I guess I lived in a 1960s bubble. Growing up with my parents’ record collection it seemed that if the music was catchy and the performance was strong then it would be hit. But I think it was the stalling of Marshall Crenshaw’s career after Field Day that woke me up to fact that not all great music gets to be widely popular. There is an inescapable randomness to it all. You don’t get two more clear examples of the fickleness of the fame god than Soul Engines and The Someloves. Today’s tracks are red-hot bona-fide should-be hits.
The Soul Engines hail from the Jersey shore and apparently put out a few albums, though only 2002’s Closer Still is widely available. If their other records are even half as good as that one, the world is missing out on some pretty incredible music. The whole album is a pretty solid genre-crossing effort, a perfect melding of old rock and roll, Everly Brothers’ style country harmonies, and upfront melody. But two songs stand out as extraordinary efforts: “It’s Just Another Day” and “Tomorrow’s Girl.” I can’t stop hitting replay on these two tunes. “It’s Just Another Day” bursts open with a rapid fire smatter of jangly lead guitar that eases into the song with a nice organ backdrop. The guitars, organ and vocals play off each other with a sound reminiscent of a lot of western-style 1980s poprock like True West, Rank and File, and Canada’s Blue Rodeo. “Tomorrow’s Girl” kicks off with some great drumming that never lets the energy dissipate. It’s a tune with great swing and harmony vocals: the whole arrangement of the song is perfect, there just isn’t a note out of place. These songs would be in heavy rotation on Poprock Record radio!It’s Just Another DayTomorrow’s Girl
The Someloves are yet another example of the seemingly endless poprock talent pool that is Australia. Formed in Perth in the mid-1980s, the band released a handful of singles and just one album, 1990’s Something or Other. In this case, the lack of success is a bit easier to understand as one half of the band’s creative duo simply refused to tour in support of their recordings, killing their record deal. Still, there have been non-touring success stories in rock and roll and given how drop dead amazing their lone album is, the lack of accolades and gold records remains surprising. I mean, check out the killer roll out of “Know You Now.” It’s all ringing guitars and The Three O’Clock-style breathy vocals that builds to an catchy chorus and then back to more ringing chords. It’s an intense three minutes and 49 seconds of poprock. “Sunshine’s Glove” works a similar formula but ups the melody enrichment, allowing the ringing guitars to echo the hooks. Pretty addictive stuff as a kind of double A-side single. The good news here is that unlike the Soul Engines, a fabulous double CD greatest hits retrospective is available for The Someloves: 2006’s Don’t Talk About Us.Know You NowSunshine’s Glove
Hey, it’s never too late to make these guys the stars they deserved to be. Check out the recordings they have available on iTunes and with other sellers. Contacting bands that don’t exist anymore is a bit more problematic but not impossible. The songwriters from the Soul Engines have a number of new projects on the go and can be contacted on their Jenny Pilot’s and The Susan Rumors sites. Don Mariani from The Someloves has solo recordings and work with The Stems and DM3 available and can be reached at his website and on Facebook.
Speaking of Facebook, I discovered these two acts via some great Facebook music groups: I Love Power Pop and Power Pop Rock. There is so much to know – it’s great to have help.
To call someone a journeyman is no slight. It means they are skilled and have done their time in the trenches. A journeyman delivers in a solid and dependable way, even if they don’t get all the glory. Fame and success is – above and beyond a certain level of talent – fickle, arbitrary, and often fleeting. Our three journeyman poprockers have kept soldiering on in their careers, dependably putting out great songs, with less than their fair share of fanfare.
I have to begin with Dan Israel, our poster boy journeyman. Slogging it out in clubs with various bands stretching back to the 1980s, Israel went solo in 2000 and has since released ten albums, all mining a solid melodic rock and roll sound, while holding down a regular day job. Watch the video documentary below about Israel and his day job as a statute revisor for the Minnesota Legislature to get a sense of his double life. It adds a welcome dose of reality to how doing music as a job really works, or doesn’t, as the case may be. While movies showcase bands being discovered and suddenly spending all their time doing music, the reality is that most aspiring artists have to pay the bills doing something other than the music they love.
I’m not sure if Joel Boyea is a journeyman, but I think he is. For a guy with record out, this artist leaves a very light imprint on the ole internet. Still, a bit of digging turned up a few facts. His 2012 album Please Don’t Eat the Daisies gathered together 19 of his demos recorded over a twenty-year period, and that alone would indicate a guy plugging away at his craft. Self-described on his Bandcamp page as “a guy who will probably never quit his day job” he did manage to “bust out of his home studio in the summer of 2015” to professionally record a killer record, Here Again, and Lost. The transformation from bedroom demos to a full band recording (supported by sometime members of the Verve Pipe, Andy Reed and Donny Brown) is nothing less than astonishing. Highlights for me include the obvious single, the insistent “Upbeat,” “Breaking Up” with its lovely vocal arrangement, and the poprock gem “You and Your Love.” A shout out for the touching gay-positive ballad, “Outwitted.” He also does a nice cover of Nick Lowe’s “Time Wounds All Heels” in the video below.
