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Bad Books, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bobby Fuller, Cait Brennan, Chuck Prophet, Eytan Mirsky, Fastball, Forest Whitaker, Geezer, Gregory Pepper, I'm Bill Murray, Jeff Lynne, Jody Foster, Jonathan Coulton, Lillian Gish, Pinehurst Kids, Steve McQueen, Tom Cruise Crazy
Putting a famous name in your song title would seem to be a sure fire way to have a hit. Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes” or Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” readily come to mind. But really, those are the exceptions. A quick search of the internet actually turns up a whole bevy of celebrity names on songs, mostly on the indie side of things, most of them album cuts. So why do bands do it? Homage? Satire? Or are they just as celebrity obsessed as everyone else? The French duo Please was formed and recorded a song with the sole explicit intent of getting a response from Paul McCartney – not that Paul appeared to notice! The range of material covered in this post gives us a bit of all these approaches, from hero worship, to ridicule, to little more than just mentioning the celebrity name.
Pinehurst Kids’ “Jody Foster” burns along with an edgy indie sound, just the sort of ‘tude’ you expect from a song named for this actor. Punky, but with an underlying melodic coherence and musical depth. Kevine Devine’s Bad Books is a bit more polished but retains distinct edginess on “Forest Whitaker,” a song about some intense person that has named their baby after the aforementioned intense actor. Love how the keyboards gel with the electric guitar on this track – a killer sound. Eytan Mirsky lightens the mood a bit with his breezy melodic charmer “(I Just Wanna Be Your) Steve McQueen.” Here McQueen’s movie roles are conjured up to aid our singing protagonist in expressing his romantic aspirations – in inimitable Mirsky style (sardonic yet somehow sincere). Geezer are from Austria and have a number of great albums under their belt, including their latest Life in Stereo. Their celebrity-named song goes back a few years and is a straight up glowing tribute to its namesake. In fact, “Jeff Lynne” has so many references to actual Electric Light Orchestra lyrics it’s a wonder he didn’t get a writing credit! There is something a bit ironic about a loving tribute to ELO, a band that was often seen as a loving tribute to previous generation of music, particularly the Beatles. Geezers – Jeff Lynne
Today’s blog theme also gives me a chance to feature another song by the great and gorgeous Cait Brennan, namely the intense, melodic and hilarious “Benedict Cumberbatch.” Another underappreciated star that can be included here is former Green on Red frontman, Chuck Prophet, who has been creating a solid body of fantastic solo work over the past decade. “Bobby Fuller Died for you Sins” is a loving recreation of the Fuller sound, with a little Prophet magic mixed in. In the ‘now for something completely different’ category, Fastball’s new record Step Into Light has a host of highlights but one that might be overlooked is the unusual and sonically distinctive “Lillian Gish.” Is there nothing these guys can’t do? Ok, let’s change things up with a bit of humour. A lot of Gregory Pepper’s work is droll and biting. “I’m Bill Murray” has the singer using Murray’s filmic exploits to explain his increasingly bad behavior. Maxi-cool hooks here and so many in such a short song. It’s like a minute and twenty-four second melodic miniature painting. Jonathan Coulton uses more in-your-face put-down humour on his “Tom Cruise Crazy.” Hilarious. No further explanation is really required.Cait Brennan – Benedict CumberbatchFastball – Lillian GishJonathan Coulton – Tom Cruise Crazy
The one thing binding all these acts, beyond writing a celebrity-named song, is that none are really celebrities in the way that term is commonly understood. But wouldn’t it be great if Please, Pinehurst Kids, Bad Books, Eytan Mirsky, Geezer, Cait Brennan, Chuck Prophet, Fastball, Gregory Pepper and his Problems, and Jonathan Coulton were great big fantastically successful celebrities? What a wonderful world that would be. Take the first step toward that future by visiting them today.
Bradley Skaught’s Bye Bye Blackbirds combine the west coast, late-1960s sound (e.g. Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, etc.) with some of Tom Petty’s southern rock and roll heft to produce a solid album of killer tunes on their new Take Out the Poison. The latest record departs from the more slick, high production sound of previous releases like 2013’s We Need the Rain and 2011’s Fixed Hearts (both great albums, BTW) for a more laid back, rootsy feel. “Earl Grey Kisses” sets the tone, opening things in a spare fashion with some great bass and a bit of guitar lead line, building to some nice harmony-drenched hooks in the chorus. Vocals are really to the fore on a lot of the songs on this release. Check out “Duet,” a lovely single with Lindsay Paige Garfield sharing vocals (and adding a nice country element) on some clever musical wordplay or the super harmony vocals on the Tom Petty-ish “Baby We’re Fine.” Speaking of Tom Petty, the previously released “Let Your Hair Fall Down” appears here and it oozes a great Petty vibe. Other influences could be noted – the Elvis Costello-y “Wasted” or hauntingly Big Star/Elliott Smith-like acoustic guitar and vocals on “I Meant to Write” – but the songs really stand on their own as compositions. A surprising highlight of the record is the band’s cover of Bill Monroe’s country and western classic, “Poison Love,” delivered here with a rootsy rock and roll verve worthy of Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds or Elvis Costello in a more Memphis mood.
