Sometimes you run across a band’s new song and then discover a whole fabulous back catalogue of musical adventures. Just seems greedy to keep that hook-filled past under wraps. So today we celebrate the present and the past musical accomplishments of this crew of poprockers.
Ok, truth be told I didn’t actually run across any brand new material for Ed Ryan. It’s just that I realized he had been in the ‘should write about’ pile for too long. Ryan goes way back – to the 1970s and 1980s with various power pop bands. That must be why his two recent solo records sound so accomplished. From the blistering guitar opening of “Everything is Going to be Alright” to the achingly sweet vocal on “Heartbreak in Disguise” you know you’re in good hands on 2016’s Roadmap. This is an eminently playable record, and you don’t even have to turn it over! I’m particularly fond of the mid-1960s British beat group vibe all over “Bridges are Burning” and the way a basic rock and roll sensibility is art-rocked up on “Elvis’s World,” with its wonderfully kooky instrumental break. Then 2017’s Furious Mind is even more blistering out of the gate with “You’re My Kind of Fun,” and even more achingly sweet on “Lullaby.” If there’s a difference, I get the sense that Ryan really pushed up the Beatles’ crossfader on these recordings. “Here I Am” has some lovely late-period Beatles’ touches on the instrumentation, while “Drifting” has such an early period Beatles song structure, particularly in the verses. Other highlights for me would include “Rocket Ship,” which sounds very Ramones-fun to me, while “So Hard to Know” offers a nice acoustic country-ish turn. But my fave is the melodic rocker “Can’t Drag Me Down.” Can’t wait to see what Ryan comes up with for 2018!
Brad Peterson has described his style as ‘garden shed rock and roll.’ Well he has some pretty complex and impressive results coming out his backwoods Chicago DIY garden recording studio. I mean, I love DIY but it usually sounds a bit more rudimentary than the polished stuff Peterson is offering up. Case in point: his new record Ellipsis sounds like any number of major label indie offerings with songs like “What the Heart Will Allow” and “Unbroken.” But it’s the more poprock hooks that really get me. I’m currently addicted to the ear worm stamped “Clap Your Hands.” This one is so simple but still simply irresistible. “Far Off Places” and “Just In Time” also showcase Peterson’s melodic chops while “See You on the Other Side” exudes a Springsteen-esque weariness, complete with aching harmonica solo. It always feels good to feel this bad. And if you like this, there’s more in the back catalogue. 2009’s The Ductape Album has a song that is so Steve Miller I could have easily mistaken “More” for the master, though the Beatlesque bridge might have given the game away. And then there’s “Beat Myself Up” from 2006’s The Red Album, a pretty special single featuring some subtle Everly Brothers’ hooks and harmonies.
Joe Adragna’s work with The Junior League is an exquisite composite of 1960s to 1980s poprock motifs. His recordings are full of hidden treasures, subtle homages to all sorts of great artists and recordings. His new album Eventually is Now showcases this nicely with its opening track, “Teenage Bigstar,” which delivers just what the name implies. Or dig the very subtle Mamas and Papas background vocals on the album’s single, the infectious “I Only Want to Begin Again.” Another radio-friendly, hook-filled single would be the country-rock-ish “Someday.” But the whole record is a pleaser. Digging into the band’s catalogue there are just so many great songs to highlight. The debut, Catchy, from 2006, is loaded with should be hits: “The Beautiful Room is Empty,” “Hear My Voice,” and the hooky tour de force “I Don’t Believe in Love.” Or the melodic rootsy feel of “Keep it Home” from 2013’s You Should Be Happy, which also features the heartbreaking duet, “I Don’t Think I’m Kidding This Time.” “Also Rans” from 2015’s Also Rans has a sweet country rocking feel. And this just scratches the surface of this band’s great back catalogue.
