," but the grillingest jam here is 2009's "Shine Blockas," featuring Gucci Mane, and its remix, which adds Bun B and Project Pat to the mix. The sample (of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes' "I Miss You") sounds like an AM radio evaporating on E (and makes you want to cue up "Int'l Players Anthem" next), Gucci sings the celebratory hook in his inimitable mush-mouthed style, and every verse on each version delivers plentiful grin-inducing couplets. The whole record is almost enough to make you stop worrying about another OutKast album (okay, not really).
Insane Clown Posse: Big Money Hustlas
Okay, so this will actually ruin your barbecue. And your eyeballs. And your brain. And the rest of your life. I know because I watched it last week after a buddy bought it at Value Village for a dollar (too much). It is a movie starring two fat white Detroit crypto-Christian talking mimes who don't understand how magnets work. They call themselves Insane Clown Posse. The main thing you need to know is that in the movie, they're wearing their clown makeup, but they're supposed to be characters who have nothing to do with their real life "rap" actâlike they are actors and that's just how their faces happen to look. The other thing you need to know is that everything that happens in this movie happens for eight minutes longer than it should, and it is all uniformly, unredeemably terrible. It is not in any way so bad that it's good. It is just so bad that it's really, really fucking bad. It revealed to me the poverty of my own imagination, because I could never have imagined a movie this bad. This is time from your life you could have spent grilling stuff. Or doing anything else on earth. Never watch this. 