As we move around the dial on this post we cover a wide range of sound, from retro stylings, to melodic pop, to guitar hooks, to a cool hipster vibe.
Essex Green is band that seemed to come to the brink of stardom only to disappear. Their third album, 2006’s Cannibal Sea, was widely praised by critics and built on their growing fan base. They seemed well placed to take off. Then nothing. In a recent interview with 
The songcrafter is an artist within the art form, a creator with a particular aptitude for inhabiting any style. They can and do write across genres. And they typically produce a lot of stuff. Here we focus on just two brilliant songcrafters.
Jonathan Rundman is a totally original artist. He comes from a place few of us can readily identify with – growing up in a remote rural Finish-American religious community – and it gives him a unique way of seeing rest of us. His music is infused with a kind of topical spirituality, an assumption of our ultimate interconnectedness, but it is so subtly in the mix that it doesn’t grate the way so much Christian popular music does. This is evident in songs like “Daniel and Peter and Thomas” which is just a great poprock song or even in the more obviously churchy “This is my Commandment,” which pulls off the Christian insight but not at the expense of the song.
Over a 25 year recording career Rundman has crafted an enormous body of work. His 
Or there is Lost Songs, yet another compilation, this time bringing together a host of songs from various out-of-print Rundman albums. “I’ve Got a Problem” breaks open with a more conventional rock and roll sound but quickly resolves into something more poppy with some nice fattened up vocals. Meanwhile “Johnny Horton” pays tribute to the great country artist in a style reminiscent of Peter Case. Another Rundman compilation brings together songs he’s recorded over the years with his cousin Bruce Rundman. Here songs range from the lovely folkie “Omaha” to the more poprock “Nancy Drew.” I have two more songs I’m totally loving from JR: “Second Shelf Down” from his 2015 release Look Up, a wonderfully crafted single, and the tantalizingly brief and Fountains of Wayne-ish “Minneapolis” from 2000’s Sound Theology. It should be obvious by now, you can start just about anywhere with Rundman and come up with some pretty great tunes.
When I first discovered power pop blogs on the internet one artist seemed to be featured everywhere: Cliff Hillis. They just couldn’t get enough of him. There didn’t seem to be enough superlatives to capture what he was doing. I had to check this guy out. And then I heard “Keep the Blue Skies” from 2012’s Dream Good. Now I was choked up with superlatives! The song is a calculated pop masterpiece: the roll out is perfection, the guitars and piano come in as if under some conductor’s direction, but then the vocal kicks in and the hooks multiply – poprock bliss. The lead guitar work is pure Marshall Crenshaw in his prime. The whole record is great, particularly “Sing it Once Again” and “Start Again.”
In catching up with his catalogue there are just so many highlights. 2001’s Be Seeing You kicked off his solo career, featuring a slew of great songs, particularly the hooky “Me and You.” Sadly, the record is not widely available. 2004’s Better Living Through Compression mixed up the sound, with poppy tracks like “Home,” the more surging rocking of “Go Go Go,” and the languid pop of “All These Memories.” The Long Now from 2008 sounds a bit more power pop, very Matthew Sweet at times, on songs like “She Sees” and “Like an Island” but at other points the record exudes a 1970s soft rock vibe, as on “Follow You Anywhere.”
Since 2014 Hillis has focused on releasing EPs rather than albums and in more rapid succession than his previous releases. 2014’s Song Machine opens with the lovely strummy ”Dashboard,” a subtle bit of dark pop that builds ever so slowly. The EP also contains the alt-country tinged “Tonight,” a song I could easily hear the Jayhawks covering. 2016’s Love Not War opens with its title track and it is a brilliantly arranged pop confection, with wonderfully distinctive choices on the instrumentation. I also love the piano and country-folk pacing on “Don’t Drown the Wind” and the late 1970s polished pop sound of “A Boy Downtown.”
All of which brings us to Hillis’ latest EP, the just released Many Happy Returns. In many ways, it marks a distillation of all his many interests and influences: 1980s poprock (“Many Happy Returns”), 1970s soft rock (“Superfluous”), a bit of 1990s indie rock (“Time an Evangelist”), and 1960s Beatles (“Hey Pretty Face”). Again there is just so much that is good here, it’s hard to single something out. But pressed, I would choose the amazing “Never in a Million Years,”: a solid poprock gem with a great hooky guitar opening and some nice organ. And all this just scratches the surface of Hillis’ output – check out his 
Poprock Record 