Tag Archives: John Larson and the Silver Fields

Poprock Record’s 25 must-have LPs for 2024

09 Thursday Jan 2025

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Another year, another load of really good albums. Creativity was off the charts in 2024, in both senses unfortunately. But banish despair, here at Poprock Record we make up our own charts, shining light on a deserving collection of should-be stars. Here’s our list of 25 must-have albums from the past year and, trust me, you’ll find plenty of variety within our self-imposed parameters of poppy rock. You’ve got jangle (Ducks Ltd.), gender (Day Dreams) and heartbreak (Tamar Berk). There’s retro (Terry Anderson), metro (Super 8) and fun (Scoopski). We’ve got artists singing in Spanish (Star Trip) and wide variety of accents from the British Isles (the list would be too long). And so much more.

The envelope please, here are Poprock Record’s 25 must have LPs from 2024:

1. Day Dreems Day Dreems
2. Tamar Berk Good Times For a Change
3. Brent Seavers Exhibit B
4. Wesley Fuller All Fuller, No Filler
5. Ducks Ltd. Harm’s Way
6. Aaron Pinto Aaron Pinto
7. Chris Milam Orchid South
8. The Martial Arts In There Like Swimwear
9. The Armoires Octoberland
10. Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass-Kicking Team Got To Be Strong
11. Star Trip Velocidad
12. Bull Engines of Honey
13. Real Estate Daniel
14. Phil Thornalley Holly Would
15. The Trafalgars About Time
16. Super 8 Retro Metro
17. Be Like Pablo A World Apart
18. Nick Piunti and the Complicated Men Up and Out of It
19. Rich Arithmetic Pushbutton Romance
20. Owen Adamcik Owen Adamcik’s Power Pop Paradise
21. Steve Robinson Window Seat
22. Sergio Ceccanti Mysterious Journey
23. John Larson and the Silver Fields Constellation Prize
24. Scoopski Time is a Thief
25. David Woodard Get It Good

Day Ricardo’s Day Dreems project was groundbreaking in so many ways, lyrically touching on gender, the body, ADHD, oppressive nostalgia and more, while musically mashing up hints of Squeeze, Crowded House and the Beatles into their own distinctive voice. It’s a most worthy choice to sit at #1. But close behind Tamar Berk wowed us with yet another winning collection of introspective yet downright hooky numbers. Brent Seavers, now there’s a guy who knows how to pack an LP full of highly listenable tunes. I mean, he does it again and again. I could go on … and do in the original posts hyperlinked above.

The EP format continues to offer artists a creative outlet that falls somewhere between the noble single and a more herculean long-playing effort. True for some it may amount to little more than a glorified single with additional alternative versions, demos and live cuts (not that I’m complaining). But for others it’s a carefully curated musical statement in its own right. I think our cast of 6 must-have EPs from 2024 lean more in the latter direction:

1. Lo Fi Ho Hum Garage Pop
2. Cliff Hillis and Dennis Schocket Pop, Girls, Etc.
3. Sunken Planes Intersections
4. Shake Some Action! Trip to Yesterday / Chase the Light
5. The Genuine Fakes Extended Play Vol. 1
6. The High Elves Early Works

I deliberately leave legacy artists – i.e. those that gained conventional chart success and still benefit from that or have a major label sponsor – off my yearly lists. They don’t really need any push from me. But I do love a lot of those acts and it is great to see them still putting out solid creative works. So here’s a legacy artist shout out to some notable releases in 2024:

1. JD McPherson Nite Owls
2. The Decemberists As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again
3. Fastball Sonic Ranch
4. Cast Love is the Call
5. Crowded House Gravity Stairs
6. Nick Lowe and Los  Straitjackets Indoor Safari

I’m a non-recovering Beatlemaniac, it’s true. I’m always on the lookout for some fun and creative riffs on the Fabs. This year Nick Frater blew away the competition with the further development of his Rutles project, a riff on a riff on the Beatles. So meta! Thus our best riff on the Beatles this year is:

