Tags
Brad Marino, Chris Church, Cmon Cmon, Free Weed, Gentle Hen, He's Dead Jim, Kurt Baker, Lisa Mychols, Lone Striker, Mike Browning, RIcky Rochelle, Shapes Like People, So Cow, Soulbird, Super 8, The Fatal Flaw, The Mayflies USA, The Memories, The Open Flames, The Tisburys, The Tubs, Vista Blue
Cold winter temperatures up here in the Great White North have my feet tapping for all the wrong reasons. Time to heat things up with singles so sizzling they’ll scorch the turntable.
There’s something very 1980s space-age soundtrack to the vibe on Ricky Rochelle’s new single “Imagine Being Eric.” It’s there in the background keyboard runs and arrangement of the vocals. Very 1983. Then we have Retro Metro music man Super 8, back with jangle chanteuse Lisa Mychols on a new song. “Pop Radio” celebrates the joy of finding a great song over the airwaves. Quaint though the sentiment may be, the track hits all the modern marks for sixties timelessness. Putting power pop maestro Kurt Baker together with Wyatt Funderburk was always going to make for ear-catching experience. Baker’s new release “Warm in the Winter” is hooks at every turn, all sleek and shiny pop laced with plenty of rock edge. And on point for this theme post. Moving into more dream pop territory Shapes Like People offer up a mellow bit of jangle that practically flows like water on “Ambition is Your Friend.” Just one of a number of atmospheric cuts from their new LP Ticking Haze. Belgium’s CMON CMON excel at a kind of wall of sound aural pop assault. “Turn Off the Lights” balances a solid rocking backing with a smooth vocal and pop melody.
London’s The Tubs come on like some surging poprock outfit on “Freak Mode” but when the lead vocal kicks in such perceptions are quickly derailed, conjuring instead a more English rural folk aura. But the combination somehow still works in a beautifully creative tension. Ok this next band got to me at the name level. I’ve spent my life quipping ‘he’s dead Jim’ at all sorts of inappropriate moments. So running across Aberdeenian Scot rock combo He’s Dead Jim I knew I had to cover them. “Swim to Oblivion” is just one of 14 winning swinging rock tracks from their recent LP Head Like a Toyshop. These guys are very much alive – no red shirts here. Boston’s The Fatal Flaw deliver the goods again with their new single “Baby Tooth.” It’s got a hint of pop punk, in the vocal delivery particularly. But the chorus steps on the hooks for all they’re worth. Meanwhile in Philadelphia The Tisburys are priming their audience for an album release sometime in April. In the interim you can get the flavour of what is to comie with the propulsive, highly melodious “Forever.” Mike Browning pulls a rarity off oldies radio for full-on folk rock coverage, The Ragmuffins’ 1967 single “Four Days of Rain.” With vocal support from daughter Jillian, the duo recreate a decidedly Brydsian ambience.
The band Free Weed have produced what really should be the US public service theme song. “Government Employee” has mystery and cool New Order bass work and a freaky bit of psychedelic guitar work. Did I mention it’s cool? It really is. From the same record label, LA’s Gnar Tapes, The Memories lighten the mood with their chipper acoustic guitar strum and mellifluous single note keyboard work. The slightly sinister and otherworldly vocal offsets this lighthearted musical bed so effectively. Two decades on should-have-been power pop superstars The Mayflies USA are back with a brand new single and it is like they never left. “Calling the Bad Ones Home” expands the band’s sonic palate from Big Star to The Jayhawks and I’m liking it. If I can’t have a new album from Guster or Chris Collingwood then Gentle Hen will fit the bill. Actually let’s add them to that bill. Their new album is The Wrong Record and it’s all good but check out “It Only Takes a Couple Words” particularly. The vocal and guitar adornments sound so simple but they add incredible sonic depth to what is going on. Shifting to swinging London I like what The Open Flames are doing on their new song “Drop a Coin.” There is some very cool bass synth going on and a flurry of vocal ba ba ba ba ba’s adds charm to an already maximum charm ditty.