I get mail! Jeff Litman wrote last week to let me know about his new record Crowded Hour so I gave it a listen. “Only You” grabbed me as the obvious single, with its 1980s melodic torch rocker vocals and sweet lead guitar lines. I also really liked “Disappear,” a nice spare acoustic ballad. Wasn’t long before I was digging through Litman’s past recordings – holy cow! Some great stuff on all his previous releases. “Primetime” from 2015’s Primetime has a very early Elvis Costello sheen. 2012’s Outside has a host of poprock shades, bit of John Hiatt on “Don’t Do That,” Tom Petty on “Don’t Want to Talk About It,” and more touching acoustic balladry with “What Hasn’t Happened Yet.” Litman’s 2009 debut Postscript sounds very Michael Penn to me, particularly on tracks like “Anna” and “Everything You’re Not.” But then things break out in a cool late 1970s rock mode with “Detroit Lawyer” and “Knock Me Down.”
Unlike days of yore, where old recordings would end up in a cut out bin somewhere, seemingly lost forever until suddenly discovered years later (and sporting a huge ‘rarities’ price tag!), old stock never goes bad today. You can easily take stock of Ed Ryan, Brad Peterson, The Junior League and Jeff Litman right now, courtesy the good people at Bandcamp. Ahem … yes, right now.
Teenage Fanclub is a band that keeps on giving. I count no less that seven break away bands and side projects that have emerged from the TF stable. It kind of reminds me of those early 1970s rock family trees that would trace the relationship of the Bryds, the Hollies, Buffalo Springefield, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and so on. Of course, in this case none of the subsequent bands have quite matched the success of the original, but they have produced some damn fine music.
Now BMX Bandits technically preceded Teenage Fanclub but TF members like Norman Blake and Francis Macdonald regularly went back and forth between the two groups. Douglas T. Stewart wrote endearing, melodic tunes with both of the above mentioned TF members. The band has ten albums and lot of great stuff to choose from but I’m singling out “Back in Your Heart” from 2003’s Down at the Hop. Though I also have to mention the charming and wistful “Take Me to Heaven” from 2007’s Bee Sting. Then Norman Blake created a new outfit called Jonny with Dave McGowan joining later. The combo had a very TF sound rubbed around the edges with some 1950s sensibilities. It took a few years to produce a record but 2011’s self-titled Jonny was worth the wait. “Candyfloss,” “You Was Me” and “Circling the Sun” are standout tracks for me.
And what is it about the drummers from this band? Drummer Paul Quinn left the band to form The Primary 5 who released three strong albums in the first decade of the new millennium. 2004’s North Pole maxes out the jangle on killer catchy tunes like “Mailman” and “What Am I Supposed To Do” and then changes things up with the sophisticated piano-laden “Easy Chair” and country-rock “Happy.” 2007’s Go kicks off with a heavier sound on “Off Course” but quickly melts back into those Byrdsian harmonies. “Sunsets” is a lovely languid mid-1960s piece of poprock. Meanwhile “Out in the Cold” has a more ominous 1980s melodic rock sound. And then there is the former and current TF drummer Francis Macdonald, a super talented singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist who has released a wide variety of material, including some moving piano and cello classical work. His band Nice Man and Bad Boys released The Art of Hanging Out in 2011 with a sonic palette just a bit more spare, acoustic and spacey in its arrangements than TF but still recognizably related. We featured the great single “Love is Game Two Can Play” before, but that doesn’t exhaust the great stuff here. A comparable single is certainly the hooky “Forever is a Long Time Without You” that opens the record. Other highlights would be the smooth 1950s-cum-1980s “Pretty Brown Eyes” and amusing and whimsical “Slinky.”
For a lighter touch, Snowgoose (featuring David McGowan and Raymond McGinley) and Lightships (featuring Gerard Love) take the peaceful easy feeling part of the TF legacy for a spin. “Hazy Lane” from Snowgoose’s 2012 Harmony Springs has a lovely traditional pop-folk feel but those signature TF harmonies are still there. Meanwhile Lightships take things into a more LoFi direction on 2012’s Electric Cables. I love the slow build on the mildly chiming “Sunlight to the Dawn.” The last stop on this TF diaspora world tour is Norman Blake’s most recent diversion, The New Mendicants, with ace power popper Joe Pernice. These two make a great dissonant combo, pushing each other in new directions. The background vocals and musical style is a definite departure from the TF branded sound. Very Beatles on “Cruel Annette” while “If You Only Knew Her” mines a part of the country-rock canon somewhat neglected by TF, particularly on the vocals.