Nick Frater Nick Frater presents The Rebutles 1967-70

Last year I singled out The Flashcubes for their amazing Pop Masters album. It was one where they covered a host of new wave era classics with members of the original bands. This year their spin-off band The Half Cubes produced their own version of that project with equally impressive results. You see where this is going. This year’s special award of awesome poprock merit goes to:

The Half-Cubes Pop Treasures

As I wrote in the original review, “Pop Treasures is a monster of a collection” that is ‘lovingly relentless’ in its coverage of 1970s and 1980s hit-makers and indie darlings. It’s a hits package worthy of K-Tel, and that is high praise coming from someone who lived through the seventies. So many great songs here, including our #1 most inventive cover for 2024 “Make You Cry.” Treat yourself, this is a guaranteed good time.

Album fans, the form is in safe hands if the releases from this past year are anything to go by. Sure the kids may not be into them the way their 1960s through 1990s peers were but they’ll have something to dip into when they get older.

Photo of John Baldessari’s art piece ‘Record Collector’ courtesy Thomas Hawk Flikr collection.

Breaking news: John Larson and the Silver Fields, Peter Freebairn, Lemon Twigs, and Joe Scarborough

11 Tuesday Jun 2024

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Today’s breaking news includes a few real newsmakers of one sort or another and others who should be. Stay tuned for all the hooky details.

When heartland rock reunited with more commercial pop sensibilities in the 1980s acts like Tom Petty and Heartbreakers, Greg Kihn Band and Bruce Springsteen stormed the charts. On their new album John Larson and the Silver Fields harken back to this golden age to my ears. Constellation Prize has the easygoing live rock chops of that era, sweetened with honey-dewed melodies and hooks. “Don’t Look Too Fast” is a great album opener, holding organ, piano and guitar in a dynamic tension while spinning out a cinematic sweep of heartland imagery. “Guilty By Association” puts its guitar riff at the centre of its rock and roll celebrations. “Everything’s Easy Until You Try It” reshapes an Orbison-esque guitar hook to drape a very Tom Petty romp. Then comes the should-be hit single for me, “Learning To Love.” The song rides an unstoppable guitar riff with a relentless drive. From there the album starts to vary its tempo and aural attack. “Start With Your Heart” offers up a bit of lighter AM radio-friendly pop fare while both “I Don’t Wanna Go Back” and “Fly Away” work that ominous 1980s pop vibe, delicately balancing dark and light melodic notes. And then there’s “Margot’s Gone Dancing,” a very different kind of poprock sound more akin to mid-period XTC. This just may be my favourite song from an album with a lot to like.

Melbourne, Australia’s Peter Freebairn seems like a stately gent. The tunes on his new album Silhouettes & Cigarettes exude class and an ‘I’m not in any hurry’ air. Opening cut “World You Choose” eases us into the album with a subtle hook that just keeps tightening its grip. “Say Goodbye” sounds like something we might expect from Paul Carrack, dialing up the blue-eyed soul and some sweet organ. Then “You And I” shifts gears to a more solo Paul McCartney vibe. What comes next sounds like some great lost 1970s Hall and Oates chart hit. “Crazy Love” has all the alchemy of that decade’s melange of styles: a bit of stylized pop soul, a disco guitar figure, and an aching pop melody that stretches on and on. Both “Home Town” and “Silhouette” are slower numbers but in decidedly different registers, one Don Henley California low-key, the other John Lennon sublime. But strap yourself in for this album’s closer because it defies everything you’ve heard so far. “I Got Lucky (I Got You)” is a strut rocker rooted in an uber cool riff that resolves into a rapturously melodic chorus, ornamented with theremin and a host of seductive background vocals. Hit anyone? This is it.

