Tag Archives: K-Tel

Piping hot hits Vol. 2

12 Saturday Jul 2025

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K-Tel had it coming and going in the 1970s. Single albums, double albums, double albums released as two single albums, and every combination in between. The point was, if they had concept that was selling they would keep selling it, any which way they could. In our second installment of Piping Hot Hits we take heed from the K-Tel gods and lay it on heavy.

Listen to how Fara San make their main guitar sing on “Long Lost Lover.” Lovingly exuding a 1960s folk rock vibe but deployed in a wholly different song register, more post-millennium indie rock with sweetly sung vocals. You never know quite what you’re going to get with any new release from The Krayolas. Could be a great lost unreleased track or a brand new retro charmer. “Surf’s Down” comes from a batch of songs recorded back in 1979 that never saw light of day. The Beach Boys notes are obvious but there’s hints of Harry Nilsson and Burt Bacharach too. Nashville’s The Tummies are also working the sixties side of the street on their self-proclaimed ‘summer ’25 road trip single.’ “Send Me a Picture” is an effortless bit of Beatlesque pop. A new Sloan album is certainly something to celebrate. Based on a Best Seller is due out in September but right now we’ve got “Live Together” and it’s everything that makes the band today’s most reliable should-be hit makers. It’s all hooks and harmonies, both familiar and surprising. And yet as they sing in this song, “The ‘90s nostalgia that you feel Is nothing compared to what’s to come.” So September can’t come soon enough. Danny Patrick is a guy who records great songs and put them up on the internet for free or whatever you want to pay. And it is great stuff. Like “A Girl Like You.” You’d swear this is time capsule 1980s radio find. The guitar sound could be any rough melodic FM rock radio band from the era while the harmony vocals conjure groups with a slight country edge.

Jean Caffeine’s new single “I Know You Know I Know” is a genius bit of pop restraint. It sounds so simple but the melodic arc shifts between an Everly Brothers and Marti Jones feel. The selection of subtle musical adornments are inspired. What is Joe Dilillo doing on his new single? Would we say it’s mining Billy Joel or perhaps Gilbert O’Sullivan? “When It Comes To Us” is such a beautiful tune, it definitely stands on its own but the melodic shading offers up hints of the masters in the details. Movie Movie’s muscular guitar pop rock returns on “After Hours” with a splash of 1980s synth, like The Fixx stopped by to jam. The Len Price 3 keep on rocking like it’s 1979 with their new song “Emily’s Shop.” It’s got a feel like The Jam or The Primitives and what’s not to like about that? Bret Tobias from The Bret Tobias Set is now apparently hanging out with Marty Wilson-Piper from the legendary Australian band The Church so not surprisingly his new song sounds pretty 1981 in the very best way. Just listen to the guitar shimmer dripping all over “Happiness Writes White.” Melodic magic!

The Len Price 3 – Emily’s Shop

Say hello to Liverpool’s Novelty Island and their upcoming LP release Jigsaw Causeway with their light sunny drop of McCartneyesque single-age “Foam Animals.” It’s dreamy with some mesmerizing keyboard work. In a very similar keyboard original register, Freedom Fry lull us with their usual signature lowkey whispery hooks on “Little Things.” Tchochtke ride some propulsive Beach Boys organ riffs with “Poor Girl” but the rest of the sonic pull on this song is seventies pop. By contrast Boston’s Invisible Rays is guitars to the front with a delightful bit of jangle launching “Lightning” that reaches new heights of hook-age in the chorus. When we last heard from Trevour Blendour he was Falling in Love but now it appears someone is Breaking Up With him. We don’t have all the details, other than the predictably super pre-release single “She’s Still My Baby.” It’s classic Blendour, full of updated fifties motifs and old school rock and roll guitars.

The Penrose Web is a new musical project that could be a great lost EP from the 1980s indie guitar scene. “Geraldine” captures the gentle pop vibe that could be Aztec Camera. From the not-so-gentle file, the recent Friends of Cesar Romero single “Can’t Get You” gets busy with clashy guitars and slightly screamy vocals but never loses the hooky plot. As we have come to expect. The Flashcubes returned recently with accolade-winning covers album but what fans always really wanted was some new material from the legendary 1970s power pop band. Now we’re getting it and disappointment is not in the cards. The new single “Reminisce” takes us back to the band’s classic sound with a tune that sounds perfect for the here and now. With help from The Figgs Mike Gent! Trim, Ireland’s Spearside embark with a slightly heavier guitar sound on their new EP Hatchet Man, cranking their amps well past 11. But on “Are Friends Electric” they bring back a more ringing bit of jangle guitar to contrast these heavier sounds and the results are explosively good. From a very different direction The Rallies focus their considerable pop talents on “Love.” It’s a jaunty, feel-good effort, full of their requisite harmonies and guitar hooks.