Every decade is doing the nostalgia thing. Soft rock has joined disco as the go-to 1970s sound. Synth and trebly guitar bands define the retro-1980s movement now afoot. But they’ve got nothing on the 1960s, the decade that refuses to die. While the 1950s now sound increasingly dated (though I still love them!), the dynamic range and never ending freshness of the 1960s keeps coming back with revivals of the original artists, box sets and re-issues, and the decade’s continuing influence on new artists. These three recent acts live and breathe the 1960s, without sounding like some tribute band. They’ve got the guitar sounds, the groove, but – most importantly – some strong songwriting.
Here’s exhibit ‘A’: check out the guitar hook that jump starts The On and Ons’ “Whole World” from their 2017 release Welcome Aboard. It’s got a solid grounding in The Who’s early work, with perhaps a bit of The Action modding things up a bit more, and a nice quasi-sitar guitar bit at the end. Of course, the sound can also be characterized as new wave on this and tracks like “She’s Leaving” in a very Nerves/Plimsouls sort of way. I love the melody shift in “Can’t Avoid” which evokes a Zombies’ wistfulness. Also, don’t overlook the great tracks on their 2015 debut It’s the On and Ons Calling, particularly “Before Our Eyes” and “Not a Friend in Sight.” It’s no wonder that Paul Collins had this band back him up on a recent North American tour. They perform like veterans but deliver a fresh take on the 1960s sound.
Anyone who puts their band’s theme song as the first cut on their debut album is OK with me. I mean, it was good enough for The Monkees, right? The Squires of the Subterrain are the product of the seemingly mad poprock genius, Chris Earl. Earl loves the 1960s and simultaneously pays homage to while reinventing its signature sounds. Sometimes it’s Nuggets-style oh-so-garage rock like “Sweet” from 2003’s Strawberries on Sunday, or the brittle mid-1960s English poprock on “Intoxicating Violet” from 1998’s debut Pop in a CD. Whole albums are given over to exploring different styles, like the playful send up of early 1960s American radio vocal beat groups on 2009’s Adventures in …, or the spot off Beach Boys reinvention of 2012’s Sandbox. 2017’s Slightly Radio Active is a more straight up album of great songs, though delivered with Earl’s wry lyrical insights and slightly off-kilter performance. “Meltdown” has a lovely subtle hook on piano. Title track “Slightly Radio Active” is a great garage single, with super guitar hooks. Both “Letters from Heaven” and “Highly and Unqualified” showcase Earl’s inventiveness in song instrumentation, arrangement and sentiment. This guy pays repeated listens – there is simply so much to hear here!
Last up on That 1960s Show is a band that sometimes sounds so late 1960s country rock a la the Byrds or International Submarine Band but then shifts to a more jangly poprock style on other tunes. Rifling through the band’s catalogue, The Carousels ace that languid country rock vibe on “Winds of Change” while “Call Along the Coast” almost seems to jump out at you with its peppy bass, trebly lead guitar, and killer harmonies. The band’s more recent 2017 album Sail Me Home, St. Clair combines these strengths on cuts like the country-styled “Josephine” and more jangly “Lord Speed My Hurricane” and many others.
Names come and go. Some, like Gertrude, Hilda, and Agnes, are probably never coming back. But others carry on through generations, like Maryanne. It’s a name that conjures up the quintessential girl next door. She seemed to be at every dance in the 1950s, ended up shipwrecked with Gilligan in the 1960s, and was the focus of a host of singer-songwriter’s attentions in the 1970s. Leonard Cohen tried to say “So Long Marianne” but it didn’t work. More Mary Anne songs kept coming. Today’s post focuses on songs named for Maryanne, Mary Anne or Mary-Anne (though, curiously, not Marianne).
Time passes and it’s amazing the musical acts you realize you haven’t thought about in a long time. Could even be bands you once loved but now regularly pass over in the record collection. Then something brings them back to mind and you discover they have carried on, despite your indifference. Of course, sometimes such rediscoveries can be painful. But in the case of these three once mega-successful acts, the missing years have some seen them produce great stuff worthy of a bit of musical reconnaissance.
