Tags
Better Living Through Compression, Cliff Hillis, Dream Good, Jonathan Rundman, Look Up, Lost Songs, Make Love Not War, Many Happy Returns, Public Library, Reservoir, Song Machine
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 Bandcamp page has 24 different entries and one gets the sense from the write ups that this just scratches the surface of his total recorded output. So where to start? His latest release might be good: Reservoir is a 22 song compilation spanning his whole career and it is chock full of cleverly crafted poprock and Americana songs. A definite highlight is “Librarian” originally from his 2004 release, Public Library. Nice electric 12 string opener gives way an acoustic-based strummy sound which breaks out into a very dreamy chorus – a perfectly crafted single. Or an older compilation from 2007, 20 songs from the 20th Century, would also be a good jumping off point. Here the range goes from the rootsy “Front Show at the Fashion Show” to the Beatlesque “Read the Signs” to the observational poprock of Fountains of Wayne on “Grace is Crying her Eyes Out.”
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.”
Go Go Go
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 Soundcloud page for a host of demos, unreleased original material, and covers.
Songcrafters are marked by their ability to write in many different styles, to work up a song in a chameleon-like way to inhabit different sub-genres of music. Both Jonathan Rundman and Cliff Hillis fit this bill effortlessly. Start exploring their impressive catalogues online now.
Just stepped out the Tardis, back from a quick trip to San Francisco circa 1967 and I could swear I heard Daisy House blasting out of some greasy spoon on the Castro. They’re that authentic. Welcome to Daisy House. If you love Joni Mitchell, the Mamas and Papas, the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, then you are going to want to stay awhile. I went to their bandcamp site to download just a few choice cuts but ended up buying it all – they’re that good. It’s not just that they emote a particularly addictive blend of 1960s folk rock + killer harmony vocals, the songwriting is also first class. Daisy House are a father and daughter duo, Doug and Tatiana Hammond, with dad writing and playing on nearly all the songs while both provide vocals. Over four albums, they have developed their clear influences into an impressive body of work.
The debut is simply 2013’s Daisy House. The basic formula is here: twelve string acoustic and electric guitars, a celtic twist in the songwriting, with vocals reminiscent of Joni Mitchell (on “Ready to Go” and “Cold Ships”), the Mamas and Papas (on “Two Sisters”), and Richard and Linda Thompson (on “The Bottle’s Red”). The Byrdsian influence is particularly strong with dad’s vocal on “Statue Maker.” 2014’s Beaus and Arrows reproduces the ambience of the debut, with a few new surprises, like a very early solo Paul Simon atmosphere on the Salinger-inspired “Raise the Roof Beam Carpenter.” I agree with Don over at 
Things break out in new directions with 2016’s Western Man. There is an eerie mystery to the musical ambiance of the opening track, “Lilac Man,” that signals a significant stylistic shift. “Yellow Moon Road” expands the duo’s palette to include more 1960s garage rock sounds, particularly some cool organ. And the songs are amazing. “Like a Superman” has a clear Mamas and Papas stamp, “She Comes Running to Me” is lathered with great harmonies, while “Twenty One” opens with a deliberate homage to “When You Walk in the Room” before branching into its own original sound. But the album’s highlight is undoubtedly the hit single-worthy “The Boulevard.” You can just hear Mama Cass belting it out while the Wrecking Crew provides the crisp, swinging backdrop – except that it is not those amazing performers, it is these amazing performers: Daisy House.
This year’s Crossroads is another breakthrough for the duo, putting their sound more solidly on the rock side of folk rock. On “Languages” Tatiana sounds like a young Chrissie Hynde. This is the hit single, but there are many more highlights. The title track, “Crossroads,” has some Tom Petty Wildflowers-era bite while “Leaving the Star Girl” ramps up the Byrds influences. Dad is featured vocally on the evocative Paul Simon-esque, acoustic-based “Pristy Lee” and the more Byrdsian “The Girl Who Holds My Hand,” both strong songs and performances. But the highlights for me, beyond the obvious single (“Languages”), are two Tatiana vocals, the Kate Bush-like atmosphere on the beautiful and haunting vocal of “Albion” as well as the more Chrissie Hynde delivery of “Night of the Hunter.”
