Category Archives: Artist Spotlight

Redd Kross my heart

04 Thursday Jul 2024

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What band variously sounds like American punk circa 1978, Frank Zappa, The Sweet, Cheap Trick, pop metal, with maybe with a touch of ELO? Only Redd Kross can pull all that off without skidding into incoherence. Of course, they don’t pour all those influences into every song, which means an album by Redd Kross can sound like multiple bands. That’s not to say their overall sound hasn’t changed over the years. This is a band that continues to move to adjacent genres without definitively leaving the old ones behind. Take the first EP and album: 1980’s debut Redd Kross and 1982’s Born Innocent. Good time, grinding, American punk and roll. By 1984’s album number two though things start to branch out, as Teen Babes From Monsanto shines a light on the band’s emerging power pop chops. I’ll confess, for the longest time Redd Kross was more a band I’d heard about rather than heard. To rectify that and catch me (and maybe you) up, this post scans every RK album for only the most hooky numbers IMHO. Redd Kross my heart!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=tgY8fUz5d3E%3Fsi%3Dd1MSgoQYOG6-5BdU

Redd Kross got their start in the hot heat of America’s punk summers 1978 and 1979. But I wonder if it wasn’t just the manic in-your-face intensity of that genre that appealed to them because over the years they would also show a lot of love for over the top pop-metal excess, faux stadium rock, even a few tongue-in-cheek prog rock interludes. Yet for me their power pop tunes have always been a cut above in terms of craft and melodic ingenuity. The turn comes three cuts into Teen Babes From Monsanto when “Heaven Only Knows” pumps that fifties bubblegum pop nostalgia. Then “Don’t Turn Your Back On Me” has a seventies glam meets new wave feel. On 1987’s Neurotica “It’s the Little Things” reworks the disaster rock formula of The Crystals and Ronettes to good effect.

By 1990 the band had signed to a major label and released Third Eye, a more slick production. The power pop single here is certainly smooth. “Annie’s Gone” is carefully crafted with a Cars-like precision, resulting in the band’s only American chart hit. On 1993’s Phaseshifter “Saragon” is positively Beatlesque with a Live at the Hollywood Bowl kind of Lennon energy. RK rounded out the nineties with 1997’s Show World and, again, the power pop sound notably shifted. “Mess Around” sounds a bit Crowded House while “Get Out of Myself” reminds me of other strong 1990s power pop acts like Sloan.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nmtbEK7Q4uA%3Fsi%3DN03mN4QdC2mUDnt4

As the twentieth century faded out so too did Redd Kross, or so it seemed. The first decade of the new millennium failed to deliver any new material. Then in 2012 Research the Blues arrived heralding Redd Kross 2.0 had finally arrived. Here I like some of the late-breaking album selections like “Winter Blues” with its winning Hoodoo Gurus vibe or “Hazel Eyes” which really has the makings of a Big Star single sound-alike. 2016’s Hot Issue was a compilation of sorts, bringing together rare and unreleased material. Like the 1970s pitch-perfect riff on The Sweet throughout “Insatiable Kind” or the unstoppable guitar pop of “Don’t Take Your Baby Downtown.” The band resurfaced again in the two-thousand-and-teens with 2019’s Beyond the Door, proving their 2012 comeback was no fluke. So many great tunes here. “There’s No One Like You” sounds like a great lost Odds single.  Or get close to “Ice Cream (Strange and Pleasing)” where the band is doing a full-on sixties garage power pop vamp a la the Troggs or Monkees.

Fans waiting for a ticker tape parade return of Redd Kross got their wish this year with the release of a sprawling self-titled album of all new material. Redd Kross (The Red Album) offers up 18 cuts and an album design mimicking The Beatles (The White Album). My own choices for winning should-be singles seems to accord with the band, who’ve turned both tunes into early release videos and singles. “The Main Attraction” builds from a slow start to a real stunner of a showcase single. Then “I’ll Take Your Word For It” works a Merseybeat seam in a style similar to contemporary acts like The Tearaways. I’d also single out “Good Times Propaganda Band,” a track that sounds like a cross between Paul Collins and mid-period Beatles. Of course, “Born Innocent” is also pretty special and the name of a recent documentary on the band.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=DPwlnhc-_vY%3Fsi%3DIjpgAj2SFBnDR8ro

Redd Kross, where have I been all your life? Clearly wasting precious leisure time I could have spent with all your records. Don’t make my mistakes dear readers, complete your Redd Kross catalogue today!

Have you met Super 8?

