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California Bride, Delusions of Grand Fur, Lake Michigan, Nourishment Nation, Publish My Love, Rogue Wave, Solitary Gun
… and you’re sitting, well, not on top of the world, but somewhere – interesting. Since 2004 California’s Rogue Wave have been releasing albums that tweak and redirect that state’s peculiar dream-state, inviting a melancholy re-assessment of life and the act of living it. Their 2005 single “Publish My Love” stood out from the pack of bands peddling acoustic-guitar based, pleasant-sounding pop songs for its starkly original sound: all the classic poprock motifs were there but somehow Rogue Wave put it together in a distinctive way.
Throughout their career the band has riffed on a number of key elements, rebalancing the mix through different albums and songs. “Nourishment Nation” from 2004’s Out of the Shadow leans on acoustic guitars up front, with other keyboards popping in here and there to push the song in different directions. “Salesmen at the Day of the Parade” from 2005’s Descended Like Vultures is a straightforward, somber, acoustic guitar ballad. “Lake Michigan” from 2007’s Asleep at Heaven’s Gate is a sonically brilliant pop tune, resting on a bed of highly original percussion.
“Solitary Gun” from 2010’s Permalight could slip easily on to your favourite Shins’ album with all the requisite acoustic guitar swing and pop hooks. “College” from 2013’s Nightingale Floors is classic Rogue Wave: chiming guitars, churning percussion, and a hummable tune.
Their new release is the whimsically-titled Delusions of Grand Fur and it reproduces all that the band excels at: highly textured production, a solid bed of acoustic guitars, creative instrumentation, and catchy tunes made more interesting by inventive vocal and percussion arrangements. Highlights include “In the Morning,” “Look at Me,” and the stunning, stand-out single, “California Bride” with its shimmering guitars and dreamy vocals.
Rogue Wave are currently on tour and no doubt would prefer to play packed houses everywhere. Find out more on their Facebook and band webpages.
Free Energy have a number irresistible singles across their two albums and EP. Things started off well with their debut song “Free Energy.” There is something audacious and mildly amusing about forcing deejays to say ‘here’s “Free Energy” by Free Energy!’ Say what? Even before they got their own material out, they had a killer cover of Springsteen’s “I’m Going Down.” Their 2010 debut album Stuck on Nothing channels a mixture of Bachman Turner Overdrive riffing with 1980s pop song sensibilities. “Light Love” has it all – swirling, candy-coated guitar sounds, fattened up vocals, and some great slow burn hooks. 2013’s Love Sign offers up more of the same, along with a few more languid pop gems, like “Dance All Night.” Free Energy are like a retro-1980s dance party band, but with fresh material. Since 2013, things have slowed considerably for the band, with some solo material from various band members emerging. However, their Facebook page did recently indicate that more would be coming from this band.
September 2012 I casually checked out something called iTunes Festival on the Apple TV home screen and accidentally discovered Jake Bugg. The feeling was electric. Kinda like when I saw Tracy Chapman open for John Martyn in Manchester in 1988 three months before her breakthrough appearance at the Nelson Mandela concert at Wembley Stadium in London – everyone in that northern club knew we had just seen a major talent. Bugg’s debut album came out in October and it did not disappoint. Everything that made his iTunes performance amazing was there. Shockingly, the album opened at number one on the British charts.
Many have written about Jake Bugg’s youth, his songs, guitar playing, and singing style, but what struck me as special about Bugg was his authenticity. His songs were all about working class life in middling England in the new millennium, something overlooked in most of popular culture. Indeed, the absence of any cultural mirror for the experiences of working class youth in most western countries makes the occasional mention stand out in stark relief. Bugg’s debut album gave voice to a generation left behind by the economy and the political class in songs like “Two Fingers,” “Seen It All,” and “Trouble Town.” Sure, some fans and music writers just listened esthetically, hearing the folk, folk blues, and rudimentary rock and roll sound, but the ability to speak authentically about his community’s class experience touched a nerve for those who were listening. However, after touring with the album for over a year, Bugg told journalists he doubted he could write about such experiences anymore because his life had changed so much.
Bugg’s new album, On My One, is almost out and it appears to be similar to and different from his earlier material. The social themes remain but he pushes himself artistically into new genres. Growing up in the new century nobody consumes just one style of music so it was hardly surprising that Bugg’s talent could not be contained in just a few styles. “On My One” evokes the lonely solo acoustic guitar sound of Don McLean’s American Pie album, specifically “Vincent” and “Till Tomorrow,” while drawing from Bugg’s experience as a performer on tour. “Love, Hope and Misery” confirms Bugg’s talent for remaking the American blues ballad in his own style. But my favourite amongst the currently available selections from the record is “Bitter Salt,” a song unlike anything Bugg has done to date, a catchy poprock effort with a punchy arrangement and solid hooks.