Some bands throw their guitars to the front of mix or offer up some hooky guitar lick that drives the song. This post features songs from bands where the guitar attack is a key part of the charm but none take up the challenge in quite the same way.
Poole’s “Supermerica” blasts open with a guitar storm not unlike more than few singles from Fountains of Wayne but the vocals have more of a Bob Mould solo tinge. The band put out three albums in the 1990s but didn’t really take off, sadly, as their 1995 debut Alaska Days is fantastic and features this song. The Travoltas drop into “I’m Sorry” with crunchy load of rhythm guitar before settling into a great poprock sound that the Dutch seem to have patented in recent years with bands like this one and Tommy and the Rockets. 
This song has nice of dose of Beach Boys harmony about two-thirds of the way through, not surprisingly given this 2002 album title is Endless Summer. The band’s most recent album, Until We Hit the Shore, continues to mine this beach-infused party punk sound. 
Australia’s Genes or The Genes (depending on the recording) make their acoustic guitars jump out of the speakers on tracks like “A Smile Will Do” and “I Know.” Our featured track is from their 1995 record, Buy a Guitar, and the whole record is pretty consistently acoustic guitar dominant in ways you didn’t really think possible. Of the three bands, only the Travoltas seems serious about promoting their music online. You will search in vain for much info or a website for the other two.I’m SorryA Smile Will Do
Of the bands featured in this post, The Ivins probably most fit the bill of potential mainstream rock success with “Roam the World” from their new album, The Code Duello. 
By contrast, Odd Robot give off an indie vibe both in terms of their guitar sound but also their vocal style. I love how it all comes together on our featured song “Take With Two White Pills” from their recent album A Late Night Panic. The guitars and vocals are some great poprock, tweaked with just a hint of that discordant indie élan. Wrapping up this post is recovering noise punk band, Terry Malts. I say ‘recovering’ because the boys appear to be changing their stripes with this most recent single “It’s Not Me” but there are indications that old habits die hard. 
The song opens with a crisp lead guitar line that loops around as the main hook of the tune while the vocals are bit more shoegaze. It’s a really great poprock single but it is about the only one in their extensive catalogue. Ok, I shouldn’t be greedy, one song is better than none. However, when I saw the band recently in Toronto even this song got the noise punk treatment. Would love to see more songs in this vein from the band.
Are you a fan of Fastball? If you love straight up rock and roll with a keen sense of melody, you should be. Fastball is another band that I somehow missed when they broke out in the 1990s and have only just discovered recently. Now when you mention Fastball to people they nearly always know “The Way” and that’s about it. Sure, it’s a great song but I’m not even sure it’s the best song on that album, let alone the defining moment of their career. This is band that just keeps getting better and better with each album release.
Their debut album from 1996, Make Your Mama Proud, lays out the basic genius at work here. This is a band that gels solidly around the rock and roll combo fundamentals – solid beat, hooky lead guitar lines, and a generous helping of harmony vocals – captured nicely in the featured tune here, “Seattle.” Then came their breakout album, 1998’s All the Pain that Money Can Buy with its monster single “The Way.” Personally I prefer “Fire Escape,” “Slow Drag,” and the brilliant “Out of My Head.” The band followed up that hit album with The Harsh Light of Day, a record that really pushed the development of their sound melodically and sonically (let those guitars ring!), apparent on tracks like “Don’t Give Up On Me.” But audiences didn’t take to the new sound and sales fell off precipitously.
