Tags
Autogramm, Band of Jays, Bur, Dolph Chaney, Gen 11, Gerry Devine, Hardwicke Circus, Josh DC, Late Bloomers, Mighty Dan Gerous, Rinehearts, SLD, Somerdale, Super 8, The From, The Front Bottoms, The Half-Cubes, The High Strung, The Lunar Laugh, The Newds, The School Book Depository
Autumn on the midway can conjure images of bright lights and romance or screaming kids and stale food. The same is true of midway music. To move your midway mixtape in the right direction we’ve selected 21 tunes that will survive an encounter with wildest rollercoaster ride. This is the first of two installments.
We kick things off with a reconstituted version of Gen 11’s “Month of Sundays,” a deep cut from their 2020 EP California Grown. This new version sounds fresher and more present than before, the rhythm guitar is louder and more to front of the mix. Definitely more ‘let’s party’ this time around. Next up Oklahoma City’s The Lunar Laugh and the advance single from their new album entitled “Born Weird.” The song combines so many traditions, a bit of pop punk with touches of more baroque pop influences, twin-fueled by chugging guitar work and a swirling mix of vocal styles. A new Rinehearts album is something to get excited about and Full Bloom does not disappoint. The record is full of that Perth-stamped poppy rock the town is so well known for. But for the moment, just sample “Falling Down” so you don’t get too over-excited. There are some classic FOW turns of melody and vocal phrasing here but so much more too. Now for something different, check out “Everyday I Find the Luck” from Carlisle UK’s Hardwicke Circus. It’s like Billy Bragg joined Haircut 100 and the results are fun, fun, fun. The vocal interplay is exquisite while the tune just charges along. Somerdale sounds like the name of some kind of American teen telenovella. But this band are a distilled dose of 1970s poppy guitar rock. “Come Enjoy” is from their first album in seven years, Let’s Get Started, and it vibes 1976 without even trying. It’s the guitar, it’s the tone on the lead vocal, it’s the wall of background vocals buffeting the tune. It’s the whole package.
It was a tough call between featuring SLD’s “A Perfect Day” or “Hiding.” The former has got a backbone of non-stop chilling background vocals anchoring the tune while the latter works a Lennon-esque combo of acoustic guitar and lonely vocal adding a surprising McCartney-ish twist one minute in. You can consult both for yourself from the band’s new LP Like Sunshine. I might be accused of choosing the off-brand tune from Dolph Chaney’s new record Mug with “Love Around You.” But the interplay between the tender vocal and heart-rending steel guitar lines is like a big hug and who doesn’t need that about now? Count me in. Chicago’s Bur have got an interesting mix of sounds going on their most recent LP We Are Bur, a combo of indie, punk, and Beatlesque elements all pulling in different directions. But it works. Like on the ear wormy “Kush Burns.” Smooth with wonderfully rough edges. With “All Your Heart Can Hold” Brooklyn’s Gerry Devine serves up poprock perfection. This is 80s hit radio good, so eminently listenable. And Devine is offering the whole LP In My Own Good Time for free. A slightly better known group from Liverpool are releasing their version of our next song “Now and Then” but give the indefatigable Super 8 his due, his version is pretty special. He fills out the tune and adds a few surprises along the way. Just one of 12 fab familiar reinventions from his free covers album Raindrops on Roses.
San Francisco’s The From have got a loose and friendly vibe. There’s a slacker indie rock and roll sheen to everything on their debut LP Tomorrow Was Better. With influences ranging from Cheap Trick to Any Trouble it’s all guitars and gas guzzling cars and rocking tunes. “Friend Collector” falls somewhere between 12 bar bluesing and a poppy boogie rock that Steve Miller Band invented. Late Bloomers mine a more early REM shoegaze jangle seam on “Bitter Pill.” The rest of their recent LP S/T is more of the good same. Another kind of rock throwback can be found the Mighty Dan Gerous record Everybody Needs a Hero. “Don’t Go” has got an early Cars new wave finesse combined with a more straightforward American heartland AOR FM radio sound. “Bitch I Love You” is pretty special too. Looking for a Merseybeat fix? The Newds have definitely got what you need on their one-off single “The Street Leads to the River.” It’s got jangly guitar and a lovely Billy J. Kramer breeziness. The mysterious Josh DC (from ‘England’ UK) puts a slight drone on the vocal of “Rip of the Rulebook” just like Beck might do. The song has got some interesting change ups and ear wormy quality.