Hitting the inner groove of this second volume we have a double shot of The Brigadier. “Blessings” is breathy and dreamy with great guitar blasts coming in at regular intervals while “Perfect Surprise” embodies even more of those characteristics but perhaps Beach Boys enriched.

Well, there you have it, a second could-be K-Tel collection volume. Feel free to recombine these volumes in any form you like, re-arranging or cutting tracks as you see fit. After all, K-Tel certainly would have.

Piping hot hits Vol. 1

06 Sunday Jul 2025

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K-Tel had some great album covers going in the 1970s, one for every musical fad or fashion. Let’s channel some of that over-the-top energy for a serious slab of summer single-age in not one, but two volumes. That’s 42 summer should be hits for your BBQ-ing playlist. Sizzling!

Kicking things off with something that really vibes a lot old school motifs, Police Touch Museum hit all the marks with “Lover.” The song structure could easily be early 1960s Brill Building or 1970s James Taylor soft rock. Tony Marsico and the Ugly Things also conjure up days gone by with a 1980s heartland rock and roll sound. “Goodbye to Lonely Town” has that Jersey organ and rumbly guitar that recalls everyone from Dion to the Boss. I’ve long been a fan of Tristen’s exquisitely compressed sound, so intimate yet with space for a range of great instrumental tones. “New Punching Bag” sounds a bit country, in a Neko Case outsider vein. It’s one of three killer cuts on a new EP entitled Zenith. I love the ambience of the recent Good Neighbours single “Starry Eyed.” Light and uplifting, it reminds me of the textured pop sound of bands like Foster the People. Toronto’s Pup have a recognizable pop punk sound on “Hallways,” a bit edgy and ragged in the verses but out-of-this-world pop brilliant in the chorus. Hooks for days.

Tomas Nilsson stocks “I Thought It Was Love (But It Was Not)” full of jangle and lighter-than-air background vocals. The song exudes 1960s style but in the 1980s revival sort of way. It’s not hard to hear where The Grip Weeds are coming from with “Gene Clark (Broken Wing).” The songs is a tribute to that member of The Byrds who wrote so many great songs but whose own solo career stalled for reasons that are hard to fathom. A worthy and highly listenable tribute. Hidden Pictures tell a story as old as time with “Wedding Singer (Going Through a Divorce).” The people who surround these life epochal events are expected be exemplars of what the event represents but things don’t always work out that way. This is a smooth bit of 1980s AM radio polished pop. Team power pop veteran Chris Stamey up with The Lemon Twigs and you knew something special would result. And it has. A new album is on the way but for now dig what “Anything is Possible” sonically conjures up. I love the tension, the sense of unease what permeates the tune until the chorus delivers us from evil. Austin Texas band Gentlemen Rogues have a rock solid band vibe going all over their recent LP Surface Noise. This is a band that could keep you dancing all night long. But from this record I’m drawn to the more subtle hooks defining “All Out of Crush.”

Somewhere out in the wilds of Wyoming teen twins Liam and Layne have cooked up a unique blend of ‘grungy mountain folk’ that slides between neat genre divides. “Cheyenne” is their most polished offering to date, IMHO, with killer harmonica and fiddle breaks. The Sonny Wilsons keep teasing us with solid singles. “Miss Kinetic” combines their distinctive guitar and vocal work into another strong effort. Can an album be far behind? The Trews fall into a more Americana zone that I usually get caught up in but their new single “Don’t Get Lost in the Dark” is so guitar-fabulous. The rippling lead lines keep you glued to speaker to see where things are going. A great deal of The Lightheaded album Thinking, Dreaming, Scheming! sounds very 1963 folk fair but “Me and Amelia Fletcher” is a cool departure, very 1980s pop chic. Richard Snow has something to say on his latest stand-alone single “Governments Always Lie” and he’s not being coy about the message. The tune is a very cool, an expertly calibrated slice of poppy indie rock.

With song titles like “Dream Not Found” and “Us Ugly Guys” you quickly get the sense that The King Teen is some serious kind of lovable loser on his EP Us Ugly Guys Got Style. But he sharpens the critique on “Mediocre Man,” a bouncy acoustic guitar-led mediation about over-estimating your competence. Bonus points for including an rousing, updated version of Bertolt Brecht’s “United Front Song” appearing here as “Left Two Three.” Is it just me or does Rhode Island’s Andy Lampert sound particularly English?  There’s a certain kind of sixties poprock from the UK that straddles folk and pop and psychedelia and that’s what hear coming from “The Bottommost of the Poppermost.” Speaking of folk, those folks in The Happy Somethings have resurrected a band member’s old track “A Kind of Loving” and it’s a delight, a gentle paean to unrequited love. Your Academy name the elephant in the political room right now in the US on “National News,” calling out the clown holding the country hostage. Stylistically the vibe is late 1970s Fleetwood Mac in AM radio hit mode. Liquid Mike often leans into a heavier sound somewhere in just about every cut but “Selling Swords” has to be his poppiest offering yet. Very Wavves or SMRS.

