It’s easy to break down songs in terms of their lyrics and melodic hooks but sometimes there’s something else going on that evades simple description. I’m going to call that heart. It’s the stuff in the song that gives you shivers and allows you to listen again and again, often finding new shades of colour hidden behind your first impressions. Today’s featured acts have definitely got heart and then some.
Eclectic Music Lover covers a broader range of music than yours truly but our Venn diagram has plenty of crowding in the overlap. Like Wons Phreely’s new single “The Faithful Heart.” EML put me on to the song and I can’t stop listening to it. The track opens with a classic bit of Springsteen piano melancholy before shifting to something more reminiscent of Feist’s winsome “!,2,3,4.” There’s something insistent about the delivery, almost march-like in a meditative way. Overall, the sonic wash of the performance reminds me of Family of Year. The accompanying video is worth taking in too, featuring the band’s singer/songwriter Justin Wonsley being guided through dance-moves like a human marionette against a backdrop of a spartan laundromat.
Vienna, Austria’s Good Wilson ease us in with “Bats From the Buffet” seemingly marking-time tune-wise before blowing things out on the feels-like-a-rush chorus. It’s a subtle transition but notable. Another remarkable feature of the tune is the use of pedal steel guitar. For the most part the song is carried by a delicious lead guitar hook but three-quarters in that distinctive country music instrument surfaces but in no way acts as a lazy signifier of genre. Mixed with the seventies McCartney-esque guitar trills and background vocals you’ve got a track that roots you in place and practically demands a replay or two. The song is one among many pre-release singles from the band’s soon-to-be released new album It Is Done (Album).
Heart is the undefinable something a great artist adds to what they’re doing. You won’t find it noted down on the sheet music, you can only feel it, connect with it, and make it a bit of yourself.
You’ve got to give the guy top marks for trying. After bolstering his reputation for quality jangle earlier this year with his fabulous summer release Retro Metro now Super 8 appears to want to be big in Japan. And why not? It worked pretty well for Cheap Trick. Super 8 Goes J-Pop is a tidy EP package of five songs, featuring covers of influential Japanese bands as well as a recent Super 8 single sung in Japanese.
Things kick off with the Super 8 original “Keep Doing It” from Metro Retro which sounds just as chipper and sunshine-y in Japanese as in English. But the bulk of the EP is focused on covers. The choice of Japanese band material dips into the 1970s and then skips ahead to new millennium. Happy End famously abandoned rock and roll’s then lingua franca English to sing in their native Japanese in the late 1960s, influencing a nation of bands to do the same. Their “Kaze Wo Atsumette” is a classic of the era, a deceptively simple-sounding (but in reality tightly-arranged) folk rock masterpiece in miniature. The exquisite organ work alone is worth the price of the single. When you compare their version to Super 8’s you can hear how he puts a bit more of an electric stamp on things while loosening the structure. Super 8 also includes an acoustic version of the song that is a spare folk treatment with a campfire intimacy. Then we shift to 2010 for a cover of the Tenniscoats single “Baibaba Bimba,” a song that stands a testament to extreme folk minimalism. Super 8 inserts an alluring sonic backdrop to the tune without altering its minimalist clarity and beauty. And then, just for fun, we get a Japanese-language version of The Beatles “I Need You.” This would have gone down a treat at the Budokan in July 1966 for sure.
Perhaps Super 8 Goes J-Pop will lead to a frenzied fan-base from the far east demanding tours and merch from our fave jangler. Whether that comes to pass or no, all I can say is that you don’t need to understand Japanese to dig what Super 8 is laying down here.
America really is my favourite reality show. Just when you think things can’t get any more ‘out there’ a new season launches and all the rules get broken. In the latest plot development an aging patriarch returns promising to unleash a torrent of personal vengeance and vilification, doled out via social media posts and executive orders. And that’s just the promo reel. As the USA now seemingly embraces its inner apocalypse, we might as well let hell break out musically too. To that end, we present a load of hooky tunes all about mayhem, devilry, and less than optimal outcomes.