If ever there was a band that seemed likely to gain the ‘fad artist’ label, it was Duran Duran. Flashy outfits, winning hairstyles, and plenty of jump-cut videos were oh-so-early 1980s. When they abandoned their hook-driven material for more bass-heavy R&B on 1986’s Notorious the exit sign over their career seemed to be flashing brightly. But despite the odds they persevered, turning out ten more albums over the years, all with at least a few pretty solid, hook-driven tunes, songs like “I Don’t Want Your Love,” “Ordinary World,” and “Come Undone.” The new millennium has seen the release of strong albums like Astronaut (2004) and All You Need is Now (2010). But their most recent Paper Cuts (2015) is arguably their best since 1983’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger. Largely written and and produced by recent wunderkind Mr. Hudson, the record still has the remarkably familiar stamp of Duran Duran while breaking new ground musically. Standout tracks include title cut “Paper Cuts” and “Sunset Garage.” If you haven’t checked out the band in a while, it’s time to return to the fold.
I still remember finding my first used copy of New Order’s “Blue Monday.” I wasn’t really into techno or dance but there was just something so cool about the hypnotic driving bass and keyboard riffs. I dutifully purchased Low Life and Brotherhood when they came out. But I do remember being a bit disappointed with Technique, which seemed a bit too aptly named for comfort. New Musical Express complained that the band should just break up rather than repeat themselves (but then MNE was pretty infamous for hating bands as soon as more than a handful of people started liking them). So, in the nineties me and New Order drifted apart. Imagine my pleasant surprise to catch up on their post-Technique catalogue only to discover some of their best recordings! 1993’s Republic was OK, but 2001’s Get Ready is amazing, upping the traditional indie rock sound without losing the club vibe. And the songs are pretty strong: “Crystal,” “60 Miles an Hour,” and “Run Wild.” Four years later the band did it again with the stellar Waiting for the Siren’s Call, featuring killer tracks like “Krafty” and “Turn.” Songs left off the latter album were released as Lost Sirens in 2013 and they weren’t just leftovers: check out strong tracks like “I’ll Stay with You” and “I’ve Got a Feeling.” 2015’s Music Complete (minus longtime bass player Peter Hook) couldn’t help but disappoint by comparison, though “Superheated” is pretty cool.
The first record I ever bought was Billy Joel’s 52nd Street. It was 1978 and one of the only non-country albums stocked in the dry goods store in Cassiar, the asbestos mining town in northern BC where we lived briefly when I was 13. On reflection, I don’t like it nearly as much as The Stranger (with its drop dead hit single, “Only the Good Die Young”), or Glass Houses, which really was Joel’s songwriting peak (from a poprock perspective). Sometimes you have to make do. But after The Nylon Curtain and An Innocent Man I kinda lost interest in what Joel was doing. I mean, I really couldn’t figure out how the dirge-like “We Didn’t Start the Fire” could make it from the out-take pile let alone top the charts. Different strokes. And then Joel just stopped making albums altogether after 1993, surely a bizarre development in our music-as-commodity world. I would have said ‘who cares’ until I ran across two beautiful late Joel songs recently, one each from his last two albums. “And So It Goes” from 1989’s Storm Front has a slightly Randy Newman-esque feel to the arrangement, when it’s not just exquisite Joel balladry. But minus the flash – this performance is remarkably restrained and vulnerable. “Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)” is the best thing on 1993’s River of Dreams, a beautiful love song for his daughter.
I get by with a little help from my friends. Because I can’t possibly keep up with all the great new music coming out every day, other blogs are a reliable source of new material. And I’m proud to say that I think my blogroll is a finely curated list of sites that really deliver on content. In fact, they’re so good I can’t visit them too much or I’ll just want to write about all the things they’ve already posted! But sometimes cruising through the blogs reminds me of hitting the record shops when I was younger. Vancouver in the early 1980s had a plethora of new and used record stores: Kelly’s, A&A Records, Track Records, Neptune Records, and, of course, the main new records shop, A&B Sound. A&B focused mostly on selling stereo components (I bought my first tape deck there on layaway!) but used albums as a loss leader to get people into the store. Their signature ‘featured bargain’ bins (where they stacked records flat on top of each other) crowded the front of the store and usually sold for $4:99 when the going price for an album was typically anywhere from $6:99 to $10:99. I would buy records I had no clue about, just because they looked cool and were cheap. Such bargains included New Order’s Power Corruption and Lies, Men at Work’s Business as Usual, and OMD’s Dazzle Ships. Well, the record stores, like the book stores of my youth, are largely gone. But the excitement of finding new music lingers on, now re-platformed to the blogosphere!