The cover and title of the new Fortitude Valley LP says somebody’s is gonna get a serious talking to. Don’t be fooled by the fresh guitar pop vibe guiding early release single “Sunshine State.” Lead singer and songwriter Laura Kovic is only just getting started. Stay tuned for the rest when Part of the Problem, Baby comes out next month.

21 should-be hits and that’s just Vol. 1! Check your fave internet fanzines soon for deets about Piping Hot Hits Vol. 2.

Trans-Canada Content: 54-40, Telepathic Butterflies, and The Trans-Canada Highwaymen

10 Wednesday Jan 2024

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Canada is a big, big country. So big that a highway covering the whole country wasn’t completed until 1971. That year also marked the beginning of Canadian content rules requiring 30% of the music played on Canadian radio stations be from Canadian artists. The effect was like opening up a musical highway, helping to create a viable path to success for Canadian acts. And succeed they did. Today Canadian artists are worldwide stars but without Canadian content rules it would have been much harder for them to get a hearing over the vast multitude of American and British performers swamping the Canadian airwaves. Today’s featured acts carry on that tradition, celebrating and extending it.

With album #15 Vancouver-based 54-40 still sound like they’re having fun. There’s a playful vibe all over A Westcoast Band, offering up the group’s usual high standard of melodic rock but adding some whistling, over-the-top exaggerated background vocals, even a disco groove here and there. The opening and title track “A Westcoast Band” is an insistent, driving slug of poppy rock, a fist-pumping declaration of purpose and identity. Notice served – this is a band still excited to be here. Lyrically the album tells the story of the band itself. As the liner notes state, “If 54-40 was a Broadway musical, this record would be the original score.” From that striking opener the mood shifts with the slower groove of “Meet You At The End.” But don’t settle in because “Vodka Surprise” signals party time has arrived with its disco-ish guitar work, cheezy synth shots, and cushion of stylized back-up singers. I like the feel and flow of this LP, the songs all highly listenable even while covering a range of styles. “Chicago” is a lovely bluesy vamp. Others are story songs that highlight the challenges of playing on the road, like “Same Guy Different Body” and “Living Room Allen.” Another strong contender for drive-time radio rotation is “Table For One.” If you get the chance, don’t miss these westcoast Canadian legends playing this album in your town.

Moving east on our musical Trans-Canada highway we hit Winnipeg, home of psychedelic power poppers The Telepathic Butterflies. For a band that goes back decades all I can say is wow because on Plan B this combo sounds as fresh as any twenty-something young things. A lot reviewers name check XTC in their Dukes gear but what I hear here is a refined Revolver influence. Opening track “Twenty” melds buzzy guitar and sitar-ish sounds in an oh-so familiar Beatles synthesis circa 1966. That ambience carries on in “Above It All” and “Static.” Then “Right Through It All” and “The Girl Who Would Not Be Named” come on with a more carefree poppy rush reminiscent of seventies sensibilities. Ok “Grand Malaise” is pretty Andy Partridge. But there are more contemporary comparisons one could make, like the New Pornographers shading on “What’s In It For Me” or The Uni Boys 1970s retro feel all over the driving guitar pop of “Flora.” Personally I’m partial to the jangly guitar carrying “A Ball Thrown.” “History Will Prove Us Right” is a lovely surprise ending, a midtempo, soft-rocker, all-too-relevant statement song. Plan B definitely gets my approval.

A supergroup comprised of current and former members of Sloan, The Barenaked Ladies, Odds and The Pursuit of Happiness singing all those Canadian chart hits of the 1970s that Canadian content rules helped get heard – what could go wrong? Really, a lot could have gone sideways here, a karaoke-meets-the-oldies-circuit kind of debacle, but instead Explosive Hits Vol. 1 has The Trans-Canada Highwaymen hitting it out of the musical park. Tarted up like an over-the-top 1970s K-Tel package the record covers the gamut of Canadiana from the period, including hits from The Poppy Family, Andy Kim, Trooper, April Wine, The Guess Who, The Stampeders, Joni Mitchell and so many more. But my stand-out selection from this collection would be the slightly roughed up take on April Wine’s jangly hit single “Tonight is a Wonderful Time to Fall in Love.” The rougher edges really add to the charm of this winning tune. Or you can get a taste of what they’re up to in their awkward but fun ‘infomercial’ below.

Tonight is a Wonderful Night to Fall in Love
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2ArvGvmDSuo%3Fsi%3DlpZfvxa7hCJGOwtQ

With these tunes you can hit the road in musical style with the requisite amount of Canadian content. Who says you have to be in Canada to keep up your quota of Canadiana? Just another good thing about the Great White North.