Frank Marzano is a force to be reckoned with. Mild mannered math teacher by day, relentless live performer and self promoting recording artist all the rest of the time. Marzano has spent more than three decades trying to break into the music business, playing in bands, and making recordings. His work is an eclectic mix of 1960s influences, particularly 1950s and 1960s poprock and the Beatles. “Hit the Bricks” from his 2012 album The Boy Who Always Got Picked Last showcases his strengths, a catchy tune cast in that innocent 1970s pop remaking of early 1960s songcraft, with great bass and lead guitar. “Huge Rock Star” from the same album could be Marzano’s life story. Indeed, the protagonist is probably also the singer and songwriter, urging himself to keep plugging away despite the lack of much success. Marzano’s production and arrangement of the songs is crisp and refreshingly straightforward while his vocals have an original sound which I find both earnest and often endearing. 2015’s American Proust continued in the same vein, with “Love’s the Only Way Home” a particularly strong track due to its very catchy chorus. He also has a great cover of Lennon and McCartney’s “Bad to Me” on a poprock tribute album.Hit the BricksHuge Rock StarLove’s the Only Way Home
Before the I started this blog I already had a huge stack of material I’d been gathering for over a year or so – great stuff that deserves a wide audience, songs you might have missed. So today we go back to the vaults to ensure that rock and roll never forgets.
I have Powerpopulist to thank for today’s content. Sometimes you’ve got to hear about it from far away to appreciate the hometown crews!
When artists go solo or come around sporting a new band the results can split three ways. They might come back sounding pretty much like they did when they left, which sometimes turns out well (I guess she really was the band …) or leads to disaster (hm, he really should have stuck it out with the other guys …). But sometimes they return with a markedly different sound, a result that some find disappointing but I often find refreshing and exciting. This post features three different artists defying expectations on their second time around.
Jim Adkins is the lead singer for Jimmy Eat World and you couldn’t get a more different take on him that this solo EP. The title track, “I Will Go,” kicks things off with sprightly clean acoustic guitar rhythm and a lovely swinging melody, later adding horns and electric guitar to what is a solid single. He applies a similar fresh treatment to Beck’s “Don’t Act Like Your Heart Isn’t Hard.” Things get a bit edgier with his interesting take on an Everly Brothers’ b-side, “Give Me a Sweetheart,” featuring a double tracked harmony vocal and a guitar with an ominous rumble. But the EP’s highlight has to be his bleached-out, on-tender-hooks version of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Adkins deliberately avoids hitting all the familiar notes of Lauper’s mega-hit arrangement, revealing a remarkably flexible tune underneath all Cyndi’s fun flash. I Will Go is a winner: every track on this six song release is value for money.I Will GoGive Me a SweetheartGirls Just Want to Have Fun
Drummers get a bad rap. Other than keeping time, expectations of what they will contribute are often low. They are seldom the singer or songwriter for their respective group. But here Donny Brown defies expectations. As drummer for the grungy nineties Verve Pipe, Brown gradually expanded his influence on the band from just playing his instrument early on to contributing nearly half the songs to their 2001 album Underneath. But nothing could prepare us for Brown’s solo outings where he writes, sings, plays guitar and drums, and goes in a completely different direction than his other gig. 
Brown has a great soft rock vocal style and the tunes on his first EP, Hess Street, run the gamut from lush spot-on 1970s pop (“Bitter Rival”) to amazing tin pan alley recreations (“Call Me”). A real stand out is the opening track, the McCartney-esque “Lucky Number” with its intriguing melodic twists and Band on the Run lead guitar. His follow up EP, the self-titled Donny Brown, continues in the 1970s vein with tracks like “Life of a Stranger” and “Reach Out” but increases the hook factor on other contributions, echoing just a bit of ELO at times. The marvelous “Now You Can Break My Heart” is a poprock masterpiece that will get in your head and stay there.