Absolute Powerpop may not generate the volume of blog posts he once did, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t paying attention. His best of lists for 2017 were colossal: a top 100 singles, top 20 EPs, top 10 Americana and top 100 albums list. I snagged eight new artists that really caught my ear. But I want to draw your attention to 
Powerpopaholic is the godfather of power pop blogs. Given the range and depth of his coverage and sheer volume of posts, if a band or song is somewhere on the power pop spectrum it will eventually appear here. I snagged five new bands from his Top 30 list this year but have chosen to showcase 
I only picked one new artist from I Don’t Hear a Single’s many ‘best of’ lists but that’s because I’ve been nicking great stuff from him all year! Berwanger, Mothboxer, Daisy House and many, many more. IDHAS is an early finder – bands show up here that inevitably show up everywhere else, but a few months later. And he has a particularly good handle on the British and European scene. Having said that, my find from IDHAS is 
Powerpopulist seems like a machine that scours the internet for freely offered up tunes from great indie bands you’ve yet to hear of. I am constantly blown away by his industry – so many bands! So many tunes! His tastes typically run a bit harder than mine but he does love his jangle. His ‘best of’ list ran to 109 songs, from which I scored five acts that are real keepers. 
What were the biggest hits that weren’t in 2017? Who were the biggest should-be stars? In our alternate universe here at Poprock Record, these guys were all over the charts, the chat shows, the scandal sheets, as well as memed all over Facebook, Snapchatted by the kids, and Instragrammed into oblivion. Jesus, they were so popular you are well and truly sick of them by now. But sadly for our poprock heroes, the universe is not just ours to define. In the world beyond our little blog, they could all use another plug.
Daisy House dominated my playlist this year, both their current record and their back catalogue. They channel the 1960s but never let it wholly define them. They have two amazing singers and one fabulously talented songwriter. They deserve all the accolades the internet can hand out. If this were 1970 they’d probably be headlining The Flip Wilson Show tonight. The Rallies were an accidental discovery that turned into an obsession. Their whole album is great but “Don’t Give Up” makes my heart twinge every time. Aimee Mann and Fastball ably demonstrated this year that veterans can still turn out fantastic, career-defining albums. And I got to see both of them live! Los Straightjackets did Nick Lowe proud, producing a phenomenal tribute to his body of work. “Rollers Show” was my go-to summertime happy tune.
I won’t review every selection from the two-four, but I will say that I think the mix of poprock I feature on the blog is evident here. There’s fast and slow, country and rock, guitars and keyboards, etc. And then there’s always the hooks. Case in point: check out the 42 second mark on Greg Kihn’s “The Life I Got.” If you don’t feel the excitement he creates with some classic poprock guitar arpeggiation and the subtle vocal hook you’re kinda missing what we’re doing here. Here’s hoping 2018 is as hit single worthy as this past year has been!
I am going to sneak in an honourable mention for what I consider the compilation of year: 
The wild popularity of the Netflix series Stranger Things told me something was up. This wasn’t some cleaned up riff on the 1980s like That Seventies Show was for the previous decade, but all the ugliness of the period in living colour. Big hair, badly fitting clothes, and that legacy of 1970s botched renos cast against a backdrop of deeply sonorous yet strangely ominous keyboards. Imagine Krafwerk playing in the background of Three’s Company. Then when Walk The Moon’s spot on reproduction of a 1980s pop dance single “Shut Up and Dance With Me” hit the top of the charts I knew it was ‘welcome back 1980s, all is forgiven …’
Bleachers really nailed the 1980s sound on their 2014 debut, Strange Desire. It was like Jack Antonoff went through all the great records from that decade and isolated the keyboard and drum sounds from various hits to act as the palate for his own songs. I couldn’t stop listening to “Rollercoaster” with its Springsteen-esque wistful opening that gives way to an insurgent and relentless poprock mini-masterpiece. I could just laud the whole album – it’s that good – but check out the John Waite “Missing You” meets Hall and Oates loping rhythm of “Wake Me” or the frosty ‘I’m so cool being this indifferent’ English vibe of “Like a River Runs.” 2017’s Gone Now complicates things with a host of guest producers but the 1980s resonance is still there, particularly when he’s channeling Prince on songs like “Hate That You Know Me” and “Let’s Get Married.” Personally, I really like the pastiche quirkiness of “I’m Ready to Move On/Mickey Mantle Reprise,” which sounds like a Fun b-side.
