Category Archives: Artist Spotlight

A few degrees from Chris Collingwood

12 Sunday Jan 2025

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Damn I miss Fountains of Wayne. A friend sent me their 1996 debut knowing I was snowed under with a new career path and from there they joined a small coterie of my very favourite bands. They didn’t put out a lot of records but I cherish each one. The group’s main songwriters also produced some great solo  stuff, Adam Schleshinger with Ivy and host of other  projects and Chris Collingwood with Look Park. Schleshinger sadly passed away in 2020 but lately I’ve been wondering if there isn’t something I’ve missed from Collingwood. It’s been eight years or so since his Look Park project debuted. Surely he’s worked up a tune or two since then? A search on the ole interweb didn’t turn up much, though I did come across mention of his short-lived Gay Potatoes indie supergroup and a live performance from 2000. From what I can tell, group members included Collingwood, Gentle Hen’s Henning Ohlenbusch and Phillip B. Price of The Maggies and Winterpills. So if I can’t have a new Collingwood or Look Park record at least I can get a few degrees closer by exploring these projects and collaborators.

Let’s start with the Gay Potatoes show. It’s a fun, ramshackle affair, apparently the band’s first live appearance. The song line-up reflects that fact there are three songwriters and singers in the group. Show opener “Another Right Time” definitely captures the band’s power poppy energy. Price’s “Ballad of Frank Strange” and Collingwood’s future FOW tune “Hung Up On You” are also highlights.

From there exploring Price and Ohlenbusch’s work is a research project all on its own. Price has 12 solo albums, as well as 8 with The Maggies and 7 with his Winterpills project. Ohlenbusch has an equally daunting musical resume. This is going to a very random sampling of their accomplishments. Though you don’t have wade very far into The Maggies second and third albums to see the kinship with Collingwood. Tracks like “Be My Guest” and “Long Dark See You” from 2000’s Cryptic Valentine have a very Bangles meets FOW vibe while “Covering Me Up” and “Everybody’s Golden Age” from 2001’s Breakfast at Belreck’s are akin to Collingwood’s more pop country stylings. Price’s solo work and Winterpills catalogue lean more into his textured folk sound and away from power pop, though the 2002 solo track “Please Don’t Change” is certainly FOW-adjacent.

Meanwhile Ohlenbusch has put out some great eclectic and electric Simon and Garfunkel worthy tracks as Gentle Hen. His solo work steers in both folky and poppy directions at times too. You can get a taste of this on “V66” from his now unavailable Henning’s School for the Dead album or “A Machine to Break Your Heart” from 2006’s Looks Like I’m Tall or “Amélie” from 2011’s Henning Goes to the Movies. But check out his Gentle Hen track “She’s Got It Bad” from 2018’s Be Nice to Everyone, you’d swear it was a FOW deep cut you’d overlooked.

Do fabulously creative people just give up being creative? In my dreams Collingwood is still crafting his trademark tune-age, just waiting to spring them on us as a delightful surprise. But if we can’t have more FOW or Collingwood solo material we can’t go wrong digging deep into work from melodic compatriots like Price and Ohlenbusch.

The Rifles love your neighbour …

01 Wednesday Jan 2025

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… and you should too. I mean, what choice have we got? There’s darkness on the doorstep while all that national and international chaos from last year looks like it’s getting renewed for another season. We are going to have to look for the light a little closer to home, person to person, on the streets where we live. There’s a lot in The Rifles most recent long player Love Your Neighbour that speaks to our present moment that bears reflecting on.

Ok, so with lyrics like “don’t cry your heart out cause nobody cares” perhaps opening cut “The Kids Won’t Stop” doesn’t sound like the motivational music I’m supposed to be offering to kick off the new year. But stick with me for a moment – there is some a real-world optimism going on here. The point of the song as I read it is that whatever you may be thinking about what is going on in the world the adults in the room are just going to have get up and get on it with it because our kids are going to need us regardless. All delivered with a whimsical, driving, sometimes dance-able emphasis. Moving on, “Days of Our Lives” has the jaunty feel of a 1982 era Madness tune and who doesn’t need a bit of that? Then “Mr. Sunflower” is where the album title appears in the lyrics, with a message that says ‘share a little love with the world’ and you might just get some back. It’s the leap of faith that makes humanity possible.

