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Poprock Record’s should-be hit singles of 2019

09 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

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*repeat repeat, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Army Navy, Berwanger, Big Nothing, Bombadil, Brett, Bryan Estepa, Dave Molter, David Woodard, Dead Rituals, Deadbeat Beat, Drew Neely and the Essentials, Ducks Unlimited, Ezra Furman, Fruit Bats, Hollerado, Johnny Stanec, Juliana Hatfield, Lucille Furs, Martha, Matthew Logan Vasquez, Matthew Milia, Mike Adams at his Natural Weight, Nick Lowe, Omicrom J Trauma, Pernice Brothers, Perspective A Lovely Hand to Hold, Propeller, Richard Turgeon, Ryan Hamilton and the Harlequin Ghosts, Space Dingus, Taylor Knox, Telekinesis, The Boolevards, The Brothers Steve, The Cerny Brothers, The Cudas, The Dave Anderson Project, The Golden Seals, The Maple State, The Maureens, The Mommyheads, The Needs, The Rallies, The SmartHearts, The Well Wishers, Trolley, U.S. Highball, Wyatt Blair

Screen Shot 2020-01-09 at 11.14.44 AM2019 had plenty of jangle, hooks, harmonies and melody to spare. From an initial list of over 200 songs I’ve managed to whittle my should-be hit single list to just 50 chart toppers for this year. Man, it was hard. Because I only post music I like this whole exercise is a bit like choosing your favourite child. Well, IMHO, the 50 songs featured here all have a strong earwormy quality to them. But let me know if you agree or disagree! Hit the links below to find each artist as featured in my original blog post this past year.

So, without further ado (drum roll please!), here is Poprock Record’s should-be hit singles for 2019:

  1. The Golden Seals “Something Isn’t Happening”
  2. Juliana Hatfield “Sugar”
  3. The Well Wishers “Feeling Fine”
  4. Bombadil “The Man Who Loves You”
  5. Matthew Milia “Abruptly Old and Caffeinated”
  6. The Brothers Steve “She”
  7. The Maple State “Germany”
  8. Aaron Lee Tasjan “Songbird”
  9. Johnny Stanec “Secret World”
  10. The Maureens “Can’t Stop”
  11. Telekinesis “Like Nothing”
  12. Omicrom J Trauma “Leave You Alone”
  13. Matthew Logan Vasquez “Ghostwriters”
  14. Hollerado “Straight to Hell”
  15. *repeat repeat “Pressure”
  16. Space Dingus “Parchment Squire, Paper Knight”
  17. Taylor Knox “City at Night”
  18. Fruit Bats “Ocean”
  19. Berwanger “Bad Vibrations”
  20. The Cerny Brothers “American Whore”
  21. Pernice Brothers “Skinny Jeanne”
  22. Wyatt Blair “I’ll Keep Searching for You”
  23. Mike Adams at his Honest Weight “Do You One Better”
  24. U.S. Highball “Summer Boy”
  25. The Rallies “All Over Town”
  26. Richard Turgeon “Loneliness”
  27. Perspective, A Lovely Hand to Hold “One Wrong Turn”
  28. Deadbeat Beat “Baphomet”
  29. Bryan Estepa “Another Kind of Madness”
  30. Ezra Furman “In America”
  31. Nick Lowe “Blue on Blue”
  32. Lucille Furs “Paint Euphrosyne Blue”
  33. Brett “Wisdom Tooth”
  34. Martha “Heart is Healing”
  35. The Dave Anderson Project “Welcome”
  36. Drew Neely and the Heroes “Chasing Danielle”
  37. Dave Molter “Tell Me That You Love Me”
  38. The Boolevards “Take Me to the Top”
  39. Army Navy “Seismic”
  40. Trolley “I’ll Never Tell”
  41. Ducks Unlimited “Anhedonia”
  42. The Needs “I Regret It”
  43. The Cudas “The Kids Want Hits”
  44. Propeller “There Goes a Day”
  45. Dead Rituals “Run”
  46. David Woodard “Nine Hundred Ninety Nine”
  47. Ryan Hamilton and the Harlequin Ghosts “Feels Like Falling in Love”
  48. Big Nothing “Waste My Time”
  49. The Mommyheads “Wake Up a Scientist”
  50. The Smarthearts “The Man from the Company”

As you can see, the list is a bit all over the map. There’s hints of country and folk and a lot of rock and roll. Because I’m working a broad poprock vein (as opposed to a more narrow power pop) my list crosses lines that other melodic rock blogs might not. That means the pop folky Bombadil and Fruitbats can sidle up to the more edgy melodic punk of Ezra Furman or country rock of The Cerny Brothers. But most of the entries fall neatly into my definition of ‘poprock’ – as in, melodic rock and roll characterized by plenty of hooks and harmony vocals. It’s all there in my number one song from The Golden Seals “Something Isn’t Happening” with its swinging acoustic guitar base, various hooky lead guitar lines, and catchy vocal melody. Or you can hear it in the addictive guitar drone driving Juliana Hatfield’s great single, “Sugar.” Same goes for The Well Wishers’ fantastic poprock reinvention of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 sound on “Feeling Fine.” And I could just go on dropping superlatives on every entry on this list. Instead, click on the links and check out my original posts about all these artist.