The band pressed on in 2004 with what might be their greatest achievement, Keep Your Wig On. The songwriting on this record is amazing, with Petty-esque brilliance on tracks like “Perfect World,” and “Our Misunderstanding,” or the easygoing, almost Eagles-like confidence of “Someday” or “Mercenary,” or the Mexicali fun of “Red Light.” Five years later, Little White Lies took the band into a more melody-drenched direction and the should-be hits are many: check out the James Bond undercurrent to “Little White Lies,” the great swing of “Mono to Stereo,” or the nice Beatles’ touches and bouncy piano on “She’s Got the Rain.”
Fast forward to 2017 and Fastball are back after an absence of eight years with what I am prepared to boldly declare may be their best record yet: Step Into Light. The record blasts off with “We’re On Our Way,” a rocking number with a few ELO flourishes on the keyboards. Vocals give way from the more rough-hewn Mike Zuniga to the oh-so-smooth Tony Scalzo on the next track, “Best Friend,” a song that screams hit single with its propulsive, driving hookiness. Other candidates for hit single include the Beatlesque “I Will Never Let You Down” (with its great video!) and the very catchy “Just Another Dream.” The care in choosing the instrumental mix on this record is impressive. Check out the nice guitar bits on “I Will Never Let You Down” that echo George Harrison’s simple and straightforward guitar lines on a host of mid-career Beatles records. Or the jaunty acoustic guitar that anchors “Behind the Sun,” clearly an homage to McCartney’s felicitous picking on tunes like “Mother Nature’s Son.” I could go on. Suffice to say, there isn’t a bum track here – if you like one song, you’re going to want the whole album.
They’re Feltworth, actually, a puppet band with a plausible backstory and a couple (literally) of killer tunes. The whole concept is brilliant and funny but what aces the deal is that the music is no joke. If they sound a lot like Canadian indie poprockers Sloan, well that’s just the rumour mill for you. Here’s the pitch: Feltworth, a quartet of cat felt puppets (another fab four, though here ‘fab’ is short for fabric) allegedly have been working the kids music scene for years but now have turned their back on the tots for more adult fare. You can get the whole elaborate and amusing story in a recent interview with 
Instrumentals are the original cross cultural phenomena. Not just because they overcome the language barrier in an increasingly global world, but also because they tend to be the first bridge crossed by generationally divided tastes. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, albums of often tepid instrumentals introduced Elvis and the Beatles to an aging record buying public brought up on swing bands and Frank Sinatra. Rock and roll was too noisy for them but the hooks proved too much to ignore. Radio stations offering ‘easy listening’ formats of contemporary songs done in an instrumental style were a popular addition to elevators and doctors’ offices everywhere by the 1970s. Then with the explosion of California beach and car culture in the early 1960s instrumentals became a thing in rock and roll too. Today, its an established sub-genre.
Which brings us to this fabulous interpretation of Nick Lowe’s 1975 throw away tribute to the Bay City Rollers, “Rollers Show.” For Nick, the song was largely a contractual obligation effort, a way to cynically cash in on the teenybopper love of all things BCR at the time and fulfill his contract with United Artists records. But even knock offs from Nick can still showcase his songwriting magic, lovingly teased out in this rendition from the hilarious, over-the-top instrumental group Los Straightjackets. The band has produced a whole album of Nick covers and they are not merely knock offs. Each song is creatively reinterpreted, sometimes in boldly different ways (check out their languid version of “Cruel to be Kind” as an example). The first single was a great version of “Peace, Love and Understanding” but my current faves are “All Men Are Liars,” “I Live on a Battlefield,” and, most of all, “Rollers Show,” which really is the standout track here in my view. The album cover is pretty cool too – a riff on Lowe’s Jesus of Cool album with Nick himself featured prominently. Rollers Show
I love unusual life stories. Like Charlotte, North Carolina’s Leisure McCorkle. William ‘Lee’ McCorkle is Leisure McCorkle, the band and its larger than life leader, songwriter, guitar player and vocalist, with help from some occasional band members. In 1997 he launched his recording career with the largely homemade EP Nappy Superstar. Since then he’s released another EP and three albums, only two of which are available digitally. The wrinkle in McCorkle’s story is that he took a break in his rock and roll career to get a PhD in evolutionary and cognitive psychology and do the professor thing. But that didn’t stop him from roaring back in 2016 with another killer album after a break of thirteen years! Most attention on the internet focuses on his 2003 release Jet Set Baby and the more recent 5000 Light Years Beyond the Speed of Sound, the only recordings readily available to music consumers. Hopefully the rest of his back catalogue will cross the digital divide soon, but in the interim our focus will be on these two releases as well.