Back in 1996 I got my copy of One Chord to Another and thought it was pretty cool, but frankly I was a bit distracted. I didn’t give it the worship it deserved. Reviewing it now I can better appreciate how this band had it all going on – great sound, solid hooks, and a palpable authenticity. How did Nova Scotia produce such a monster act? Their first EP Peppermint and full length album Smeared had a great indie sound, with both versions of “Underwhelmed” worth hitting repeat on. But their first major label effort, 1994’s Twice Removed, announced the arrival of a polished and original musical force, with “Penpals” a great weird single. Then they turned around and dumped their major label (Geffen) and turned out another great record, 1996’s One Chord to Another, spending one-tenth the budget of the previous one. While the album is bursting with great tracks, I’m partial to the very Beatle-esque “The Lines You Amend.” Talk was, Sloan would be the next big thing worldwide. But things didn’t really pan out that way.
Earlier this month I saw Sloan play One Chord to Another in its entirety at the Phoenix in Toronto as part of 20th anniversary tour commemorating the album. The show was broken into two sets, with the first blasting through OCTA and the second drawing from their other ten albums. Despite owning three of their records, I couldn’t name a single tune, though their audience was pretty well informed, drowning out the band on a few sing-a-longs. After such an amazing show, I decided to school myself on all things Sloan. Was this a band just reliving the glory of a few early records? After reviewing their catalogue, I can honestly say ‘no’. If anything, Sloan’s records only improve over time as the band expands its sonic range and songwriting scope. And that is saying something because those early records – Smeared, Twice Removed, One Chord to Another, Navy Blues – showcase the signature early sound of Sloan where the vocals and guitars slide together into a great sonic mash of hook-laden tunes. But, I will have you believe, their later material is even better.
Victoria’s Sam Weber has material that sounds deceptively simple but there is significant depth to his songs: subtle hooks, sophisticated production, and great arrangements. His 2014’s debut album, Shadows in the Road, has so many great songs it is hard to showcase just a few. Certainly “Right Hearted” has to be singled out as the obvious radio single. While the intro might be a little long, when the acoustic guitar kicks in the song takes off, stratospherically so when the keyboard appears at the 1:17 point. There is a very Sam Roberts feel to the hooks and chorus.Right Hearted
Sam Weber and band appearing live in a Toronto living room, May 2016.
Linus of Hollywood, stage name for Los Angeles musical polymath Kevin Dotson, has distilled a unique blend of 1960s/1970s influenced poprock on his four albums and various singles since 1999. And he has a voice that is often a dead ringer for Squeeze frontman Glen Tilbrook. The album catalogue might look a bit thin, but that’s just because he’s in such constant demand to do music for television and movies and produce and write songs for other people’s records to pay the bills. But what he has managed to put out is quality stuff, fully deserving of stratospheric success.
All that went before was enjoyable but 2014’s Something Good takes Linus of Hollywood’s performance to a new level. As 
“David Newberry sings folk music with rock sensibilities. Or is it the other way around?”
Casting back through Newberry’s catalogue there are so many great songs, ones that touch on both the personal and political. I am partial to “4th Fret” and “The End” from When We Learn the Things We Need to Learn and “Easter” and “English Bay” from No One Will Remember You. But his 2014 EP Desire Lines definitely represents a shift in approach – now the record seems more than just a collection of songs and Newberry is clearly experimenting with his sound and image. Listen to these two starkly different treatments of his song “Slow”: one draws from his folkie electric esthetic while the other is a full blown poprock song. Personally, I think the latter has got hit single written all over it.
If Desire Lines and the radio edit of “Slow” represented a boundary-testing bit of experimentation, then 2015’s Replacement Things comes on like a new, more comfortable synthesis of his many influences. This is a solid record with great songs and a coherent, unique sound. Littered with references to his sometime Vancouver home, I’d have to call out “Coyote,” “Shiny Pretty Things,” and the haunting “Freddy Mercury” as my stand-out tracks.
Sure, when you first hear Edward O’Connell you get the Costello vibe, you get it bad (by which I mean you get something good). You might even think “Hey, this guy is putting out the albums I wish Elvis Costello would …” But the seemingly familiar Costello ring to the songs, to the vocals, to the turns of phrase is so much more than simply reminiscent. O’Connell has taken the inspiration and made it his own. And there is so much more influence afoot in his two albums of material: a bit of Matthew Sweet, a dash of Peter Case, even some Marshall Crenshaw and, of course, Nick Lowe and Tom Petty.