To hear some American commentators talk, you’d think the devil himself was running for office. But listening to Paul Gilbert’s “I am Satan” he doesn’t seem so scary. Besides presenting the dark lord as an affable, devil-may-care guy, the tune is hilarious and eminently hummable, vibing goofball rockers like Rupert Holmes, Jonathan Coulton and Weird Al. By way of background, Gilbert is an honest-to-god guitar hero with countless instrumental albums where he pyro-techniques his way through every imaginable songbook. Yet it’s when he sits down to write more accessible pop tunes that I’m gobsmacked. Moving on, Quincy tell us about a “Get Well Card from the Devil” and I get the feeling they just don’t trust the sentiment. Over a boppy track that has a definite Eels-meets-The Kinks vibe to it, the takeaway is some characters talk nice but do nasty so best beware. Then there’s Fireproof Sam and the Networks Stars who turn the camera back on us on “The Devil in your own Detail.” I mean, how much of the ugly in the world may be reflected in our good selves? Or, to put it differently, could we be pushing against the darkness just a little bit more?
Paul Gilbert – I am SatanQuincy – Get Well Card from the DevilFireproof Sam and the Network Stars – The Devil in your own Detail
Next topic: hell. Let’s pause to consider America’s obsession with Manichean good and evil, heaven and hell. At any given moment somebody in America is going to hell, if you can believe all those TV preachers. Canadian band Hollerado give a Great White North take on the situation with a load of ‘sorry’ asides on “Straight to Hell.” By contrast Glaswegians U.S. Highball are less deferential, preferring to just “See You In Hell” at some unspecified future date. Or you could just give in and resign yourself to being “Best Dressed Man in Hell” as Emperor Penguin elect to do. Not a great group of options but if these songs make the soundtrack in hell count me in.
A strong theme in the recent race for glorious leader was disaster. Sure, you’ve got tornadoes ripping up the American south – nothing new there – but now that chaos is being exported to every other corner of the continental USA. I think the Chesterfield Kings “Crazy Days and Wild Nights” effectively captures what may lie ahead. Catch the six-o-clock news for your crazy days update and then lock up your house to steer clear of those wild nights. Looked at positively maybe Greg Ieronimo is right and we’re in for some “Beautiful Disaster.” But my bet is with Cheap Star that things will just be plain old “Disaster.” Both are supremely cool tunes so go ahead and enjoy them as Paris (Texas) is burning.
Another great debate in the headlines is about war: who’s for it and who’s agin it. Despite claims that the new America will down weapons I can’t help but feel the Preoccupied Pipers have got a better grasp on reality with “We Go to War.” It’s just too predictable that when shady characters get desperate flags get waved and somebody’s kids get war fatigues. This can lead to a related development ably sketched out by Beachheads on “Death of a Nation.” There’s something old school UK punk about this tune, at least until the chorus when things get particularly poppy (and I’m lovin’ it). Or, conversely, perhaps The Magnetic Fields are on to something with their alternative history prophecy “The Day the Politicians Died.” I usually have quite a bit of sympathy for people who stand for political office, it’s a thankless job. But I get the sentiment behind this song, particularly in the US where you really have to be millionaire or friends with one to join the politician club.
I want to be an optimist but often I feel The Call called it back in 1984 with their dour cover of Moby Grape’s “The Apocalypse.” Their version is just so moody and dark, perfect for our moment. As they sing “Apocalypse is now, mankind. The time has come to die” we can cue any number of destruction montage sequences.
The Call – Apocalypse
Or maybe not. People could get their act together and pull us back from the abyss. I’m leaving that door open. Luckily there’s plenty more great music to distract me (and you) in the meantime. So let’s get dancing, apocalypso style.
Photo copyright Max Scheler, Hamburg Germany, ‘Fall out shelter for sale,’ Los Angeles 1961, as featured on the James Vaughn Flikr collection.
As autumn slowly cuts off any hope of retreat to summer we are left with little choice but to spark up some inner warmth, by whatever means necessary. So doff your wool and cotton and get close to our fire of combustible hooky tunes.