Jet Set Baby is 44 minutes of blistering rock and roll fun. Internet reviewers have rightly highlighted the nods to the early new wave sound of Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, with a healthy dollop of early Cars guitar crunch and some very creative keyboards. But the influences are always reminiscent, never derivative, in part because the songwriting and execution are so strong. Check out the languid, chorus pedal-drenched guitar opener of “Does She Really Know?” before it segues into some great hooks. Or the transition from spare electric guitar to anthem-like chorus on “Like That.” McCorkle does slow things down occasionally on nice tracks like “100%” and “Dissin’ You” but mostly the record rocks out with hook-filled masterpieces like “This Girl,” the swinging “Alcohol,” and achingly sweet “Blum’s Lullaby.” These are should-be hits by any measure.Does She Really Know?AlcoholBlum’s Lullaby
Now fast forward past a decade of building an academic career to when McCorkle decided to return to his first love in 2016 with the release of 5000 Light Years Beyond the Speed of Sound. The first thing you notice on “Warehouse,” the opening track, is a little less vocal edge, a little less urgency in hitting the rock and roll marks. Here McCorkle is willing to let the sonic effect wash over the listener a bit more, at least until the lead guitar comes in near the end with a slightly edgy but still melodic flourish. “Transmission” sounds a bit late 1970s pop to me a la the California sound. “Acting Like a Friend of Mine” reminds me a bit of some of Springsteen’s more recent melody-heavy poprock releases while “Turn It Up” harkens a bit more back to his earlier material. One of the standout tracks is “Ghost Angeles” with its lovely vocal arrangement and strongly acoustic backdrop, very Teenage Fanclub-esque, as is the album’s closer “The Loneliest I’ve Ever Been.”WarehouseActing Like a FriendGhost Angeles
I stumbled across Ginger Wildeheart quite recently and quickly found myself wondering how I hadn’t heard of him before. This guy oozes talent. Whatever style he turns to, he masters. Whatever hook he is crafting, he nails it. He has so many bands and recordings, it is going to take me some time just get through them all. So today we’ll just feature this recent bit of ear candy, his 2016 single “If You Find Yourself in London Town.” Deceptively sweet sounding, the single is peppered with a hint of menace, kinda like a Mike Leigh film. Ok, I can’t resist, I have to include one more great tune, this time from one of Ginger’s many side projects, Hey! Hello!, a concentrated piece of rock pop entitled “Swimwear.”
I loved Sunday Sun from the first time I heard the opening refrains of their Beatlesque “Beating Low” from the 2012 EP Iii. The combination of carefully constructed vocal harmonies over jangly guitars was a formula that couldn’t lose for me. Their most recent long player Live Out Loud accents the pop over the rock effectively rebalancing their sound away from their earlier work. Would I have preferred some more prominent Rickenbacker guitar lines here and there? Sure. But the band write such catchy and clever songs and the vocals are so impressive, what you have here is still pretty awesome. “When We Kiss” is relentless in its hooky delivery, “Can’t Stop” has a great swing, “Marry You” is a lovely acoustic number just in time for the wedding season, and “Oh Let Me Love You” could easily be a super Hall and Oates single.