We’re not even half way through the year but it would appear that a lot of power pop scribes have already chosen their album of year. And who can blame them? The Lemon Twigs’ fifth album A Dream Is All We Know is breathtaking in its variety and command of 1960s and 1970s poprock styles. The record constantly shifts focus, from sixties English pop to California beach harmonies to 1970s commercial chart hits, but is clearly the work of one very talented band. Opening song and early release single “My Golden Years” sets the stage for what is to come. The track has the sonic dexterity of 10cc with perhaps a Queen-esque penchant for sharp melodic turns and a distinctly yearning vocals style. Sixties influences abound throughout the album with Beach Boys harmonies on “In the Eyes of a Girl” or The Byrds meet The Cyrkle on “If You And I Are Not Wise.” There’s also a very stylized English sixties pop sound coming off “Sweet Vibration” and “Church Bells.” But America gets a look in too with the more 1970s derived cuts like the Andrew Gold-ish “A Dream Is All We Know” and the keyboard-driven, Partridge Family-worthy “They Don’t Know How to Fall in Place.” The brothers behind this band have really got an ear for particular moments in pop music history. Just listen to how “How Can I Love Her More” captures the early 1970s over-the-top commercial pop, full of horns and strings and seeming vocal cast of thousands. And we’re not even done exploring how creative this band is. There’s still jazzy samba (“Ember Days”), Argy Bargy era Squeeze (Permanent Roses), and early solo McCartney (“I Should’ve Known Right From the Start”) to take stock of. And who would have predicted an album exit that hits the glam pedal hard like “Rock On (Over and Over)”?  This is band worthy of the often overused attribute ‘a sensation’.

Sometimes it’s hard to switch horses midstream. Joe Scarborough has put out an amazing power pop EP entitled Big Star but you’d never know from the press. Crickets. Well that’s probably because Joe is not just any ordinary Joe lunchbox but the Joe Scarborough of US Congressional and right-wing talk radio and TV fame. And he’s not just any high profile politico but has been a pretty hard-right libertarian Republican figure for decades, though he does appear to have exited the party at the Trump station more recently. Still, it’s hard for many to square rock and roll’s typically progressive elan with fiscal conservatism. Not that Scarborough would be the first to straddle rock and roll and the political right, it’s just that artists like Eric Carmen from the Raspberries were often associated with right-wing politics much later in their careers. But hey, what about the music? On the whole it’s pretty damn good. This EP has a grinding Well Wishers hooky edge in its title track while “Contract With Bulgaria” has lyrics you might expect from this point of view. Still eminently hummable. The cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” really gives the song some power pop oomph. This EP leans into the horn section but earlier EPs like Welcome to the Monkey House and Freaks Love Freaks draw on Costello-like turns of phrase and melody and a Matthew Sweet pop sibilance. Just goes to show, you don’t have to agree with somebody to dig their tunes.

Working hard to bring you the power pop headlines, that’s our mission. With all these great tunes, who needs film at 11?

Photo courtesy Thomas Hawk Flikr collection.

Poprock Record’s should-be hit singles for 2022

05 Thursday Jan 2023

Posted by in Poprock Themepark

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It was another busy year for melody-drenched rock and roll. Releases were coming fast and furious and frankly I could barely keep up. Still, I managed to get 82 posts up on the blog in 2022 and write over 64,000 words on the loosely-defined rock and roll sub-genre I call ‘poprock.’ I couldn’t write about everything that crossed my desk or what others may have necessarily thought was review-worthy, I just covered what caught my ear or worked itself into some kooky theme I cooked up. So let me be clear, what appears here is a completely arbitrary exercise in personal taste and discretion. I’m sure others may have a somewhat different set of worthy tunes that deserve more attention. And that is totally cool. The point is to celebrate the artists and perhaps give people another shot at checking them out.