28 Friday Jun 2024

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After 10 albums it might seem strange to re-introduce you to Super 8. But his new album is kind of a new start. Retro Metro gives you a kaleidoscope view of everything that is great about the Super 8’s supercharged take on the 1960s. So gather round errant flower children, folk rockers, sunshine pop lovers and Kinksian jangle fans, your pied piper is here with tunes to lead you astray and then some.

Following the funky keyboard-heavy instrumental opener “Retro Metro Theme” we get right down to what Super 8 does best with “Keep Doing It,” a chipper pop tune that manages to squeeze the sunshine out of the summer sky. You can practically feel the beach breeze coming off ‘feel good’ tracks like “Almost Anything” and “Mary Jane.” But the record has a harder edge too. Four songs included here are remnants of an aborted mystery-group side-project entitled The Plus 4 and they appear to have set the tone for the whole record. “You Look Right Through Me” rings out with jangle hooks that are unstoppable while the chorus is so Zombies it’ll make you swoon. Other former Plus 4 numbers like “Tell It Like It Is,” “Take It From Me” and “Every Word Is True” have a swinging Meet-the-Beatlesque charm, ornamented with some sweet sweet harmonica solos. But as we dig into the newer material here the star of this record might just be the Rickenbacker electric 12 string guitar. It makes everything sparkle. Check out its impact on “Lies,” which opens with a jauntiness reminiscent of the Fabs’ “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party.” Or see what it adds to the Stonesy “Just A Song,” the Ray Davies-ish “Another Me,” or Monkees-style “Just Me & You.”

So ask yourself, have you really met Super 8? Retro Metro is all the proof you need he is the grooviest undiscovered star you definitely need to become acquainted with. You can arrange your audio meet-up here.

Nicking Nick Lowe

16 Sunday Jun 2024

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Word hit the interweb last week that a new Nick Lowe album would arrive this coming September, the pub rock/pop rock veteran’s first album of new material since 2011’s That Old Magic and his seasonal sojourn on 2013’s Quality Street. The album cover for the to-be-released Indoor Safari lovingly recreates a mid-1960s stylized photo shoot, complete with hip fonts and a retro record design. But if you dip into the album’s proposed song order you might notice something familiar – nearly every song has already seen a public release via various EPs and extended singles that have come out over the past half decade. So this ‘new’ album really only contains just two genuinely new tracks, “Went To A Party” and “Jet Pac Boomerang.” The former is Nick doing his Cowboy Outfit era thing, a bit rockabilly in a 1980s sort of way. Los Straightjackets sound great on this track and the others that will appear on this LP, putting their considerable talents to work adding some welcome pep to Nick’s urbane performance. So, if truth be told, you can nick just about this whole album right now just by sorting through all these recent Nick and the Straightjacket EPs that have been coming out regularly. The only track you really have to wait for is the one with ‘boomerang’ in the title.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not really complaining. The songs Nick has collected for this new record are quality Lowe’s for sure. Personally I love “Blue On Blue” and “A Quiet Place.” These two and all the other selections deserve to be featured on an official Nick Lowe long-player. You can advance order your copy on Nick’s Bandcamp and website. I know I will.

Back to my Crowded House

06 Thursday Jun 2024

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It’s been 40 years since Neil Finn closed shop on his older brother’s band Split Enz, ending their run with an underwhelming swan song LP See Ya ‘Round. Yet just two years later Finn would return helming a new band – Crowded House – that would far exceed what Split Enz had accomplished chart-wise. The self-titled debut Crowded House topped the charts around the world and produced a slew of hit singles, including “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and “Something So Strong.” The band’s commercial fortunes may have ebbed and waned since then but their creative continuity has remained strong throughout three different periods that the group has been active. 1986 to 1996 is often seen as the band’s golden age, producing four albums and more than two dozen memorable songs. But their first reunion period from 2007 to 2018 produced two more albums of classic Crowded House poprock material. Now into their third phase the band have a brand new album entitled Gravity Stairs and it’s like returning to a favourite childhood home, familiar but pleasantly different at the same time.