All these artists have instruments to keep in tune and studio time to pay for, not to mention all the time they take away from paying work to write the songs and practice performing them – all in aid of getting this exciting music out there for us to enjoy. Help them thrive by getting out to see them live and buying their music.

Summer breeze: Fruit Bats, Eggstone, Dave Sheinin, and The Kickstand Band

27 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

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Dave Sheinin, Eggstone, Fruit Bats, The Kickstand Band

Screen Shot 2019-08-27 at 10.28.18 AMAh summer, you’re already starting to fade a bit on me. Nights getting a bit darker, a bit cooler. And the ‘back to school’ cacophony is reaching a fever pitch! So let’s honour the sun, sand and “move like a wayward summer breeze …” one more time!

I first heard Chicago’s Fruit Bats on their break out single “Rainbow Sign” from their 2003 album Mouthfuls and loved the mix of acoustic guitars, pianos and vocal harmonies. And the hooks! 2016’s comeback album (of sorts) Absolute Loser had so many highlights like “From a Soon-to-be Ghost Town” and the infectious banjo-driven “Humbug Mountain Song.” Now they’re back with Gold Past Life and get a load of the Cat Stevens-ish guitar picking on the beautiful single “Ocean.” It’s a song that builds slowly into a delightful, swirling summer set piece. Sweden’s Eggstone typically offer up a dreamy pop sound that leans heavily on summer themes over their three albums and five EPs from the 1990s. But my favourite tune from them has a bit tougher indie pop gloss on it, “Against the Sun” from their 1994 album Sommersault. The song has a great set of AM radio hooks circa the late 1970s poprock scene. https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/against-the-sun.mp3Eggstone “Against the Sun”

You’d think being an award winning sports writer would be enough? You’d be wrong. Washington Post sports writer Dave Sheinin is also an accolade-collecting poprock songwriter and performer. His 2018 release First Thing Tomorrow had me reaching for the thesaurus to find new ways to describe how fabulous it was. Now he’s back with a summer single that beautifully captures the wistful mixture of feelings that accompany the hot season. Warning: hit play on the “The Lies of Summer” and you may be subject to a case of earworm that is hard to cure. If there was a contest for unofficial indie band of the summer, The Kickstand Band would definitely be in the running. Over the course of their EPs and one full length album, I count no less than five songs with ‘summer’ in the title and host of others on related themes (e.g. ‘sun,’ ‘sunshine,’ ‘sunburn,’ etc.). I love their sound, which oscillates between dabs of Beach Boys, Everly Brothers and Simon and Garfunkel vocal harmony influences combined with just a undercurrent of jagged punkiness. Goosebump city indeed! But this time out I’m featuring their cover of Brian Hyland’s 1962 hit “Sealed with a Kiss.” Hard to improve on this classic but the Detroit duo do an impressive job: smooth, a bit eerie, with an innovative horn section instrumental interlude.

Summer, it seems like I hardly got to know you. Now you’re nearly gone. Well, I’ll still have the music to get me through the long cold Canadian months ahead. Honour the summer contributions from Fruit Bats, Eggstone, Dave Sheinin, and The Kickstand Band online by clicking the hyperlinks.

Pool photo courtesy Larry Gordon.

From the ‘how did I miss this’ department: Fruit Bats, The Mayflies U.S.A., and Pete Droge

24 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

≈ 1 Comment

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Absolute Loser, Fruit Bats, Necktie Second, Peter Droge, The Droge and Summer Blend, The Mayflies U.S.A., The Pity List, Under the Waves, Walking in a Straight Line

highway at nightAn enormous amount of talent cruises through the internet everyday with yours truly discovering barely a smidgen of what’s out there. But there are times when I have to ask myself ‘how did I miss this’? Well, actually, it happens so much we have a whole department looking into it here at Poprock Record.

FBALFruit Bats is the least forgiveable because we previously featured the band’s delightful “Rainbow Sign” with its great acoustic feel and harmony vocals from 2003’s Mouthfuls. Somehow I missed their most recent album, released just last year.  Absolute Loser is a more muscular effort, showcasing a full band sound. “From a Soon-to-Be Ghost Town” ripples along with just a hint of that countrypolitan sound indie bands like so much, with vocals that remind of James Mercer of the Shins. “Humbug Mountain Song” kicks off nicely enough but then suddenly introduces a hypnotic banjo riff that keeps coming back, with a smooth 1970s soft rock chorus. Title track “Absolute Loser” is a slow burn hook, with vocals that remind me of You Won’t’s unusual harmonic charms. All in all, this is one eminently listenable album.https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/01-from-a-soon-to-be-ghost-town.m4aFrom a Soon-to-Be Ghost Townhttps://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/04-absolute-loser.m4aAbsolute Loser

MFPLOk, I can be forgiven for missing The Mayflies U.S.A. because they fall into the power pop ghetto that has long proved a hit with critics but a dud with mainstream audiences, at least in the period when most of their records came out. When guys like Matthew Sweet can barely register in the mainstream, there just isn’t much chance this sort of talent is going to register outside of niche circles. And that is shame because these guys (pop) rock!  The songs are hooky and the vocals meld into a special kind of ear candy. Just check out the title track from 2002’s Walking in a Straight Line – churning guitar hooks and pleasantly sibilant vocals galore. Or tune into “The End of Line” from 2000’s The Pity List with its subtle but seductive hook buried at the end of the chorus. I couldn’t hit replay fast enough. “I Just Wanna Be Your Gun” is also pretty special.