So here it is, Poprock Record’s top 50 should-be hit singles from 2022:

1. Grrrl Gang “Pop Princess”
2. The Bleeding Idahos “The Beat Said”
3. Dazy “Rollercoaster Ride”
4. Bloody Norah “Shooting Star”
5. Allan Kaplon “Restless One”
6. Televisionaries “Over and Out”
7. John Larson and the Silver Fields “Reversible Heart”
8. Push Puppets “There’s No-one Else Like Lynette”
9. Tamar Berk “Your Permission”/“Tragic Endings”
10. Freddie Steady Krc “Bohemian Dandy”
11. The Toms “Atmosphere”
12. The Proctors “You and Me and the Sea”
13. The Minders “Home”
14. Richard Turgeon “Better With You”
15. Flipp “You Can Make It Happen”
16. Bill DeMain “Lone Ranger”
17. Limblifter “Haystack Rock”
18. Stephen Schijns “I Met Her Yesterday”
19. The Rubs “When I Dream About You”
20. Edward O’ Connell “Golden Light”
21. Superchunk “Endless Summer”
22. The Kryng “Get”
23. Freedy Johnston “There Goes a Brooklyn Girl”
24. Phil Thornalley “Fast Car”
25. Lawn “Down”
26. The Stroppies “The Perfect Crime”
27. Beachheads “Jupiter”
28. Martin Luther Lennon “jfkha”
29. David Woodard “Stupid Kid”
30. Linda XO “California Girl”
31. Richard X. Heyman “When the New Dawn Comes”
32. Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard “Break Right In”
33. Sloan “Magical Thinking”
34. Teenage Tom Petties “Boxroom Blues”
35. The Demos “Streetlight Glow”
36. Suburban HiFi “In Her Reverie”
37. Moonlight Parade “Amsterdam”
38. Ricky Rochelle “In a Dream With You”
39. The Telmos “What She Knows”
40. Marc Jonson and Ramirez Exposure “Tape Recording”
41. Sky Diving Penguins “Run Boy”
42. Novelty Island “Jangleheart”
43. Goodman “Au Pair”
44. Pictish Trail “Melody Something”
45. Kevin Robertson “Tough Times (Feel Like That)
46. U.S. Highball “(You’ve Got To) Activate a Carrot”
47. The Wends “What A Heart Is For”
48. The Rallies “Must Be Love”
49. Jane’s Party “It’s Been Years”
50. Frank Royster “Open Door”

There were so many great songs put out this past year, I was spoiled for choice. And choosing wasn’t easy. Sometimes I cheated a little. Grrrl Gang’s “Pop Princess” technically came out before 2022 but I only got around to writing about it this last year. What a tune! It’s a perfect example of the kind of excitement a great single can generate and, really, why I write this blog. People need to hear it! Or there’s the fresh indie hooks driving The Bleeding Idahos’ “The Beat Said” and Bloody Norah’s “Shooting Star.” Dazy had a knock out AM radio earworm with “Rollercoaster Ride.” And then there was veteran songster Allan Kaplon coming on like The Highwaymen at first only to let loose the Rockpile hooks in the chorus of “Restless Ones.” There were new faces and old favourites and surprises aplenty. Click on the links to go to the original posts featuring each song.

I had to create a few new categories this year, just to capture all that was good and groovy about 2022. The post-Covid covers album phenomenon continued and most were great fun. But some were particularly inspired. And then there were a lot of acoustic guitar-dominant tunes out this past year that I felt really needed to be singled out in a category I’ve dubbed folk pop.

So, without further ado, here are Poprock Record’s most inventive covers from 2022:

1. Kurt Lanham “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (The Beatles)
2. Lisa Mychols and Super 8 “I Can’t Explain” (The Who)
3. Bill Lloyd “The World Turns Around Her” (The Byrds)
4. Andy Bell “Light Flight” (Pentangle)
5. Murray Atkinson “Bus Stop” (The Hollies)

And here are Poprock Record’s top folk pop singles from 2022:

1. Fjord Mustang “Health Class Field Trip”
2. Rogers and Butler “Oh Romeo”
3. Bats “Golden Spoon”
4. *repeat repeat “Hm Feels Like”
5. Steve Robinson and Ed Woltil “Make Amends”
6. Chris Castino “Chinese Whispers”

I do love making lists but the choices do not amount to any big heavy pronouncement on anything – just my bit of fun and chance to celebrate these artists a little bit more. Check them out and see if you don’t agree, they’re seriously good!

Photo courtesy Fred Rockwood.