Reviewers and Finn himself have described the new album as ‘dreamy’ and opening cut “Magic Piano” certainly evokes that. Then again dreamy is practically the DNA of this band, firmly established in the Temple of the Low Men era and threaded through every other release somewhere. So if you’re looking for that vintage Crowded House sound you can definitely find it on this release. Just turn on tracks like “The Howl,” “All I Can Ever Own,” “Black Water, White Circle,” and “Thirsty.” But there are some striking departures as well. Early release single “Oh Hi” shifts the band’s signature pop sound into new territory with some inventive instrumental choices and vocal arrangements. Most recent single “Teenage Summer” has echoes of a Bleachers sensibility while “Blurry Grass” throws up contemporary guitar tones that remind me of Vancouver’s The Zolas. “I Can’t Keep Up With You” honours the album art work’s riffing on Revolver by riding a Beatles ’66 blast of guitar hooks. And then there’s the obligatory Tim Finn duet on the touching  “Some Greater Plan (For Claire).”

There’s always room at my place for more Crowded House. Gravity Stairs is another winning addition to the band’s musical family.

Cover me! Marshall Crenshaw “Whenever You’re On My Mind”

15 Wednesday May 2024

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With just five songs featured on this post it may appear to be an abbreviated episode of Cover Me! but I still think it’s worth your while stopping by. “Whenever You’re On My Mind” is one of my all-time favourite songs. For me, there’s just no way anyone is going to touch the transcendent beauty of Crenshaw’s original. Initially recorded during sessions for his debut album, the song didn’t quite fit and ended up the lead single on his fabulous second LP Field Day. Talk about making a good first impression, the track opens the album with one of the most seductive guitar hooks of all time, the vocals are a master class in power pop elocution, and the production is so brilliantly, sibilantly Steve Lillywhite good. Frankly, running the search engines on YouTube, Bandcamp and iTunes, it doesn’t appear that a lot of people have been up for the challenge of covering such a formidable composition and performance. But there have been a few worthy attempts.

We start with Marshall, of course. For a different take from the single and album cut you can find a live version of “Whenever You’re On My Mind” on his 2021 collection The Wild Exciting Sounds of Marshall Crenshaw. The 1983 video for the song is worth a viewing too, if only for its time capsule feel for an early 1980s look and ambience.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=l-or2AET9L4%3Fsi%3DRAX_qnuXVD6WKEHO

In terms of covers, we begin with the most inventive. Working with REM producer Don Dixon, Marti Jones put out a number of albums in the 1980s that saw her put her stamp on a host of songs from the likes of Elvis Costello, Dwight Twilley, David Bowie, and John Hiatt. Her cover of “Whenever You’re On My Mind” appeared on her 1986 album Match Game, which Marshall Crenshaw played some 12 string guitar on, though not on his song. What is striking on her cover is how she changes the vocal emphasis on the lines in the chorus. Girl group legend Ronnie Spector did a whole EP of Marshall songs on 2003’s Something’s On My Mind. She too added a few surprising twists and turns to the song’s melodic arc here and there that really work. I only know Zach Jones from his spot-on Monkees reincarnation track from 2020 “Must Be On My Way.” His 2016 acoustic approach to covering “Whenever You’re On My Mind” lightens the power pop intensity, gentling the vocals and guitar attack. The effect is reassuring rather than bracing. I really like the guitar tone and ramshackle vocal on Michael Fiore’s cover from the same year. There’s a rehearsal space Replacements vibe to this rendition. The Kavanaghs hail from Rosario, Argentina and put Marshall’s song on the b-side of their 2021 single “Going To The Beach.” The latter is more of a vamp-ish rocker so their cover shows they can’t handle the more melodic side of the street too. Why more people don’t cover MC is a mystery to me, given the results on display here with just these five submissions.

Marti Jones
Ronnie Spector

Need more Marshall? Who doesn’t. Get on over to marshallcrenshaw.com to find your Marshall merch, show tix, latest news and records.

The (almost) hit career of Bas Muys

21 Sunday Apr 2024

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You’ve probably never heard of him but you have heard him countless times if you had an AM radio in the early 1980s. He comes in at the 1:30 mark of the “Stars on 45” hit single as the voice of John Lennon, a song that topped charts around the world when it was released in 1981. He’s Bas Muys – Dutch singer, songwriter, guitarist and famously unknown guy. Though that’s not for lack of trying.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=5bGQ1-Gmoso%3Fsi%3D3EfWi_4E2IFAOwU6