PDNSHow I passed over Pete Droge is more mysterious because I actually have long owned a copy of The Thorns album he recorded with Matthew Sweet and Shawn Mullins. But I think I was going through a pretty heavy Sweet fix at the time and judged the album to be too low key. In any event, I recently stumbled across Droge in an iTunes ‘listeners also bought’ section and haven’t looked back. Droge has five solo albums and a soundtrack that are all pretty good but I find myself really digging 1994’s Necktie Second and 2008’s Under the Waves, the former channeling a mellow Tom Petty vibe while the latter has a strikingly spare acoustic demeanor. PDUTWFrom Necktie Second “If You Don’t Love Me (I’ll Kill Myself)” reinvents the old “Mockingbird” song in an original way, all sparkling guitar lines and nicely reverby vocals. Meanwhile, I swear “So I Am Over You” comes on like a really great Tom Petty out-take. Fast forward to 2008 and the material from Under the Waves has Droge digging deep into more atmospheric territory on the title track or channeling Paul Simon circa Graceland on “Giving it All Away” with some very ABBA guitar. Even more recently his The Droge and Summer Blend project takes off in another direction, this time a folky/country harmony-rich concoction, with great tracks like “Sad Clown” and “Island.”https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/09-so-i-am-over-you.m4aSo I Am Over Youhttps://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/01-under-the-waves.m4aUnder the Waveshttps://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/02-give-it-all-away.m4aGive it All Awayhttps://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/02-island.m4aIsland

Making up for lost time is a never too late proposition. Scurry on over to these web portals hosted by Fruit Bats, The Mayflies U.S.A., and Pete Droge to find out just how to catch up on their great recordings, live shows, and future plans.

Sounds like Simon and Garfunkel: Paper Kites, Fruit Bats, Robinson and Woltil, You Won’t, Jeremy Fisher, and Villagers

24 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

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Fruit Bats, Jeremy Fisher, Simon and Garfunkel, Steve Robinson and Ed Woltil, The Paper Kites, Villagers, You Won't

simon-and-garfunkelYou’ll never see the rock critics expounding on the seminal influence of Simon and Garfunkel to contemporary music – but it is there.  Not because S&G broke new ground like the Beatles or the Kinks or the Who.  Nor did they exude a counter culture rock persona like the Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix.  But they did contribute to the unique 1960s synthesis of musical styles, songwriting, and performance that would define the popular song in the decades to come.  Paul Simon’s genius was in melding the authenticity of folk music with the more relentless hooks from pop music, cast against a dazzling array of musical backdrops (something more fully exploited in his solo career).  But in S&G, his talents produced a unmistakable sound, regardless of the style of the material.  That sound can be found all over the contemporary music-sphere.

Australian band The Paper Kites nail the S&G sound on “Never Heard a Sound,” from the signature acoustic finger rolls to the effervescent harmony vocals.https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/09-never-heard-a-sound.m4a

Chicago’s Fruits Bats take the influence but sound like they’ve tuned everything down into a lower register on “Rainbow Sign.”https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/01-rainbow-sign.m4a

I wasn’t convinced Steve Robinson and Ed Woltil really fit the S&G bill until about half way through “The Boy from Down the Hill” because I was too distracted by the more obvious Bryds and Beatles influences but the vocals do have some very S&G touches.

You Won’t sound like S&G from an alternative dimension, you know, the one where everybody here is there too but somehow just a bit weirdly different.  “Three Car Garage” is a wonderfully weird and different S&G-style single.

Jeremy Fisher is the living embodiment of S&G studies, a master of the master’s many styles.  Really, if Simon and Garfunkel were sensible and wanted a killer comeback album they would just comb Fisher’s catalogue for an album or two of amazing material.  Fisher particularly excels at the up-tempo S&G sound (e.g. Cecilia, Mrs. Robinson, etc.) as is evident from “The Scar that Never Heals.”

Ireland’s Villagers capture the more morose side of S&G on “Becoming a Jackal,” particularly when you hit the chorus.

Check out the following links that will take you to these bands’ various internet real estate: Paper Kites, Fruit Bats, Steve Robinson and Ed Woltil, You Won’t, Jeremy Fisher, and Villagers.  You Won’t will be appearing at the Drake in Toronto May 10 for what will be an intimate and undoubtedly amazing show.

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