I often refer to The Front Bottoms in talking about other bands, their sound is that distinctive to me. It’s a curious meld of dissonant indie rock with occasional folk flourishes. New album You Are Who You Hang Out With is no different. “Outlook” kicks off all earnest vocals and acoustic guitar only to break out in the second third with a heavy guitar attack and a swell of harmony vocals. Vancouver band Autogramm entitle their soon-to-be-released new album Music That Humans Can Play and that fits the ambience of the first single “WannaBe.” It’s got a Thomas Dolby meets The Fixx feel, with slightly more ominous rhythm guitar work. The Half-Cubes continue to dazzle listeners with their ongoing reinvention of nearly forgotten power pop classics of yesteryear. This time the boys take on the Ducks Deluxe/Searchers seventies tune “Love’s Melody” and lay bare the track’s melodic genius. Swedish electro-pop merchant The School Book Depository continues to drop interesting singles, this time vibing Owl City on “I’m Done.” As with previous releases, the song is a glorious wash of keyboards and an arresting vocal interplay. Charleston, South Carolina group Band of Jays offer up a smooth pop sound, punctuated by clean organ/lead guitar lines and a vocal mix that is stunning. “He Never Does the Right Thing” could be mistaken for soft rock but there’s some grit mixed in too.
We call a wrap on this installment of midway mixtape suggestions with Detroit’s The High Strung from their recent long-player Address Unknown. “In The Lines” will leave you wondering, is it folk? Or Merseybeat? Mannered baroque pop? Does it even matter? No. You can enjoy this tune and 11 others on the album without playing name that genre.
With all these tunes you can hit the midway with an extra spring in your step this fall. And there’s even more to come shortly.
Photo ‘Learning How To Smile’ courtesy Thomas Hawk Flikr Collection.
Head Sounds is another super-Cali-fantastic release from Paul Ryan aka Super 8! Imagine Ray Davies joining the Beach Boys sometime in 1968 for a one-off album outing and you kinda get the picture. Ryan aces that late 1960s California poprock sound on tracks like “Dragonfly,” with its sometimes dreamy, sometimes swinging groove and timely sentiments about ‘what if you could only live for a day’? And things just get more groovy from there. Five of Head Sounds numbers already appeared on an EP of the same name but the expansion really fills out the original sunny, sand-flecked ambiance. Dig the happy township jive animating “BoNes,” or the addictive rhythmic hook undergirding “BeBopALuLa,” as well as inspired covers of both the Beatles (“Across the Universe”) and Beach Boys (“In My Room”). There a Roddy Frame/Aztec Camera quality to “Love Like Ours,” a skipping-on-a-sunny-day feel to “Millionaire,” and a laid-back let it be vibe to “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” If sunshine had a soundtrack, it might sound like Head Sounds. Drop the needle anywhere on this disc and groove your cares away.
Can’t believe the mailbag is full again! But here we are. It’s nice to hear from people and even nicer that people pay attention to what I’m doing and send suggestions that really work with the blog’s over-arching theme. So here’s another batch of self-promoting rock and roll melody pushers that deserve three minutes or so of your time!
Ah the glorious single! Sometimes one 45 is enough, but at the best of times it’s the gateway drug to a whole album of super tunes. Multiple plays of Marshall Crenshaw’s hooky masterpiece of a single “Whenever You’re on my Mind” had me ransacking the record bins for his Field Day album in the hopes that more of the same lurked within. Today’s crop of singles might have the same effect.
The Fieros are more than a tribute to a discontinued Pontiac product line. The Dallas-born, now Brooklyn-based band rock out with a melodic twist on the 1960s psychedelic sound on their new single, “Who’s To Say.” Smooth vocals, crunchy guitar and a hooky chorus – it’s the total package. Want more? Check out their solid 2012 self-titled EP for a slightly rougher (but no less appealing) sound on tracks like “Get Back,” “In My Veins” and “Songbird.” Coming off a stupendous triple play of albums in 2018, Super 8 might have been forgiven for resting on his laurels a bit in 2019. But no, he’s back with another great single, appropriately titled “Something New.” The track kicks off with a classic late 1960s rock and roll sound, combining both buzzing and chiming guitars before dropping out here and there for a Donovan-meets-The Kinks acoustic vibe. Missed Super 8’s shining moments from 2018? You can catch up on this new single and the best of his previous releases on a soon-to-be-released compilation album from Subjangle Records.