His first break came when his 1970s band Smyle climbed the Dutch charts with the Beatlesque single “It’s Gonna Be Alright” in 1972. Listeners heard echoes of the mid-1960s Nederbeat (Dutch Merseybeat) sound on the track so the record company deliberately obscured the band’s identity in a pre-Klattu bit of Fab Four misdirection. Smyle sputtered after just a few singles and Muys spend the rest of the seventies doing studio work. Of course that paid off big time when the Stars on 45 project took off. Hoping to cash in on that success he got to release a single under his own name in 1981 called “Oh Terry.” The song is so eerily spot-on Lennon vocally, nailing his falsetto and the more tender side of his delivery while the tune has a melodic bass line reminiscent of “Help.” With better promotion it might have caught on, given the strong appetite for Lennon-esque material in the wake of his death. Muys recorded a whole album to go with the song but his record company failed to release it at the time. Still, he did manage to put out a different LP a year later entitled Lennon and McCartney (Never Issued), later retitled Lennon and McCartney: Secret Songs. The album features Muys doing very Beatles versions of a host of songs Lennon and McCartney had written for other acts in the early 1960s. Sometimes the results hardly differ from the originals, like the cover of “Bad To Me” (a hit for Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas). But others like “From a Window” and “I’m In Love” really polish up nicely.

Smyle – It’s Gonna Be Alright
Bas Muys – Oh Terry
Bas Muys – From a Window

Muys’ long lost 1981 album Hold On finally got a release date in 2022, complete with live concert and some media attention in his native Holland. But it really deserves a wider audience. The record alternates between Lennon’s 1970s soft rock vibe and a strong Beatles 65 flavour. The ‘guitar’ version of “Lovely Single Angel” really captures the latter.

Bas Muys – Lovely Single Angel (Guitar Version)

Bas Muys is the anonymous guy with an immediately recognizable voice. He could stand to get more attention for his work on its own terms. You can visit basmuys.com to help get that started.

Overlord therapy session

12 Friday Apr 2024

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Sometimes you don’t realize how much you’ve been missing something until it suddenly re-appears. Like a good bit of musical relationship therapy from Overlord. Brooklyn’s fave curio popsters finally return after a two and half year absence with a pair of songs that anticipate a whole new album to come (tentatively entitled Tragedy Gold). Get ready for some seriously clever lyrical sophistication and hooky tunes! In the meantime we’ve got two songs to hold us over and they certainly bode well for what is to come.

Repeated listens so far fail to reveal an A side/B side divide to me. Both tunes sound like the main event. And while they seem like they might be related to each other with the ‘ex-girlfriends’ and ‘crying boyfriend’ themes a closer inspection reveals quite different lyrical foci. “The Boy Who Cried Goodbye” ponders whether the boy in question is really suffering or just a drama queen, played out over a music bed that vibes Magnetic Fields or They Might Be Giants. But “The City of Ex-Girlfriends” shifts focus, lifting its lyrical narrative directly from the pages of DC Superman comics and the flying hero’s adventures with his sometime girlfriend, the aquatically-constrained Lori Lamaris. Musically there’s a subtle bit of what sounds like a The The keyboard progression added to the generally Stephen Merritt-ish mix. These two songs signal Overlord is back poppier than ever, just when we need them most.

Isn’t it time you had a session with Overlord? That was a rhetorical question. Hit the hyperlinks to perform your proper fealty now.

Marc my words: Marc Jonson and Marc Valentine

26 Tuesday Mar 2024

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I grew up with a lot of Marks. Generally speaking, if your name was Mark you were second string on the basketball team and a get-along-with-everybody kind of guy. But if your name was spelled ‘Marc’ a whole new level of cool was involved. Today’s two Marcs show you why that is so.

We’ve reviewed two great albums Marc Jonson recorded recently with Ramirez Exposure but left his solo work untouched. Partly that results from the challenge of coming to grips with his unwieldy career. Things kicked off in 1972 with a baroque folk album for Vanguard (Years) but from there it’s hit and miss with rare album outings in 1992 (12 in a Room), 2000 (Last Night on the Rollercoaster), and 2017 (Marc Jonson and the Wild Alligators). But now we have an album that attempts to fill in the blanks – Groova Tismo. The record pulls together a dynamic collection of demos recorded in his NYC Cordelia Street apartment between 1979 and 2012. No surprise the tunes effortlessly evoke a Phil Spector early 1960s pop atmosphere. Things kick off so Roy Orbison-fine on the endearing “Honey Boy.” The Beach Boys also haunt these proceedings on tracks like “The Man Who Walks On Air” and “I’d Cry.” Other 1960s artists reflected here might include The Four Seasons (“Turn It On), Buck Owens (“I Don’t Have You”), and The Searchers (“The Moon”). But the 1970s get a look in too with shades of Eric Carmen (“Never Gonna Fall in Love Again”) and Gordon Lightfoot (“Lonesome”). Personal fave: love the lurching hooks colouring “November Paintbrush.” More than a collection of leftovers, Groova Tismo sounds like the coherent artistic statement of a should-be star.