A more serious engagement with the 1980s comes from Ireland’s The Strypes. The buzz around this group’s early material had Roger Daltrey, Paul Weller, and Jeff Beck lining up as fans. And why wouldn’t they? The band was doing British blues like the pros, but with an inspired spring in their step. Hey, that’s fine for people who like that sort of thing. But I love the Who, the Rolling Stones and the Jam when they leave the blues behind and develop their own distinctive, more melodic songwriting styles. So I was thrilled with the transformation of the band on their most recent release, 2017’s Spitting Image. Now the blues sinks into the background in favour of more 1980s poprock stylings of Rockpile and the Jam. Things rocket out of the gate with “Behind Closed Doors” and never look back. Just check out the masterful poppy roll out of “Grin and Bear It” or Jam-like intensity of “A Different Kind of Tension.” And then “Black Shades over Red Eyes” has the easy swing of Elvis Costello’s first album, with a bit of Springsteen thrown in. The album still shows its blues roots here and there, with a particularly bluesy sense of melody on “Oh Cruel World.” An acoustic EP of the record is also great, particularly the stripped down version of “Grin and Bear It.”
I grew up in a totally secular home where Christmas was largely understood as a kind of socialist event. A little something for everyone, and something thoughtful (rather than expensive) was the gift-giving philosophy. Holiday tunes rather than Christmas hymns were de rigueur. My mother had a stack of 45s that would come out every year– Bobby Helms, Brenda Lee, Rolf Harris – you get the picture. So, for me, it can’t be Christmas without some merry melodies!
This year’s mix runs the gamut from power pop to new wave to mash ups to folky acoustic. Coventry’s own The Primitives kick things off with their trademark mix of hooky power pop on “You Trashed My Christmas” from the Elefant Records special holiday album. Love the use of the bells! Then to Sunderland, UK where The Futureheads keep the energy up on their “Christmas was Better in the 80s.” There is something about the vocal delivery of this band I love. This song sometimes exudes the sonic feel of their first album but also develops in different directions with kooky abandon, pushing the boundaries of traditional holiday fare. Then we tamp things down a bit with the pleasant melodies of Cleveland’s own Bears on their “I’m a Snowman.” While technically just a winter themed number, who can resist the fun organ sounds and sweet harmonies? Not I. Rounding out this first batch of tunes is the eclectic West Coast poprocker Spirit Kid with his new wavishy “Santa Claus is His Name.” This song is an interesting mix of old and new influences – in many ways, a very late 1970s take on 1950s motifs worthy of David Edmunds.
Ok, let’s shift gears here in round two. Ohio-based Over the Rhine seem to be channeling Jennifer Warnes in full Leonard Cohen mode on their winter themed “Snow Angels.” Lovely piano and an understated vocal give this a haunting and lasting quality. In the ‘something completely different’ file, check out Mojochronic’s unusual and very effective mash-up of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” with the Police’s “Roxanne,” interspersed with dialogue from the original stop-motion animated movie. Mike Viola’s Candy Butchers bring us back to familiar territory with their poprock ode to seasonal forgiveness on “Give Me a Second Chance for Christmas.” Just listen to these holiday-coated hooks! Viola is a master of the poprock form. The Franco-American duo Freedom Fry return to the holiday music scene with their great Holiday Soundtrack EP. Their reinvention of the traditional classic “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” as a hooky keyboard-based instrumental is pure ear worm brilliance, while their time shifting “Next Christmas” vibes a very Simon and Garfunkel melodic warmth, particularly in the chorus. Wrapping up this season’s musical presents is a brand new acoustic Christmas contribution from Pop Etc. “All I Want for Xmas (Just My Baby)” is a swinging pop gem, sure to become a regular addition to your seasonal playlist.