From the opening of Umm’s “Black Summer” you wouldn’t think they would get past the censors on this blog. But just wait for the vocals. This duo enjoy an eerie symbiosis vocally that is enthralling (and the cool organ runs don’t hurt either). Couple Chris Senseney and Stefanie Drootin had a band called Big Harp that had a nice folky/synthy thing going (check out “Golden Age” below for a taste) but in a recent interview noted they were grooving a lot on the Everly Brothers’ harmonies and knew they needed a new vehicle to take up this direction. The result is Umm, a kind of Everly Brothers on acid, though they also remind me of a lot of other great duos out now, many that we’ve reviewed here like the amazing Jack and Eliza or The Kickstand Band. Check out their super video for “Oh Yes No” featuring Creative Commons film footage from “Westinghouse Traveler’s Choice 66” from the Prelinger Archives.
Mystery be thy name, Spirit Kid. There is not a lot to find about this act other than their many great recordings. Spirit Kid is the name of the band and their first album from 2010, which features two strong tracks in “My Imagination” and “Assumed by You.” “Wrong Kind of Money” from the same year is pretty good too. 2011 saw a strong EP with Happiness where the band sound really gels into an Apples in Stereo groove. Is Happening came out in 2014 with “Playing Cupid” and “Heart Attack” but then there is a break until this year’s “To My Romeo.” Easy going and poppy, with just a hint of T Rex and the British glam sound. Love the cover art on the most recent single as well – very fun!
Long Dream is the most recent album from Title Tracks, a band with dreamy sound, vocals that remind me of The Smithereens at times, with some very cool guitar lead lines. “I Don’t Need to Know” bolts out of the pen in a very Bob Mould style, with some cool breakout lead guitar. “Empty Heavens” has a more languid strummy feel with the treble significantly upped on the lead guitar. “Peaceful Uses” has a nice instrumental roll out before settling into a catchy indie poprock vibe. Given how solid this record is, I look forward to mining their back catalogue more carefully.
It was 1982. I was 17, gay as springtime, and loved rock and roll. Musically at that time I would find myself caught between different worlds – there really wasn’t any place to call home. That same year a friend of mine and I snuck into our first gay bar. I thought it was going to be great, to finally be somewhere full of other gay people. But I just couldn’t get past the terrible music. It was all tuneless dance beats, nary a guitar or a melodic hook in sight. I thought of myself as pretty well informed about all kinds of music even then but all night I didn’t recognize a single song. Years later I would come to appreciate why gay popular culture had evolved as it had, why a certain kind of music dominated the scene then. But at the time I experienced it as incredibly alienating. Just another place I didn’t fit in.
And then came The Smiths. There may have been acts that I liked more at the time but none affected me as profoundly as this Manchester quartet. I found a copy of “What Difference Does it Make” in the discard pile at my radio broadcasting school and it blew my head off. The guitar hook immediately had my full attention but the lyrics were also startling – this was my life in a rock and roll song, something that had never happened before. I immediately set out to find more and picked up the BBC sessions/compilation album Hatful of Hollow. The fall of 1984 was all Smiths, all the time. The songs were so obviously about working class gay experience – “William, It Was Really Nothing,” “This Charming Man,” “Handsome Devil,” etc. – that it was painfully embarrassing to see Morrissey equivocate about his sexuality in later interviews. British artists in the 1980s seemed divided about taking a stand on gay identity with Morrissey and the Pet Shops Boys avoiding the issue while others like Bronksi Beat wrote powerfully direct songs like “Small Town Boy.” Later Smiths albums were definitely more oblique about sexuality, but it didn’t matter. The early recordings broke through a barrier of rock and roll masculinity, proving to be as exciting as any previous three chord wonder. Others would take note.