On his new album Basement Sparks Marc Valentine continues a delightful reinvention of 1990s power pop that falls somewhere between Fountains of Wayne and Bowling for Soup. There’s a slight punk snarl on tracks like “Tyrannical Wrecks” and a groove that says the dance floor will see some body contact. But for the most part the songs here mine a sweet poppy guitar grind familiar to fans of Farrah and FOW. Exhibit A could be “Eve of Distraction” or “I Wanna Be Alone.” Album opener “Complicated Sometimes” sets the tone with a sophisticated rocky pop tune that says should-be hit, though early release single “Skeleton Key” is another strong ‘hit’ contender. “Strange Weather” is more a pop stomper, relentlessly driving home its hooks. Then “You Are One of Us Now” shifts things into more 1980 Cars territory. I’m also partial to “Repeat Offender” with guitars-to-the-front melodic presence. This is a record with a strong sense of fun, as apparent on “Opening Chase Theme,” though tender moments slip in too, as can be heard on the Farrah-ish “Ballad of Watt.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=CrQOPzaCbss%3Fsi%3DINNp_ZxPCLQO_XzP

Looking to get cool? You can purchase it from these guys in popular song form from various poprock music purveyors. Just tell them ‘Marc’ sent you.

Photo courtesy Thomas Hawk Flikr collection.

An invite to The Parties

05 Tuesday Mar 2024

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I know San Francisco’s The Parties from two LPs and two EPs released between 2007 and 2010. There might be more releases out there but the band’s Bandcamp page is limited to this quartet. But what a formidable foursome they represent. There is a jocular rock and roll confidence to their performative stance, ably sustained by a generous load of jangle and a delightfully youthful demeanor. For this post I invite you to enjoy The Parties, featuring one signature tune from each release. Just enough to whet your appetite and get you primed for more.

It seems fitting to kick things off with the title track “The Parties” from 2007’s The Parties EP. There’s a strong late-1980s jangle-drone here I associate with The Primitives or The Church. While the rest of the album has a rough, almost punky elan, this single is a smooth sensorium of this kind of sound. On 2008’s Can’t Come Down “Cold Life” has a sunshine jangle feel that reminds me of the Cyrkle in their Neon period. Then the title track “Cryin’ Shame” from 2009’s Cryin’ Shame EP expands the sonic palate again, this time adding a Rank and File/Grapes of Wrath rocking folky feel, with jangle of course. By the time we get to 2010’s Coast Garde things have gotten much grander. “Suite: Feet Back On the Ground / I’m Sorry / Going Away Girl” is a seven-minute epic that breezes by, enveloping you in its magisterial Byrdsian charms only to segue to something more jangle pop in the end.

You wanna party? Check out all the other cuts populating their EPs and LPs at their Bandcamp site here. It won’t be an early night if you do.

Photo courtesy James Vaughn Flikr page.

Spotlight single: Steve Rosenbaum “Girl from Seventeen”

06 Tuesday Feb 2024

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I seldom circle back to cover something I’ve already written about once but when I wrote about Steve Rosenbaum’s amazing lost album collection of rough recordings from the 1980s Have A Cool Summer! Summer​-​Pop Demos And 4​-​Track Gems 1979​-​1989 it was only available on 8-track for fifty bucks. Now it’s out for much less on Big Stir Records, ready for digital download, and oh so worthy of your attention. You can read my original review here but I’m returning to the collection after seeing a young Rosembaum doing a live version of “Girl From Seventeen” and it reminded me what a superior track it is. I can’t really explain its effect on me. In 1983 I was finishing Grade 12 and starting broadcasting school and really didn’t have a clue what I was doing. But anchoring me was the rock and roll that hit me in the solar plexus: melodic and jangly, drawing from the 1960s but still marching into the future. It was then that I really connected with the music of Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, the Jam, Squeeze and probably most of all, Marshall Crenshaw. To my ears “Girl From Seventeen” is just so Marshall. The guitar sound, the chord changes, the echo on the vocals, the vocal line that stretches into the instrumental break. The  Beach Boys organ trill kicking things off is just the frosting here.

A lot of the 1980s frankly sucked for me but the bright spots were definitely the music. So thank you Steve Rosenbaum for giving me a little bit more of the best of 1983 with this track.

You can hang with Steve here. And why not buy his whole album from Bandcamp? If you dig this track you won’t regret it.