Is this the second or third time around for Aimee Mann? Ok, we’re bending the rules here to include The Both, her collaboration with Ted Leo. I can’t help but think that this record sounds like the one she could have recorded with hubby Michael Penn before he banished himself to scoring movies, if their few collaborative singles are anything to go by. But, no matter, this debut is a killer. Of our trio of offerings, it also represents the least departure from the artists’ original formula. Overall, it may sound a bit tougher than Mann’s solo material at times, but the songs are indelibly Mann-esque, with all her clever turns of phrase both lyrically and musically. While there are no weak tracks here I certainly hit replay on “Milwaukee,” “Volunteers of America,” and “Hummingbird.” If you’re a Mann fan, this is a must have. It will also have you checking out Leo’s back catalogue with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists (hint: start with “Bottled in Cork”).MilwaukeeVolunteers of AmericaHummingbird
It’s end-of-the-year ‘best of’ list time and we here at Poprock Record wish to join the almost evangelical rush to judgment that accompanies such proceedings, though with a twist. I mean, who am I to say whose records are the best? If I put them up on the blog then you already know I think they are pretty great and worthy of Beatlesque adulation. Still, I do feel like shining an extra light on a few songs that just screamed ‘hit single’ to my 1970s AM radio-trained ears. So instead of a ‘top ten’ list I’ve assembled a list of twelve ‘missing’ hit singles, songs that would easily top the charts in my alternate poprock universe.
The Rifles are a monumental talent. Over five albums this east London band has honed sonic influences that include Oasis, the Jam, the Clash and host of other late seventies/early eighties bands into their own distinctive sound. Early records No Love Lost and Great Escape have a load of great songs like “She’s the Only One” and “The Great Escape” but things really take off for me with 2011’s Freedom Run. Check out “Long Walk Back” with its textbook perfect opening riff and shimmering vocals that draw you in while the hooks just won’t let go. Why this song didn’t zoom to the top of the charts is beyond me. The whole record is strong but the acoustic “Everline” is also a standout track. Since then two more albums only confirm this band’s strengths as songwriters and performers. 2014’s None the Wiser rocks with “Minute Mile,” a super single, and the lovely “All I Need,” another breezy tuneful acoustic-ish number. The band’s most recent release is 2016’s Big Life and there is no let up in the quality. If it were up to me, I would release “Wall Around Your Heart” as the potential hitmaker.Minute MileWall Around Your Heart
Some people are feeling pretty low. Now seems like a good time to visit the parallel but contemporary universe of Suzanne Vega. I discovered her debut album in the discard pile of the first (and only) commercial radio station I ever worked at in Smithers, British Columbia. It helped me survive that town. There was something poetic and ominous, alienated and soothing about that record. I spent a lot of late nights living within its sonic confines. A poet’s job is to help us cope with a world gone wrong. I think the Vega song for this moment is “When Heroes Go Down” from 1992’s 99.9F. Right now, the hero is not really any person but that sense of hope that people like to have around. It’s a catchy number, despite its message.
Who doesn’t like a variety pack? Six different choices for your ever changing musical tastes. First up: Birmingham, Alabama’s Act of Congress slather their ‘newgrass’ sound all over the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” and make it work. This is not an easy song to cover as it has such a signature Beatles’ vocal and musical sound but the band honours just enough of the original arrangement to make their own contributions really stand out. For instance, they nail the ‘paperback writer’ chorus harmony but then bend it in a new direction. The whole performance is solid, with banjo and fiddle somehow matching the rock swing of the original. So many covers of the Beatles rightly elicit a ‘why bother’ response but this one makes the cut.Paperback Writer
Best Coast have a great noise going on with their recordings, a steady drone that sounds like freshly-squeezed early sixties beach rock combined with a dollop of late sixties fuzzed out psychedelic guitar. Bethany Cosentino’s vocals often go someplace deep and moving, reminding me of Neko Case. There are so many great possible choices to feature from this band but I think “How They Want Me to Be” is such a lovely homage to late 1950s angst rock: simple in structure, striking in execution, particularly the vocal arrangement. I got to see them open for the Go Go’s summer tour in 2016 and though it seemed like a strange match up at first, their live version of the more recent single “California Nights” was nothing short of magical.How They Want Me to Be
Beverly have a guitar crunch that won’t quit on the splendidly retro-fifties “Honey Do.” The vocals seem understated at first but blossom into some great harmonies in the chorus. While this song garnered the most attention for the group, the whole 2014 debut album Careers is a shimmery rock and roll treat. 2016 marked a shift in sound and focus on The Blue Swell, with both guitars and vocals sounding a bit lighter and more poppy, but still hooky. “Victoria” captures this new direction nicely.
Black Honey offer a more theatrical bent with vocalist Izzy Baxter channeling a host of 1960s mannered female singers on “Spinning Wheel” with its Morricone western guitar riffs and ballad-style delivery. But the new “Hello Today” has Baxter going for a more straight out rock and roll sound, combining sixties and seventies influences. The song chugs along with catchy riffs and great vocals, superbly given visual expression in the band’s first video.
Poprock Record 