This past summer Charleston South Carolina’s Band of Jays came to the defence of your anywhere town with a song dubbed “Bill Murray.” There’s actually a surprising number of songs named for my fave SNL alumnus but few seem to heft a guitar or a hummable melody. By contrast, this track is an ear-pleasing winner with great guitar backing, an easygoing tune, and a nice sentiment. As the lyrics note, maybe Bill Murray doesn’t live in your town but everybody’s got something special going on close to home. Further south New Orleans band Video Age get us “Away from the Castle” with a song from an album of the same name that deploys a mixture of snappy guitar tones and keyboard runs to buffet its super fine vocals. Right next door Birmingham Alabama’s Lolas turn on the power pop charm on “From the Start” with chime-y guitars and shimmery harmony vocals. What a slice of ear candy! Leaving the south for the icy north, Norway’s I Do You Do Karate do not bury the lead on their single “Peanut Carter.” The lead guitar, that is. I love how the main guitar lick just rings out over the pulsing beat of the band. I’d like to count myself as one of many Friends of Cesar Romero, the guy just never lets me down. Check out his latest dance stomper “Quick Wrath,” specifically for how he combines a swamp-worthy bit of lead guitar with some ace power-pop background vocals. Flipside “Her Lipstick Dedication” is a pretty sweet bit of 1962 rocked-up Phil Spector.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Newski is some kind of old soul. He’s got the mellow ‘live and let live’ vibe of a 1960s hippie, with just a touch of punk around the edges. And his sound is littered with bits of vintage sixties and seventies rock and roll motifs that he just throws on like a comfy sweater. His latest in a series of winning singles is “Get It Figured Out” and I love its languid, loping rhythm, especially combined with a spot-on Tom Petty vocal. Weymouth, UK’s Garfield’s Birthday crank up the British beat group sound on the opening cut of their latest album Next Stop Mars. Just listen to the finely-calibrated close-harmony vocals guiding “The Other Side of the Wind.” It’s as if Peter and Gordon had come up with a rock and roll backing. Get ready for some jangle from The Tisburys on their new one-off single “The Anniversaries” and a whole lot more too. There’s some sweet organ and harmony vocals and a tune that will get in your head and refuse to move out. Oakland California’s Hidden Pictures return in full-on country regalia with “Hayward Hall of Justice.” The song leans hard on the pedal steel to set the hard living, hard drinking country scene, with a winning dose of FOW subtle hookiness. London UK’s Ex-Vöid give the people what they want on their new release “Swansea.” Is it folk? Is it indie? I just know it’s effing great. Pairs well with anything from Mary Lou Lord.
Time to crank this party up a bit. Liquid Mike flash their punk vocals and grinding big-guitar sound but that can’t obscure the hooky genius at the centre of “Crop Circles.” Played loud or soft this one’s a winner (but play LOUD for full effect). Seattle’s The Oh Wells work a pop country seam on their latest single “Mad Honey.” Ok, things do get to rocking in the lead guitar break but those vocals are just so pop smooth. Kelowna BC’s Stephen Schijnes is putting out singles so fast I can’t keep up with them. He’s got two recent releases that sound so simple but are ultimately bewitching in their impact. “Carry On (The Way It Has To Be)” contrasts Schijnes Gordon Lightfoot deadpan vocals with a rollicking musical backing while “It’s All About Love” is an anthem made just for our times. Get those children’s choirs ready for this one. Is it just me or is Pony perfectly incarnating Juliana Hatfield on her recent killer single “Freezer”? The guitars, the perfectly calibrated sibilant vocals, the subtle hook driving the song – it’s all wonderfully Hatfield-esque. I mean, she’s doing her own thing for sure but wow. We’ve featured Ottawa native Robby Miller and his tight brand of crunchy poprock a few times but listen to what he’s got going with Danny Young on “Take Me As I Am.” Young adds a Beck-like chameleon vocal style to a monster of a song, particularly in the chorus. Anthemic for sure.