His debut record from 2010, Our Little Secret, is a solid start: a host of great tunes and a cover riffing off of Nick Lowe’s Jesus of Cool album and the unknown comic. “I Heard It Go” has a great turnaround in the chorus, “Cold Dark World” has wonderfully shimmery vocals, “We Will Bury You” is trademark Costello country, while “All My Dreams” sounds like a lost track from Imperial Bedroom. But the standout song on this album for me is the majestic “Pretty Wasted.” A real gem that exudes equal parts Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, with a lovely Nick Lowe lyrical sleight of hand with the line ‘She’s pretty wasted … pretty wasted on you.’ Pretty Wasted
Four long years passed before O’Connell’s sophomore effort, Vanishing Act, emerged in 2014, but it was worth the wait. The album kicks off with strong material in “My Dumb Luck” and “Lonely Crowd” but the third tune, “Every Precious Day,” is a master class in poprock songwriting: killer guitar riff opener, great Tom Pettyish vocals, with just a hint of Crowded House in the swirling organ and guitar work at the 2/3 mark. Other highlights include “Severance Kiss” (with another great guitar opener), “Odds Against Tomorrow,” “Yesterday’s World,” and “Last to Leave” with its exquisite low tempo atmosphere. “The End of the Line” deserves to be featured if only for its surprisingly aggressive guitar opener that then melds seamlessly into a super midtempo poprock number. But my favourite song on the record is the witty Nick Lowe-ish “I’m the Man,” a sad tale of a man who ‘should have seen it coming’ with his death-obsessed partner.
I was minding my own business enjoying John D. Macdonald’s The Quick Red Fox when the protagonist Travis McGee pulled into Sausalito as part of his latest adventure and suddenly I was thinking of a song I hadn’t thought of for decades: Diesel’s “Sausalito Summernight.” I distinctly remember hearing this song on the radio in 1981 and playing it at some of the first high school dances I deejayed for a mobile sound company. Diesel joined the lonely ranks of Dutch hitmakers in the United States, groups like the Shocking Blue (“Venus”) and Golden Earring (“Radar Love,” “Twilight Zone”). Looking back now, the song sounds incredibly tightly focused and executed – the addictive lead line that propels the song never lets up, the multilayered vocals are drenched in reverb, and so on. It’s like a soft drink that is just too sweet. But I still love it.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s I had the pleasure of acting as a roadie of sorts for a guitar-god friend of mine whose band had a brief blast of Canadian music fame. Bruno Gerussi’s Medallion was the brainchild of Vancouver Province rock writer Tom Harrison, an outlet for his love of 1960s garage rock and various forms of 1970s alternative rock and roll. In 1989 they were signed to WEA Canada and released one album, In Search of the Fourth Chord.
They took their name from Canadian actor Bruno Gerussi, who starred for 18 years as Nick Adonidas, a beachcomber on British Columbia’s coastline in one of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s most successful shows, The Beachcombers. At the same time he hosted a cooking show where he would wear a very large medallion around his neck, thus the name of the band. I was at the show at the Town Pump in Vancouver where Nick actually met the band and heard some of their music. I’m not sure it was really his style. As a band, BGM showcased all the classic 1960s and 1970s underground sounds but, frankly, sounded too good to be garage rock and too polished to be punk, while Tom’s singing was more like talking. Reading the liner notes for BGM’s sole album, the record sounds surprisingly coherent given the changing line-up of players. In terms of songs, both “Ginger’s Alright” and “Tell Me What You Found” stand out for me, the former for the tune and the latter for the musical arrangement. Ginger’s Alright Tell Me What You Found
BGM eventually morphed into Little Games, a moniker taken from the Yardbirds’ record of the same name. However, their recording contract with WEA lapsed and Little Games’ only record, Guitar Damage, would be released on the band’s own BGM Record label. And that was a shame, because in so many ways Guitar Damage was a more solid record. For instance, unlike BGM, Little Games had a stable line-up of players, Tom was actually singing more than just talking his way through the songs, and the song selection itself was strong in terms of covers and original material. I particularly liked the band’s composition “Muswell Hill Ray,” a name-dropping tribute to songs by the Kinks’ Ray Davies, as well as their cover of the Standells’ garage rock classic, “Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White.” Muswell Hill RaySometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White
Poprock Record 