Many years later a 
With seven albums of original material there is simply too much to review here but I could easily single out a host of songs from across their catalogue. From the early period I would note the above-mentioned songs from Undressed, “Don’t Be So Sure” and “Kevin” from 1996’s Wish I’d Taken Pictures, and “Sweet Insecurity” and “Used to Turn Me On” from 1998’s Absurd Pop Song Romance. The band branches out stylistically in the new century with some new guitar sounds and song structures. 2003’s Total Entertainment comes on like a rush of adrenaline with a new sonic mix on tracks like “When He Comes Home,” “Not Good Enough for You,” and “First Betrayal,” while 2009’s That’s So Gay pumps the politics quotient on “Some of My Best Friends” and the ‘not taking ourselves too seriously’ factor on “Dirty Young Man” and “Pat Me on the Ass.” 2016’s Quite Contrary album mimics the cover of their Wish I’d Taken Pictures record released twenty years earlier, replacing the strapping lads of the original with the band’s now aging selves, though they still seem to be cavorting and having a good time. The song themes too reflect their present gay circumstances with issues like the ongoing religious attacks on queers in the US in “Blame the Bible” or aging in “(Is This What It’s Like) Getting Old.” Being from Canada, I have to high five Pansy Division’s ode to our great white north, “Manada” which manages to name check a host of Canadian cities and laud out boys, with versions in both English and French! These guys are a class act.
In the end, the question remains: is it really that important whether a band is gay or not? Yes and no. As I’ve grown older, more comfortable and confident about who I am, I don’t necessarily need to be surrounded by reflections of myself. I love all kinds of music regardless of sexuality or any other kinds of identity markings. But when we are young it is terribly important to see ourselves in popular culture. To be invisible in the world is to be invisible to ourselves. To have our hopes and dreams, heartaches and disappointments given expression in culture is to be part of the broader world. Indeed, to identify across our differences requires first that those differences be articulated. Perhaps it is easier for a rock and roll gay boy today. I hope so, though we should never underestimate how hard it is to be different. Despite the gains in social tolerance, western societies remain profoundly conformist in a host of ways.
Dan Rico is back with Nobody Knows, proving with this dynamic 11 minute EP that he is much more than a one album wonder. The familiar elements are all there – the neo-1970s pastiche of glam and 1950s rock and roll – with a few new twists. Opening track “Love in Vain” gets the party started with its insistent boogie beat but Rico blows the doors off with a killer hook at the 40 second mark that will have you hitting rewind almost immediately. “Nobody Knows” captures that border line 1970s punk-cum-garage rock sound with a nice guitar line. Rounding out the EP is “Rock-a-bye” with its hints of pop psychedelia and the mild melodrama of “Roxy Goddamn.”
Coventry’s The Primitives also have a new EP out, New Thrills, and from the opening riff of “I’ll Trust the Wind” you know you’re about to get just what you came for: catchy melodies, ringing guitars, and Tracy Tracy’s cool but understated pop vocals. All four tracks are the high quality 1960s-inspired poprock fare you’ve come to expect from this combo but check out the distinctive echo-y guitar sound and hooks on “Same Stuff” and lead guitarist Paul Court’s nice vocal turn on the chirpy “Oh Honey Sweet.” I could write and write about how great this band is but, really, it’s all there in the recordings. Just hit play.
On the new discovery front, Richard Turgeon is a modern everyman: successful purveyor of image and communication skills, music business ‘how to’ book writer, novelist, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter, as well as suburban husband and father. He put together his latest record, Between the Spaces, literally between the spaces of his busy work and home life, ‘mostly on nights and weekends’ as he says on his website. The album kicks off with the very fun “Bigfoot’s an Alien” but really gets into gear for me with pristine poprock of “Bad Seed,” a driving number that reminds me of Matthew Sweet. “I Don’t Need You” opens with a great guitar hook and has a super sing-a-long chorus. The whole album is pretty solid, full of well-crafted tunes but, if pressed, I find myself most partial to the above-mentioned selections as well as “Watch Me Now” and “Frostbites.”
Our last breaking new discovery is Cait Brennan. New to me, it appears, because there is a hell of lot written about her first record and unusual career path on the ole internet (thanks to 
Poprock Record 