I hope it’s coming through just how great this new Rifles album is. I only discovered them in 2016 with their Big Life album. From there I travelled backwards through their solid back catalogue, impressed by their social commentary and relentless hookiness. It seemed to me like they took up where The Jam left off, with flashes of Billy Bragg here and there. So waiting for this new album to arrive seemed like an eternity. But Love Your Neighbour is as good as anything they’ve put out. I love how tracks like “There is My Heart” seem propelled by a deft use of mellotron sounding keyboards. Or how songs like “Out for the Weekend” clearly are meant to devolve into a raucous singalong at the band’s shows or your Friday night party. “Money Go Round” is pretty timely, turning everyone’s economic crisis into a dance vamp, complete with ringing cash register. And you don’t get a much more ‘new years’ sentiment than “Starting Monday” where the singer promises to start ‘turning my life around’ after just ‘one more for the road.’ It’s an idler of a tune that becomes a rollicking pop banger in the chorus.

Maybe we can’t change the world in quite the way we would like but we can change the station, put out a different message, and in that small way contribute something positive. The Rifles sound like they’ve started down that path already and I’m all for following.

Gotta have heart: Wons Phreely and Good Wilson

30 Saturday Nov 2024

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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.

Super 8 goes J-pop

26 Tuesday Nov 2024

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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.

That’s what J.D. McPherson does to you

01 Friday Nov 2024

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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.

Welcome to Octoberland

04 Friday Oct 2024

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America 2024 is a land roiled by division and an air of impending doom. The Armoires’ new record Octoberland simultaneously reflects and pushes against that state of being with wit, wisdom and a playful mix of musical hues. Only a deep dive into its contents can tell you why.

Album opener “We Absolutely Mean It” embodies America’s contradictory trends, holding its tension like a clenched fist. But four-fifths of the way through they declare ‘this is where we go big’ and the song suddenly takes on a brighter, more positive tone. The message here seems to be – dark and light, rage and love: it’s all America – so things could go either way, depending on who does what. Not surprisingly then social commentary abounds on this album. Tracks like “Green Hellfire At The 7-11,” “Ridley & Me After the Apocalypse,” and “You Oughta Be Cut in Half” are pointed in their critique. But never at the expense of great tune. “Ridley & Me After the Apocalypse” has the clever lyrical polish and sunny disposition of The Lilac Time. Lines like ‘end times are so boring’ and ‘fighting for the future of the artistocracy’ are gold. Or check out the sing-along goodness and jangle accompanying the stinging lyrics on “You Oughta Be Cut in Half.” The ‘oh my my my’ chorus is simply irresistible, reminiscent of the sophisticated curio pop of Overlord. Despite these serious themes, a chipper sense of fun dominates this LP. I love “This One’s For the Swedes” with its marriage of spacey synth runs and percussive group vocal interjections. Early 1980s sci-fi movie montage sequence for sure. Stylistically there’s plenty of variety too, with nods toward country (“Ouroboros Blues (Crow Whisperer),” folk rock (“Snake Island Thirteen”) and even Irish drinking songs (“It’s A Good Time To Come Back Down From The Cold”). “Sickening Thud” gets my vote for should-be hit-single with its delightful jangle guitar, though “Music and Animals” is pretty close second with its Everything But The Girl pop smoothness.

Octoberland is a record with something to say, reflecting the dread of our times but also kicking at it to let a little light get in. Get yours from the source – Big Stir Records – or your favourite e-retailer.

All new Lowe

17 Tuesday Sep 2024

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What kind of album is Nick Lowe’s new Indoor Safari? His recent LPs have ranged from rock and roll allsorts mixtures (At My Age) to more sonically consistent kinds of musical statements (That Old Magic) but his new release harkens back to his 1980s rockabilly-tinged variety shows like Nick Lowe and his Cowboy Outfit and Pinker and Prouder Than Previous. Contra the post title, not much on the new album is genuinely new, with most tracks seeing release sometime over the past decade on a variety of extended singles and EPs, though the versions here are freshly re-recorded for this release. The new takes are not that strikingly different – the changes are subtle, perhaps a slight shift in the vocal fit or the band’s swagger. But put together in one place like this the songs do cohere into an album rather than just a collection of tunes.

