Tag Archives: Steve Robinson and Ed Woltil

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.

Return engagement: Edward O’Connell and Steve Robinson & Ed Woltil

08 Tuesday Nov 2022

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A return engagement with a favourite artist is something special precisely because you’ve got a sense of what is coming but not exactly what may arrive – it’s just that tension creates a unmatched sense of anticipation. Today’s post features two such favourites indeed, artists inspired by some of the legends of my poprock pantheon.

It seems Washington D.C. music veteran Edward O’Connell has doubled the wait time between albums, from four years between albums one and two to eight years getting out album three. But wow has it been worth the wait. Feel Some Love is a great big bevy of post pub rock goodness. Anyone familiar with O’Connell’s past work knows that his basic musical portrait is a triptych of Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello and Tom Petty influences. They’re all here, though perhaps with a splash more Costello colour on these 15 featured cuts. “Golden Light” opens things with a poppy Tom Petty meets Elvis Costello demeanor. There’s a really great piano and organ tension driving this song along, topped with some distinctive lead guitar work. Then title track “Feel Some Love” slips in a bit of pop soul, particularly in the chorus. Overall there’s less of the Tom Petty rocking feel to this outing, though Petty influences are definitely there on “Florida Man,” “Things Have Really Changed,” and “Sad and Lonely,” the latter a cover of 1980s DC indie band The Neighbors. The vibe is more latter day Nick Lowe in his poprock elder statesman guise: more mellow, countryish at times, with the same devlish wordplay. “Buddy Crocker” is obviously very Lowe but also check out “Who’s Watching Your Baby” with its spot-on Paul Carrack organ sweep and understated yet alluring vocal. Reminds me of all those obscure sixties numbers Nick has been crafting into mini pop gems. For a dose of solid mid-period Costello there’s “I Got a Million of Em,” “All My Sins,” and “As No One Once Said,” the latter with some sweet Harrisonian lead guitar. “You Wish” is something a bit different emoting a poppy feel reminiscent of the late 1970s post-folkies Ian Matthews and Gerry Rafferty. For should-be hit single, I’d vote for “A Thousand Pardons” just for the solid guitar hooks. Welcome back Ed, I’m definitely feeling some love for this LP.

On Shadow Play Steve Robinson and Ed Woltil reunite to further their exploration of the various hues of folk rock, both light and dark, poppy and austere. Some of the songs are unabashedly AM folk pop, like opening cut “Chasing Angels” which reminds me of 1980s pop folk artists like Al Stewart. Or there’s “Lifeboat” or “The Way You Love Him” with their very mainstream pop folk sound circa 1979.  Both “Life on a Trampoline” and “On Your Side” reach a bit further back to the previous decade, mixing Beatles with Pink Floyd influences on the former or Cat Stevens late 1969 folk-inflected pop on the latter. Things do get more indie on “Kickstart” which vibes an XTC folk feel a la Mummer, with a bit of Peter Gabriel in the vocal. Then the album goes darker. Cuts like “Ultramarine” sound a bit more dire, like a poppy Richard Thompson, while “Vulgar Tongue” has an Appalachian folk flavour melded with psychedelic elements. I love the austere and stark folk canvas of “One Day Never” and “On My Way to My Appointment with Death,” very similar to recent efforts from Tacoma Washington’s Vanilla. “Shadow Wall” is yet another different flavour of folk, this time in tune with more serious folkies like Bruce Cockburn, though with a dab of Beatles melodically. Album wrap up song “Make Amends” lends a White Album folk atmosphere to its very timely sentiment. All in all another folk-tastic release from guys who just won’t limited by a genre label.

I’m loving this return engagement with O’Connell, Robinson and Woltil but perhaps you’re seeing the show for the first time? Click on the links above to get caught up with these superior showmen.

This is Steve and Ed: Swallowing the Sun and “Paper Boats”

21 Sunday Feb 2021

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Steve Robinson and Ed Woltil, two great tastes that go great together. Or separately. Their 2015 duo release Cycles was pretty special, particularly “Love Somebody” and “The Boy From Down the Hill.” Since then they’ve released solo work, like Ed’s fab 2020 album One in My Tree. And sources tell me (thanks Ed!) that a new duo record is in the works. But right now both men have got great solo efforts worthy of a deep thesaurus dive to find the appropriate superlatives.

Robinson’s Swallowing the Sun just gives me a good good feeling, like a snatch of warm sunshine somehow embedded in song. With help from Woltil, XTC’s Dave Gregory and others, the sound ranges from mid-period Beatles to XTC to classic English folky pop. The album kicks off with “Sorry Amsterdam” whose chorus sounds so mid-1970s Wings to me. From there Robinson spends a lot of time working a Beatles/XTC axis, a bit of Revolver on “Wild God” and oh so much Harrison pedal steel guitar throughout “Quiet One,” or a Mummer vibe on “Make You Mine” or Nonesuch for “Smiling Delirious.” Sometimes the two sonic pallets collide, as when Robinson has a “Lady Madonna” piano driving the playful XTC feel of “Mr. Empty Head.” “Needle in the Red” changes things up with a more Neil Finn/Crowded House style. And then there’s the folk side Steve Robinson. “Milk and a Dash” reminds me of just about every mid-1960s English beat group – Herman’s Hermits, Manfred Mann, The Hollies, etc. – whose records usually included some obligatory R&B and classic folk workouts. But they always had a delightfully earnest – very listenable – pop quality to them. ‘Bah, bah, bah …’ indeed! But then “Proud of Our Love” shifts folk genres, mining a sophisticated English folk scene I associate more with the likes of Roy Harper and John Martyn. Ten years is a long time to wait for a Robinson solo album but if Swallowing the Sun is the end product, so be it. Seems you just can’t rush this kind of good thing.

Meanwhile, as well as contributing to Steve’s just released record, Ed’s got his own album to do. In fact, all this year Woltil plans to release a new single every month, culminating in an album drop by year’s end. The project is off to a great start with the endearing slice of retro songwriting captured in “Paper Boat.” This is a kind of stylistic impressionism we might link with Paul McCartney or Billy Joel, though the song itself has an emotional depth I associate more with Randy Newman’s soundtrack work. Truly, a perfect little song given a masterful, under-stated performance.

Get closer to Steve and Ed and spend a little time with these recordings via their respective solo and joint internet properties hyperlinked above.

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

24 Sunday Apr 2016

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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.

Chicago’s Fruits Bats take the influence but sound like they’ve tuned everything down into a lower register on “Rainbow Sign.”

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.