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.
They say the third time around is the charm but, frankly, if you didn’t light up hearing Super 8’s first two records this year, you may be immune to his retro-1960s brand of hooky, summer-infused tune-age. Yes, you heard right, three albums in one year! Bringing back productivity standards not seen since the mid-period Fabs, one play of Hi Lo confirms it isn’t coming at the expense of quality. This installment is another delight! The vibes here vary, sometimes sounding very Arthur-era Kinks or late 1960s country Rolling Stones or even early 1970s Van Morrison. Check out the great laid back late 1960s sunshine pop of the opening track “Mr. Sunshine” or the cool beach groove of “Good Times.” The whole record is very mellow party listenable but with a few very cool surprises, like the brilliant Beck-like deconstruction of Neil Diamond’s “Cherry Cherry” and the spot-on Smiths’ riffing of “If Ignorance if Bliss.”
Musical gods of summer, you have heard our pleas! We have need of sunshine melodies and cool hooks to accompany our unrealistic seasonal aspirations and you have answered our prayers with new albums from some reliable sources. Get the bottle opener and air pump ready!
American-French duo Freedom Fry are no one thing. Their range runs the gamut of neo-cabaret to low-key dance numbers, with a whole lot in between. They’ve mostly put out original singles and EPs along with some inspired covers since 2011. But now comes their first long player, Classic, and it’s aptly named. Gone are the syncopated beats of last year’s Strange Attraction in favour of a more stripped down, acoustic sound e.g. banjos, dreadnought 6 strings, with just a touch of spaghetti western a la Ennio Morricone. You can really hear the western lilt on tracks like “For You,” “Cold Blooded Heart” and especially on the sunny “Past Lives” with it’s haunting whistling. Freedom Fry channel a kind of happy-go-lucky, feel good disposition on a lot of their tunes, even when the subject matter is dark. Kinda like riding a bike by the ocean on a sunny day. Feel that breeze on tracks like “Awake” and “Ticking.” This is a predictably solid debut album from a band that’s been single-teasing us for years!
Just six months after the release of his stunning debut, T-T-T-Technicolour Melodies, Paul Ryan aka Super 8 is back with another solid 1960s-infused musical rumination on life, love and politics with his new record, Turn Around Or …There is a late 1960s Kinks and Stones-like quality to the recordings here, both in terms of social commentary and the easygoing acoustic-but-still-rocky vibe to the whole album. “Hey Mr. Policeman” and “Be Careful What You Say” update 1960s social criticism for the new millennium while “Smile” and “Turn Around Or” exude that 1960s endless summer. I love the harmonica blasts on “You Say You’re Leaving” and the rockier “Calling Out.” Ryan changes up the pacing with “Never Had a Love,” which reminds me of McCartney’s forays into older musical forms. But the highlights here for me are the subtle, building hooks on the Jayhawks-reminiscent “Mary Jane” and the obvious single, “Your Love is my Blanket.” Nice cover of fellow Scots BMX Bandits great tune, “Serious Drugs.” Turn Around Or …is a sixties-vibing, easygoing summer party album, and it has arrived just in time.
Hurry and get your hands on this really super collection from the mysterious and musically iconoclastic Paul Ryan, aka Super 8. As a record T-T-T-Technicolour Melodies is defined by an acoustic sensibility but never limited to it. Instead Ryan’s acoustic guitar acts like old faithful in the background, sustaining every song, which are then adorned with all manner of ear candy: harmonica, slide guitar, cello, horns, you name it. Naming influences on this record is a potentially endless task, it is such an amazing synthesis of musical styles. In terms of tempo and feel, I hear the laid back confidence of Van Morrison in his masterful early 1970s period. Over the range of songs, you can hear a bit of the Rolling Stones, Wilco, the Velvet Underground, even the Verve here and there. But overall, the performance really reminds me of Beck on Odelay in its freewheeling, seemingly effortless pastiche of different sounds and musical motifs. And then there’s the songwriting, which is pretty impressive. This batch of tunes is mellow, soulful, and hooky. Need some uplift? Put this on while tooling around the house and feel the colour of your day change.
Poprock Record 