Beach blanket singles

23 Thursday Jun 2022

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Beach weather is finally here and nothing goes better with sand, sun, and surf than some suitably summer-proofed tunes. Today we offer 21 suggestions for your latest sun sojourning mixed tape.

A new record from Freedy Johnston is truly an occasion for celebration. He is a master story spinner and songwriter in the vein of John Hiatt, Robbie Fulks, and Elvis Costello. The new record will be called Back on the Road to You, Johnston’s 9th, due out in September. Right now we’ve got the pre-album release single “There Goes a Brooklyn Girl” and it’s a good as anything he’s ever released, with snappy, resonant lead guitar lines and a melodic hook that is teased out and then pulled taut at just the right moments. METZ bandleader Alex Edkins has a new solo project entitled Weird Nightmare and it’s a great big ball of wonderful guitar noise. Don’t let the guitar onslaught opening the second single from the self-titled album fool you, “Luisitania” has some genius pop instincts lurking behind its wall of sound, reminiscent of Catatonia at certain moments. It’s hard to keep up with Franco-American duo Freedom Fry. Seems like they’re putting out a new EP or single every month. I’m just going to hit pause on their many releases to appreciate “Strange for Love” from their May EP of the same name. The snazzy looping guitar licks are just so addictive in a fresh Fleetwood Mac sort of way. The vocal harmonies only reinforce the Lindsay and Stevie comparison. “Down the River” is Chicago’s Ratboys from their reinvented and re-recorded greatest hits collection Happy Birthday Ratboy. It is interesting to compare this latest version with the original. Where the former is somewhat stark and spare, the new version has a lovely pop candy-coating to it, with vocals that vibe The Weepies. Talk about timely tunes, Ireland’s No Monster Club “Waterfight” is just the right dose of that summer feeling. The song is a large bit of goofy fun, sounding very mid-1980s sonically and in its complete lack of seriousness.

Freedy Johnston – There Goes a Brooklyn Girl

Austin’s Phil Dutra writes big songs. I’m talking sweeping soundscapes that are cinematic in their intensity and presentation. His latest single “Is Anybody Home?” conjures images of all those over-the-top 1980s MTV moments full of heartbroken teens, hella-good hair products, and cars driving off into the distance. But wait for the unbreakable hook anchoring the chorus. Dutra knows how to deliver solid melodies, always with a slightly surprising twist. I’ve written about Portland’s Kurt Hagardorn before. He’s a reliably good rock and roll guy who can play in a variety of styles. But his new single is really something else. “Caveat Emptor” exudes 1970s rock and roll boogie time, a bit of CCR, a touch of The Sheepdogs, carried by solidly hooky rhythm guitar work, some tasty horn playing, and a judicious use of cowbell. Words like ‘shimmering’ spring to mind as soon as Mercvrial’s “Be That Someone” hits the turntable. The band is typically filed under the dreampop or shoegaze labels but what I hear is New Order in club dance mode. The driving keyboard riffs just propel the song along. On “Archipelago” from The Dreaded Larimie’s new EP Everything a Girl Could Ask all I can hear are echoes of Jane Siberry, if Siberry had joined The New Pornographers. The band call their sound a mix of power pop and femmecore, which combines slashing guitar chords and dreamy vocals. I call it a winner. Sweden’s Red Sleeping Beauty team up with indie songstress, sometimes economist, Amelia Fletcher on “Solid Gold.” It’s a jaunty number mixing a light Housemartins-style ambling pop sensibility with that reliable Swedish melancholia. Delightful guitar pop for anyone suffering though a bout of nostalgic self regret.