Lowe opens with a blast of rockabillied sixties garage rock on “Went to a Party,” from which he derives his album’s title when he suggests a party is akin to an indoor safari. This track and “Jet Pack Boomerang” are the only wholly new tunes here and, along with “Tokyo Bay,” set the pace for the album’s more rocking moments. Lowe’s backing band for the record are Los Straitjackets and their playing adds a welcome degree of surly abandon to the proceedings. Other songs like “Love Starvation” and “Lay It On Me Baby” draw on a post-1950s but pre-Beatles rock and roll vibe. Then there’s “Crying Inside,” the kind sixties rewrite Nick has has tossed off throughout his career with reliably good results. Nick does also draw on his Brentford Trilogy sound for “A Quiet Place” and “Different Kind of Blue,” the latter conjuring a distinctly jazzy crooner feel. “Blue On Blue” remains my fave song from Nick over this last decade. A band like Los Straitjackets could have stomped all over this tune with their wall-of-guitar sound but instead deftly pick their way through, delicately shaping its impact. And while album 14 for Nick might see a bit more gravel in his vocal there’s no discounting his talent for phrasing, as evident when he makes a cover of Ricky Nelson’s “Raincoat in the River” sound more like a great lost Sam Cooke 45. “Don’t Be Nice To Me” wraps things up in a classic Lowe style, going low key only to reveal surprising hooks.

Aging artists risk turning into a broken record, releasing faded versions of their former glory again and again. But with Indoor Safari Nick Lowe – with help from his able backing band Los Straitjackets – proves an old dog can even make old tricks sound fresh and exciting. Long may he growl.

Get Indoor Safari from Nick’s Bandcamp locale and visit his website for his seemingly never-ending tour news.

Back to Chime School

02 Monday Sep 2024

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Bummed at the thought of your mundane back-to-school choices? It’s not too late to enroll at the San Francisco area Chime School and takes classes on some A-levels jangle. Schoolmaster Andy Pastalaniec has put together an 11 song lesson plan entitled The Boy Who Ran The Paisley Hotel that will introduce students to the fine points of superior song-craft and Rickenbacker 12-string guitar technique. The Chime School music library gets a full workout here, drawing on myriad elements of 1960s and 1980s jangle texts in new and inventive ways. The lessons begin and end with some strong Cure vibes to my ears, with both “The End” and “Points of Lights” dropping some serious Robert Smith-like guitar lines. “Give Your Heart Away” has a Smithsian melancholy while I could hear REM doing “(I Hate) the Summer Sun.” Then “Words You Say” harkens further back to the 1960s folk rock scene. You won’t be drifting off to sleep in these classes because the pacing of so many of the songs here is just relentless. “Why Don’t You Come Out Tonight” adds impressive percussive elements amidst rapid fire jangle guitar licks. “Another Way Home,” “Desperate Days” and “Say Hello” all ride a river of  jangle. The current video release “Wandering Song” is the obvious candidate for album valedictorian, leaping out from the start with an insurgent lead guitar lick that keeps looping back in throughout the song. Though “Negative Monday” is a pretty impressive jangle case study too, combining delicious guitar hooks with a decidedly melancholic melody.

Chime School is back in session and ready to take on pupils. Click the hyperlinks to register and download your course materials. Homework never sounded so good.

This year’s models: Toby Tantrum and Owen Adamcik

08 Thursday Aug 2024

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When Elvis Costello spit out This Year’s Model in 1978 he managed to combine a range of things that hadn’t been put together that way before. With his Buddy Holly-on-Benzedrine looks and an ability to toss off memorable tunes like a crossroads-enhanced demon, Costello and his crack new band The Attractions played the album with the in-your-face ferocity of seventies punk but with much better musical technique. Boiled right down though, it was the intelligence that stood out. Costello made being smart cool. Going forward, rock and roll’s angry young men (or women) could no longer just strike the pose, they had to have something to say. Today’s artists pay tribute to that legacy and add to it.