On their new album Studio 3 New York duo Rogers and Butler explore our present hard times over a range of songs – with titles like “Poverty Line,” “Teddy Boys,” and “Poor Little Rich Girl” you quickly get the picture. But give the whole album a listen and you’d swear these two come from York minus the New, so well do they capture a particularly English beat group sound. Here we’ll just feature one of their timely tunes, “Agree to Disagree.” The sentiment is solid but the jangle is outa-sight. Belgian poprock purveyors CMON CMON pick up where they left off, cranking out another slickly produced ear-catching new single “All the Other Kids.” Really, this is one smooth piece of 1980s AM radio should-be hit single-age. Poprock workaholic Richard Turgeon has slowed the pace of his one-man song machine this past year but his new track “I Won’t Cry” shows he’s not losing any of his hooky shine. There are so many endearing melodic twists in this song. Just when you think he’s established the form he throws in another hooky departure. Jared McLoud is all in on Americana on his new album Vacancy. The sound has the emotional resonance of all those fabulous New Jersey acts, great (Springsteen) and small (Soul Engines), particularly on cuts like “A Kind of Love That Will Tear You Apart.” But “Tramp Like Me” and “Hello, My Name is Standing Joke” are pretty sweet too. Mossy Ledge take me back to all those dreamy British guitar bands from the 1980s like The Silencers. Their new song “All You Need To Know” starts off all minor key and doom-pop but then breaks out in the chorus with a bit of melodic sunshine.
Mossy Ledge – All You Need to Know
If anyone sounds like they’re cut from ‘absolute classic entertainer’ cloth it’s Atlanta Georgia’s Mattiel. With a great big voice like Patsy Cline or Neko Case and charisma to match, she could sing the bus schedule and we’d all be glued to our seats. Now she takes on Terri Gibbs’ country chart hit “Somebody’s Knocking” and definitely makes it her own. She adds smoke and a bit of grit to the vocals while the accompaniment is a rich melange of pedal steel, harmonica and delectable guitar work. Side B is a treat too, a cover of Dylan’s “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You.”
Don’t get too close to these sizzling tunes, you’ll singe your dance shoes. Crowd in just close enough to feel their should-be Hot 100 heat.
Photo ‘Campfire Nights’ courtesy Thomas Hawk Flikr collection.
Let’s break with the usual news cycle for something a bit more uplifting. Whether it’s folk rock or punk pop or just melodious rock and roll, trust me, these are the top stories we need right now.
Like Paul Simon or Al Stewart Steve Robinson drifts back and forth between folk and poprock motifs, effortlessly amplifying or stripping down his melodies. Over the 11 tracks on his new album Window Seat you’ll hear echoes of the Beatles, solo McCartney, Neil Finn and, of course, XTC. “Unnecessary War” opens the record as the obvious single. The message and swagger is very John Lennon but the melody combines elements reminiscent of XTC and Crowded House song structures. Robinson is often tagged with XTC comparisons but it can hardly be avoided when Dave Gregory is playing lead guitar on “The King of Scatterbrain.” I also get a very Andy Partridge in dour folk mode from “Hollow Man.” By contrast, “Are We There Yet?” evokes Neil Finn’s distinctive melodic turns with guitar work that reminds me of Band on the Run era Wings. A number of tracks also have a strong Beatles ’66 feel, like “Hesitation Blues” (though the keyboards are more ’69 Preston good). On the folk front there’s real variety too. “Room With a View” strikes me as very much in the Suzanne Vega’s brand of sophistico-pop. There’s a more discordant English folk ambience to “Word to the Wise” while “Who Knew” is sunny folk pop all the way through. Robinson then wraps with a pastoral, Mummer-worthy folk mediation with “Treasure.”