If I liked them once, chances are I’ll probably like them again. So new releases by previously featured artists are always exciting. At least, until I get through the preview stage – then some are, on occasion, disappointing. But not this crew. It’s all pretty solid stuff from artists that I particularly dug the first time I encountered them.
Ezra Furman blew into my 2015 with a tantalizing catalogue of material: neo-1960s girl group meets Bob Dylan transitioning out of folk music, with just a dash of new wave and punk and cross-dressing. He lit up the now-closed Silver Dollar in Toronto with an eclectic and electric show that autumn with a both in-your-face punk and deeply vulnerable performance. This guy is a must-see performer if he comes near your town. Furman has a new album – Transangelic Exodus – set to drop in February of next year, with a few teaser singles available now. But I prefer here to draw from his year old EP Big Fugitive Life, which nicely showcases the incredible range of his talent. Just check out “Little Piece of Trash” with its neo-1950s vibe, particularly that honking sax. But just when you think Furman is doing nostalgia he breaks out an amazing frenetic chorus featuring great punky-new wave hooks. “Teddy I’m Ready” is another strong track from this EP with its brilliantly understated and tender vocal.Little Piece of Trash
Canadian David Myles is surely a reincarnation of Buddy Holly. He looks the part and his new album Real Love sounds like it takes up where Buddy would have left off in 1959. Myles has an amazing ear for the period – there’s a bit of Elvis, a lot of Marty Robbins, a hat tip to Roger Miller, and Buddy obviously. And yet this is not just a space age revival record. Unmistakable contemporary twists can be heard all throughout the album. Title track “Real Love” stretches its melody out of its neo-1950s groove here and there. The horns on tracks like “Look at Me” don’t quite obey the period norms. But as with all Myles releases, it is the songwriting that pulls everything together. The subtle and understated performance of “If You Want Tonight” underplays its classic song structure. I can hear Elvis or Marty doing this one. “Cry, Cry, Cry” is so Buddy. “Everybody Knows” opens large with a scat vocal reminiscent of so many Roger Miller records but quickly segues into a catchy period number. “Easy” also sounds very early 1960s with its slightly discordant vocals. Myles is big time love-song-singer and fittingly the album ends with the beautiful “Crazy to Leave.” Slip this baby on and teleport to those make-believe simpler times.
We went a bit wild for Berwanger’s back catalogue when we discovered it here at Poprock Record. The gleeful mixture of classic and indie rock, shamelessly tuneful, vibing a range potentially stretching from the Vaccines to the Tom Petty. The new record And the Star Invaders continues the band’s sonic mission to explore and inhabit new musical territory. Opening track “The Star Invaders” begins with Berwanger’s familiar catchy rhythm guitar but then suddenly shifts into a ‘she’s gone’ mini-chorus that sounds straight out the New Pornographers songbook. The hooks in this song are so addictive they should require a prescription. So too “Horror Show” starts off low key only to break out into a swinging poprock delight at the 37 second mark and never lets up. “Broken Moon” breaks out the acoustic guitars to ghost up a really nice but more meandering melody. All ain all, another strong outing.
I couldn’t get enough of Good Old War when I stumbled across their perfectly modulated poprock single “Broken Record.” The production, the tightly arranged acoustic guitars and vocal harmonies, the nice School House Rock nod with the double stop ahhs. Really, it was a mini-masterpiece. How could I know it was an outlier on a record that was itself a departure from their usual sound? In the end it didn’t matter. I fell in love with all the great songs on Broken into Better Shape with its slicker, more produced sound than their previous more folky vibe. Almost as a nod to older fans, the band followed up the record by releasing a series of more acoustic versions of some of the songs from the album. Now their new Part of Me EP scales back the production for a return to their earlier simpler sound. “The River” opens things up with a nice swinging melody, title track “Part of Me” is a finger picking slower mediation on love and belonging, while “Oak Tree” sounds like a traditional country folk ballad you might hear in church, if people in your church could sing. A very nice something to tide us over until a new album arrives.The RiverNever Gonna See Me Cry (Acoustic)
Poprock Record 