Tags
Barry O'Brien, Blair Packham, Carmen Toth, Clockwise, Cool Blue Halo, International Pop Overthrow, IPO Toronto, Slumberjet, Standard Electric, Telejet, The James Clark Institute, The Nines, The Wasagas
David Bash returned to Toronto recently to close out this season of his traveling live music roadshow, the International Pop Overthrow musical festival. It was the last stop on a set of 10 dates that had him jetting from Liverpool and Copenhagen to Los Angeles and New York City. The Toronto dates offered four shows over three days featuring 20 local-ish acts, all playing at The Painted Lady live music venue. And Poprock Record was there to provide a snapshot of what you missed.
Things kicked off with a solo set from Dublin’s Barry O’Brien, leader of Slumberjet. So IPO Toronto was not all Canadian content. Fans of XTC and Pugwash won’t go wrong with O’Brien’s brand of melodic tunes. Then local boys The James Clark Institute featured a few tunes from their new album Under the Lampshade from a paired down version of the group. The results were more acoustic Mersey than the finished product but no less delightful. When The Nines took the stage it was like some joyous reunion concert. The audience seemed primed for every tune and if the band had been parted for some time you’d never know it. Another band that made the most of just having two members in attendance was Telejet. They cranked through a half dozen tracks from this year’s Spiritual Age record and the effect was magic. That album is a load of great tunes. Night #1 of IPO ended with an actual reunion of Halifax legends Cool Blue Halo. Chatting with the band’s former manager, the story he told me was so textbook: band on the brink of success breaks up. Still, this night they played tunes from their 1996 debut Kangaroo and you’d swear they were today’s latest new thing.
Day #2 of IPO Toronto opened with the inimitable Blair Packham. Man, can this guy weave a tale. His songs are hooky and touching and Packham can hold an audience in a spell like few performers can. “One Hit Wonder” is a brilliantly-staged story-song with a chorus that will have you singing along. Moving Clockwise, this band have been around for decades but their performance here seemed to distil their sound to its sixties British invasion roots. On record, I love the over-sized pop charm of “Lift a Finger” from their 2000 release Accidentally on Purpose. By contrast, Carmen Toth conjured up the no-nonsense, new wavey rock and roll bounce of early Pat Benatar or Chrissie Hynde. “Pretty Dresses” is a clever rumination balancing feminist critique with individual desire. But you could dip in anywhere on her recent LP Fix the World for equally good results. Hands down the rocking-est moment of IPO Toronto happened when The Wasagas took the stage. With matching t-shirts and guitars, the band blasted through a series of way-cool, seriously dance-able instrumental surf numbers. Windows fogged? Check. Day #3 was an afternoon, all-ages event. Standard Electric definitely offered up some family fun, complete with stickers and buttons. Don’t worry if you missed the party, you can hear on the band’s 2020 album Overnight Lows and Afternoon Highs.
David Bash operates with a big tent approach to the power pop genre, big enough to encompass jangle, roots, surf, singer-songwriter, art rock, retro and indie. If you were there at IPO Toronto you got to savor them all. But if you missed it, click on the hyperlinks above to get a taste of what was some great IPO action.
One way to get caught up on the amazing onslaught of music coming out is to let someone else do the sorting. Compilation records emerged almost simultaneously with advent of the long playing ‘LP’ in the 1950s, offering music consumers a load of hits or exposure to new artists at bargain prices. Of course, groove-cramming 20 artists on a single album did come at a cost – these were not ‘high fidelity’ releases! But I certainly recall hearing a lot of acts via such releases that I might not have discovered. Today digital compilation albums don’t suffer poor sound quality and once again serve to introduce audiences to broad genres of music – and power pop and poprock are no exceptions. While every track may not be winner on your garden variety compilation album, our three examples come pretty close!
Wayne Lundquist Ford is the ‘Ice Cream Man,’ a UK expat living in Sweden and producing a regular radio show that combines sixties retro classics with new material that runs the full gamut of power pop and then some. Ford’s particular blend combines garage rock with some surf rumble and straight up power pop. Songs We Learned in Sundae School is a monster collection of 163 tunes, all available for free download from the Futureman 
Reverse Play: C86 Rediscovered sees a variety of bands reinterpret the New Music Express cassette of indie pop tunes from 1986 that featured Primal Scream, The Primitives and The Pastels, among others. Some tracks have a decidedly shoegaze gloss to them while others sound like more polished or alternate takes of the originals. On the whole, it’s a pretty solid tribute/homage to the original record. But, if I have to choose, the standout tracks for me would be “Emma’s House,” from the incomparable The Catherines, the janglicious “Kill, Kill, Kill” by The Death of Pop, and Ed Ling’s beautiful acoustic rendition of “Velocity Girl.”
David Bash is a power pop institution, hosting live showcases of new talent in countless cities on two continents – every year! His insatiable appetite for hooks and keen ear for up and coming talent is apparent on his most recent multi-CD compilation, International Pop Overthrow 21. This collection features power pop defined in the most broad and inclusive terms (as it should be). Of the 69 featured songs, we’ve also highlighted 8 on Poprock Record, so clearly I’ve missed a lot of good stuff! As there’s too much here to review in detail, I’ll just whet your appetite with a few standout tracks, IMHO.
Failing to sign with a major label in the new millenium, the band took up an interesting strategy with their next two records: both were self-released double albums. 2004’s Tangents rocks out and here the two Lund brothers’ early love of Led Zeppelin shows up, though some poprock does shine through on tracks like “Wrong.” 2008’s Songbook IV mines the power pop sound a bit more consistently, as evident on cuts like “Can’t Read You,” “Listen,” and many others. But, as an aside, check out guitarist Chris Lund’s amazing guitar chops on the solo for “Such a Ride.”ListenSuch a RideWrong
Seven years passed before the Lund Bros. returned with 2015’s Sanguine, a title meaning literally ‘cheerful amid difficult circumstances.’ Apt much? But if the band was discouraged, it doesn’t show on the recordings, which are stellar, particularly the nice cover of Badfinger’s “No Matter What.” The obvious single is the perfectly paced “Blue,” which opens with some nice acoustic guitar and then builds to a great, vocal harmony-drenched chorus. Another nice tune with a pretty amazing guitar solo is “Ballad of a Former Martyr.” The lead guitar line ripples out at the 1:15 mark with some pretty beautiful runs.BlueBallad of a Former Martyr
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