J. Lately's 'Good Lasts' is Your Late-Summer Hangout Soundtrack

Welcome to Pass the Aux, where KQED Arts & Culture brings you our favorite new tracks by Bay Area artists. Check out past entries and submit a song for future coverage.

Now that Labor Day’s heinous heatwave has (mostly) passed over Northern California, we’re entering the third stage of Bay Area summer: when those sorbet-colored sunsets last longer than your grandma’s container of VapoRub, and we hang out with our friends, soaking it all in.

Need a soundtrack for those moments? Check out J. Lately‘s “Good Lasts,” featuring Loe Gino, Ian Kelly & Khyenci.

The track is the lead single off J. Lately’s latest album, Breakfast, titled in tribute to his sacred ritual of waking up early, eating a quality breakfast burrito and harnessing the potential of the day.

But “Good Lasts” is arguably a sunset song; it has that “stay outside ’til after the street lights come on” vibe. It’s a combination of the smooth production by West Coast Trey, the melodic hook sung by Bay Area-born Khyenci, and the laid-back flows of Sebastopol-raised J.Latey, Berkeley’s Loe Gino and East Oakland’s Ian Kelly.

That late-summer vibe runs throughout the video for “Good Lasts,” directed by Quentin Ventura and J.Lately, which shows the four artists on bike, bending corners on Alameda’s Naval Air Station.

“Honestly, it was one of the most fun music videos I’ve ever shot,” J. Lately tells me, joking that it brought back nostalgic feelings of middle school. “It’s me and my friends, riding around on bikes… letting our natural emotions show. There wasn’t any acting going on, it was just us riding around having a good time, and trying to capture that.”

With aerial views at twilight, glimpses of the City in the background and big smiles in the foreground, it all makes for music to usher in a smooth ending to a successful summer.

J. Lately, Loe Gino and Ian Kelly perform with Poo$ie on Friday, Sept. 9, at Cornerstone in Berkeley. Details here.