Toby Tantrum is the musical vehicle of Ben Simon. He’s got a load of singles and EPs up on Bandcamp though it’s hard map his career as most appear to be released in 2018 or 2021 and the artwork looks remarkably consistent throughout. In fact, he appears to be wearing the same 1965 jacket and tie in every pic. Musically Simon oscillates between an early Beatles Merseybeat and a ramshackle Velvet Underground strut. Lyrically, he splits his focus between mocking the pretentions/self-absorption of the musically famous and more obvious political themes. Songs like “One Take Wonder” and “One Chord” employ an unreliable narrator technique to tell us more than the protagonist realizes while “I Found Someone And It’s Me” speaks to the irresponsibility and shallowness of those in the spotlight. Politically “A City Is Not a Dormitory” from the EP Community for Those That Can Afford It is a scathing indictment of developers and local housing policy. And they all work as songs, which makes this whole affair more than a conceptual art project. Picking and choosing from his varied catalogue I’d draw your attention to at least three really hooky tunes. “People Are People” bursts with great guitar lines that ripple on repeat like a trickling stream while stylistically the song sounds like a rockier 1970s Roxy Music. “Hold Me Down” clocked me with its spot-on early 1960s vocal harmonies, very much in the early 1960s folk rock/country register. And listen to what Simon does on “So Many Times.” The vibe reminds me of those early Zombies records where they cover a load of American R&B 45s. Simon’s vocal even matches the delightful whine of Colin Blunstone in places. Alas, it appears Simon may have forsaken music for a more direct approach to politics, running for Cambridge City Council in 2019 as a Marxist socialist. My kind of guy.

Owen Adamcik loves The Nerves and The Plimsouls and you only have to tune in briefly to his recent long player Owen Adamcik’s Power Pop Paradise to get that message. But there’s more going on too. On his Bandcamp page you can find a raft of releases that chart his progress – from DIY teen-with-guitar to proto-punk to his more recent polished performances – and the pace of change has been meteoric. The new LP has oh so Plimsouls numbers like “Don’t Call Me on the Phone” and “When She Finds Out.” Then things branch out, drawing from a variety of sixties and late seventies new wave motifs. “She Kissed Me First” is built around some really nice lead guitar work that leads the vocal melody. Both “Her Eyes Made A Million Boys Cry” and “Maybe You Like Me” explore different song structures and put some interesting twists into their melodies. Really the Costello comparison here is more about intensity. Adamcik manages to squeeze maximum vocal anguish into every song, without over-reaching. On the other hand “Mixed Signals” definitely has a Costello punch to the chorus, run through a CCR filter. There are lighter moments too, caught in the more sixties boppy numbers like “You’ll Tell Your Friends” and “She’s My Girlfriend.”

Role models are important. Today’s acts show how to balance being ‘intense’ while still having a good time. Elvis would be proud.

Photo ‘That’s The Way Love Goes’ courtesy Thomas Hawk Flikr collection.

Rediscovering The Decemberists

18 Thursday Jul 2024

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I’ve always felt like I should like The Decemberists more. I mean, they’re folky, they’re kinda political at times. And lead vocalist Colin Meloy is the closest thing America is ever going to have to a Morrissey-like tortured artiste. But, for whatever reason, I’ve often found that a little Decemberists goes a long way for me. Like one or two songs an album. But that has ended abruptly with the release of the band’s ninth long-player, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again. The record’s song selections flow like a greatest hits of the band’s stylistic range over their whole career. There’s folk aplenty on cuts like “William Fitzwilliam” “Don’t Go Into the Woods,” and “Black Maria.” I love the delicious jangle and pedal steel draping “Long White Veil.” The band turn up the horns and a Latin rhythm to define “Oh No!” Meanwhile “Tell Me What’s On Your Mind” is just a magnificent pop anthem. And then on “All I Want Is You” Colin Meloy suddenly becomes Don McLean. It’s quite an astonishing transformation, really.  But the album’s standout track is undoubtedly the majestic lead single “Burial Ground.” With help from The Shins James Mercer and R.E.M.’s bassist Mike Mills the song rings out with a Byrdsian jangle and overlapping vocal lines that will make your heart soar.

With As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again The Decemberists confirm their status as a kind of American treasure. What a live show this album promises to be!