From the small Scottish town of Forres four-piece ensemble Be Like Pablo spring like a blast of pure energy on their first new album in a decade, A World Apart. Their sound is a curious amalgam of nineties dissonant poprock and new millenium indie rock, sprinkled with a variety of 1960s and 1970s adornments. People compare them to Weezer and Fountains of Wayne – and perhaps it’s just the Scottish angle – but I hear Spook School. Sure “There Goes the Sunshine” vibes FOW pretty hard but there’s so much more going on here. I mean, check out those super-charged, chorused guitars fueling “Find a Way to You.” They are just so 1974. Or get your sixties fix on “Amy” or “I’ll Never Be Your Man” where old song forms come up against a wall of rhythm guitar distortion. This is an LP that maintains an impressive intensity throughout its 12 songs and 33 minutes. “There She Is” will grab you with its seductive background vocals, alluring keyboard lines and a main vocal so electrically insistent and present. “Crazy Without You” is just a great pop song, nicely punched up with stylized organ shots, tasty lead guitar, and what sounds like a violin instrumental solo. “My Kind of Girl” sounds like the unstoppable single to me, so relentless in its mixed aural assault, while “Do You Want to Go Surfin’?” delivers punky pop with some killer retro guitar solos. The band can gear down effectively too, as evident on the lovely acoustic guitar-led “I Don’t Know What I Do Without Your Love.” They even tease us on “Do It All Over Again,” leading with spot-on Beach Boys keyboard licks only to duck into a Cars new wave guitar crunchiness moments later.
The new Scoopski album Time Is a Thief is a real family affair, with hubby, wife and even baby Scoopski taking vocal turns. You’ll need to get yourself ready for a highly melodic outing, accent on fun. Album opener “Everyone’s Guessing” will definitely let everyone get their ya ya’s out. I love the guitar sound kicking off this tune, like an engine about to roar to life. Parenting and growing up define a lot of material here. “Little Ball of Energy” and “Babble” capture the joy of having a small new being in your life while “Dad Bod” makes light of every male’s inevitable physical decline in a boppy rocking time. But the secret star of this record is undoubtedly the keyboard work. I tend to think of Scoopski as a guitar band but check out the artful keyboard contributions to “I Agree, Marie,” “Seasonal,” and “Nocturnally Yours,” the latter an ace bit 1970s rock and roll melodrama. Serious radio-ready singles include “Pinata” and “Double,” both offering hooks for days. Modern comparisons abound but I’m really getting an early Squeeze feel from this record, like a Cool for Cats kind of madcap fun, particularly on “Double” and “The Inattentive Twist.”
On solo album #6 Along for the Ride veteran indie rock and roller Ed Ryan ruminates on a life lived amid great American musical inspirations. The lyrical themes here are literally experience-talking on “Fine Art to Letting It Go,” “Along for the Ride,” and “Imperfect Life.” Musically Ryan’s long career means he continues to churn out well-crafted hooky tunes from a Tom Petty meets Greg Kihn playbook, with a few intriguing departures. First off “Fine Art to Letting It Go” lays down a low-key Bo Diddley beat but before you know it you’ll be joining in on the ‘oh oh’s’ in the chorus. “Along for the Ride” pushes off with an early Wings lead guitar tone but check the subtle vocal harmony work here that really elevates the tune. Petty-isms litter the record, tucked into tunes like “Better Than That,” “Looking for Something” and “Make It Happen.” Other tracks amp up a harder 1980s poprock edge, like “It’s Alright With You” and “Find Me a Girl.” I love how “Solitary Man” changes up the tempo and leans on the piano to add some great melodic shading to the chorus. And then there’s outlier tracks like “Unspoken” and “Follow You Down” that are more in the style of song storytellers like John Hiatt or the bluegrassy “Poppees Garden.”
Finally some breaking news where the byline is in musical notation. You can follow up on these stories with hyperlinked ease – just click and go.
Election day in the United States this year appears to offer a stark choice between Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dumber. What I mean is that both parties’ corporate-sponsored candidates really offer little by way of substantive economic relief to the country’s working people. Nevertheless, millions of Americans are going to spin that big wheel of electoral plutocracy, er, I mean democracy, anyway. Regardless of who wins I predict there will be bitterness for many, guaranteed. That’s why we need to crank a carefully curated batch of timely electoral tunes now. Don’t eat your ballot!