How does power pop legend Tommy Marolda keep sounding so cool? The guy’s been on overdrive since his famous 1979 long-weekend recordings as The Toms became every indie power pop fan’s must-have item. His band is back with a new LP called Stereo comprising 12 melodic pleasers. Currently I can’t get enough of “Atmosphere.” It’s so quirky and fresh-sounding and loaded with hooks. Portland’s Super Hit takes DIY chutzpah to new highs with his exciting deep cut “Run Away With Me.” Ok, this one’s not new. I’ve dug it up from his 2015 EP Pocket Rock. But man it deserves a second look. It kicks off in a pretty low key, sounding like something recorded in a someone’s bedroom register, but 53 seconds in a seriously wicked electric guitar kicks in and it’s deliciously hooky. Think trebly 1960s garage rock, just turned down a little. Sticking with Portland, I’m totally digging Shaylee’s single from last fall, “Ophelia.” The opening guitar work is so cool, sneaky yet delicate, weaving a bluesy-folk lick into your consciousness. By the time full band sound kicked in I was bewitched. The song is about the rush of new, sometimes brief, love and the music manages to mirror the rapturous roller coaster that relationships can be. When you take the Bryds into the 1980s you either get Tom Petty or the Grapes of Wrath, depending on how hard you hit the drums. John Larson and the Silver Fields are in the sweet spot, a little bit country, a whole lot rock and roll, with an accent on jangle on their most recent long-player The Great Pause. What is interesting to me is how different reviewers are raving over totally different tunes on the record. Personally I’m loving “Reversible Heart.” The jangle guitar sparkles and the tune is so Marshall Crenshaw meets Blue Rodeo. On Wide Awake Seattle’s Shake Some Action give the people what they want: jangle-infused psych poprock that shimmers and sparkles with electric energy. And the songs! There’s all the usual 1960s flavours here but I hear quite a good dose of Britpop too. Then there’s “Night Train to Munich,” a seductive gem of tune, its spare use of Rickenbacker nicely framing the haunting melody.

Artist Lucas Nathan is the band Jerry Paper and they are looking to just be themselves. In the case of Nathan that means identifying as non-binary, something the single “Kno Me” touches on. If that messes with your head the message here and on other cuts from the album Free Time is you’re just going to have to live with it. “Kno Me” cops an uber cool stance, challenging what we think we know about the singer and their gender. Meanwhile the chorus is pure pop bliss. When you’ve played with indie royalty like the New Pornographers and Woodpidgeon getting something new off the ground can fight to draw focus. But Frontperson deserves the spotlight. The title track from their new album Parade is so light and frothy, like unpredictable performance art (but not the boring self-indulgent kind). It kicks off so Laurie Anderson before the vocals turn more Joni Mitchell meets, well, the New Pornographers. The song’s got a thoroughly poppy positive vibe, despite the somewhat dire lyrics. You can’t help but feel a bit uplifted after hearing it. Japan’s The Kafers have so nailed the early Beatles sound it’s eerie. And I’ve heard a lot of Beatlesque numbers over the years. “Crying for the Moon Instead” sounds like it’s right off Please Please Me or With the Beatles, it’s got that Crickets-post-Holly vibe with guitars that are so 1963. If you listen to more than a few tunes by Mike Brunacini you’ll hear he’s got a distinctive piano pop thing going on, very Ben Folds. But I like his recent “Summer of 2009” in part because it’s such a departure. Sure it’s got piano but the guitar is pretty much in front for a lot of the tune. I love the variety he puts into performance, adding endearing bits of melodic ornamentation here and there to what is already a pretty strong number. fine.’s last album I’m Glad It’s Over Now is so listenable, the blending of the duo’s vocals a so smooth yet sibilant harmony. But the standout track for me is a bit of different, the so-this-post-topical “South by the Beach” with its accordion-sounding keyboard parts. The overall sound really reminds me of the synth-intimate atmosphere created by the likes of Long Island’s Red Barn.

The Kafers – Crying for the Moon Instead

Song 21 on our beach mix-tape odyssey is from Chris Castino’s new album Brazil. “Chinese Whispers” is a mellifluous pop number in a Paul Simon or Joshua Radin style. It’s a perfect accompaniment to your drive to beach, with the wind in your hair and some good feeling in your heart.

As Jonathan Richman once said, the beach be one of the best things we got. What makes that better? Tunes, of course. Stock up your playlist here!