I’ve been wanting to write about the madly talented So Cow for ages. The band show so many stylistic faces to the world. Their latest single “Reputable Seer” seems like as good a place as to start. Check out the Beatles 64 guitar tone kicking things off before the sound moves in an Elephant 6 direction. Some very cool Apples in Stereo vibes happening here. Reliably melodic rocker Brad Marino has an album of rarities, remixed and unreleased stuff about to hit the e-shelves and from what is presently available online even attentive fans are going to find stuff they’ve never heard before. Like “Not Fooling Me” in my case. This is classic Marino hooky goodness, tied up with his oh so smooth vocals. Peter Green’s Soulbird project is like hitting the psychedelic mainline, with an extra pop punch. “Stay With Me Angel” has hooks working overtime but the vocal arrangement takes things to a new level. As if he’s not busy enough with his other bands Rural France and Teenage Tom Petties, now Tom Brown is fronting another nearly one-man band called Lone Striker. “Dunno” is a wonderfully languid bit of slow-groove pop, with what sounds like some sonorous horn work lifting the mood. Another exciting new release comes our way from guitar ambience expert Chris Church. “Sit Down” is dotted with sparkly guitars and a vocal that shifts from smoky smooth to urgently insistent.
Wrapping things on this shivery singles collection is a song so in keeping with our seasonal theme from everyone’s fave punk-pop productivity super-achievers Vista Blue. “I’m Going to be Warm This Winter” is pure adrenaline salted with plenty of pop hooks.
Brrr. It’s definitely a good day to stay inside, somewhere between the fire and the turntable.
Photo courtesy Rob Elliott/Swizzle Gallery.
2018 was a freakin’ fantastic year for poprock! How do I know? Every year-end I put together a playlist of tunes released that year. In 2016 it consisted of 58 songs clocking in at just over 3 hours. By 2017 that list expanded to 98 songs running over 5 hours. This year the list exploded to 175 songs going on for over 9 hours! My list of should-be hit singles had to expand to a top 50 just to accommodate all this talent. Hit the links below to find each artist as featured in my original blog post this past year or to go to their bandcamp or Facebook page if I didn’t write them up.
Time it was that the choice of an album’s single was both a serious artistic and financial decision. Putting out a single meant committing considerable resources to pressing them up and distributing them to radio stations, reviewers, and nightclubs. Today every cut on an album could theoretically be the single, depending on listener downloads and streams. But artists and record companies do still sometimes make a fuss about ‘the single’ as a way of drawing attention to a soon-to-be-released album. Or just as a way of maintaining interest in the product after its initial drop. For me, the single should be an album’s most potent hook vehicle, the song that will have listeners searching out the record for more. And it’s a way for me to highlight some great songs on the blog that just don’t fit anywhere else!
Michael Penn launched into the charts in 1989 with his debut album March, largely on the strength of a break out single – “No Myth” – which got to 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. But three albums later it was pretty clear that his chart success was a bit of a blip, despite turning out consistently strong material. Still, in 2005, after a five year break, he released the stunning Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947, an amazing concept album chock full of striking would-be hit singles: “Walter Reed,” “On Automatic,” “A Bad Sign,” and many others. Still, no chart love. So he walked away, shifting his considerable creative talents to television and movie soundtracks. I rue the day somebody lunched him into this decision. Luckily, the occasional single still emerges from time to time, like “Anchors Aweigh” from volume three of his soundtrack work of the HBO show Girls. Deceptively simple sounding, resting on a basic acoustic guitar backing track, Penn adds impressive depth and hooks with his vocals and the occasional instrumental flourish.Girls
Speaking of Penn, his spouse has had a very different response to chart indifference. Sure, Aimee Mann has done some soundtrack work too, most notably Magnolia in 1999. But she’s also kept up her solo work and a host of other creative partnerships. Mann is unique in not only consistently writing great songs, but she has developed her own distinctive songwriting style, something that few performers – the Beatles, Elton John, Elvis Costello – have really managed to do. “Can’t You Tell” is an original song Mann created for the anti-Trump political project, 30 Days, 30 Songs, narrated from the perspective of Trump himself, basically saying ‘come on folks, you know I don’t really want this job, it’s just my ego at work here …’ The song is not a charity knock off – that is not the way Mann does things. Instead, “Can’t You Tell” is a solid single, the mark of Mann’s talent that she can just give away such strong material for a one-off project like this.Can’t You Tell
Gentle Hen is the brainchild of Henning Ohlenbusch, seemingly the hardest working man in show business this side of Northhampton, Massachusetts. He is one of those guys who is part of half a dozen bands and collaborates with a half dozen more, while still getting out some solo stuff on the sly. The Bells on the Boats of the Bay is the debut album from his old band but now under a new name and everything seems to falling into place: fabulous design on the artwork, stellar songwriting, and a great sound. There are a whole lotta influences going on here: chiming guitars, Ben Vaughn-esque vocal stylings on some numbers, and hooks, hooks, hooks. “I Don’t Know Anyone Else But” is a strong single featuring a late 1960s British poprock guitar line opening out to lilting melody that shifts tempo to great effect in the chorus.
Poprock Record 