We open this election-themed post with The Submarines‘ simple, plaintive, jangly “Vote.” It just seemed apropos. This gem from the band’s 2006 debut Declare a New State! is so hipster-TV-show-montage good it hurts. Like a warm hug shielding you from bad news. Next up, a shameless musical appeal for support from The Stiff Joints urging you to “Vote For Me.” Do we need more Madness-like English Ska with horns aplenty? You bet we do. This gets my vote, for sure.
The Submarines – Vote
People have views on electoral processes, how they work and why they don’t add up to a very good democratic experience. London UK band Project Culture manage to name-check a number of different voting systems as well as bemoan strategic voting on their rollicking onslaught of guitar pop, “Polling Day.” I really didn’t see anyone pulling that off – but they do. John Wesley Harding blows up what typically goes on in American politics on “Hostile Two-Party System” in a protest folk-meets-rockabilly tune. David Hodgman gets a bluesy pop groove going on his talk/sing must-play-every-electoral-cycle classic “Talking Post-Millennial Electoral College Blues.” The song never loses its relevance, unfortunately. The off-Broadway musical Soft Power is not power pop or poprock. But it is just too of-our-present-moment to overlook. The show is a reverse King and I, one where America is exotified rather than some nameless Asian country and actors of Asian descent play everyone, including white characters in white-face. The cast performs “Election Night” as a key song in the show, laying out America’s electoral process – but not quite.
Really though, what are Americans fighting over in this election? If you follow the minutiae of the legislative process you can find a great many important things that should be fueling political debate. But at the headline level the contest is just a slugfest of competing insults. One side decries the ignorance and unsuitability of a former President returning to office while the other plays patriot games about who loves American more. Amy Rigby works up a Brydsian jangle with help from partner Wreckless Eric on “The President Can’t Read,” carefully detailing a litany of Trumpian faults. She’s not wrong but logic and facts won’t reach an audience that has chosen to ‘identify’ with their chosen one. Meanwhile Aaron Lee Tasjan also parses America’s many political travails on “I Love America Better Than You” in his best Tom Petty style but it is the song title that really captures what is going for so many across the U.S.A. With so little to show, money and career-wise, all they’ve really got to hold on to is that tattered, out-of-reach American dream.
Hey America, good luck with that election thing (and whatever chaos comes after). Actually, luck is probably something we’re all gonna need soon.
J.D. McPherson has the pulse of rock and roll, old school. But he’s not just working the oldies circuit. Where other people try to lift sounds from the past in derivative ways, McPherson breathes new life into classic, recognizable rock motifs. His new album Nite Owls, his first of new (non-holiday) material since 2017, is one part primordial rock and roll dance record, one part spooky scene setter. Tracks like “Sunshine Getaway” and “Baby Blues” throw out a groove that won’t let you sit still. By the time “Rock and Roll Girls” ends you’ll be covered in sweat and ready to hit the bar but “I Can’t Get Anywhere With You” will keep you swaying as you wait in line. Other songs stoke the excitement in a more meditative fashion. Take “Just Like Summer,” a track that bristles with rogue rockabilly guitar. “Don’t Travel Through the Night Alone” is made for strolling in the late night streetlight along wet pavement. “Shining Like Gold” is the midtempo should-be radio hit, matching rumble guitar with a disarmingly seductive vocal. As an album Nite Owls refuses to settle down, switching things up on tempo amidst a flurry of striking guitar tones. Just check out McPherson’s spot-on revival of Al Caiola’s distinctive Magnificent Seven guitar attack that appears on the record’s lone instrumental “The Phantom Lover of New Rochelle.” And then there’s the magnificent sign-off “That’s What a Love Song Does to You,” a lush, lilting effort that falls somewhere between the Ink Spots and the Beach Boys. People, I have seen the future of rock and roll’s past and it is in safe hands with J.D. McPherson.
Find out what J.D. McPherson can do to you at his website.
Poprock Record 