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March singles spectacular

05 Saturday Mar 2022

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

≈ 7 Comments

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Anxious, Armchair Oracles, Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard, Commotion, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Francis Lung, Goodman, Jeremy and the Harlequins, John Fogerty, John Lennon, Michael Goodman, Oliver Tree, Persica 3, Pete Donnelly, Popdudes, Richard Turgeon, RIcky Rochelle, Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, Surge and the Swell, Tamar Berk, The Beatles, The Cactus Blossoms, The Hoodoo Gurus, The Orange Peels, The Summer Holidays, U.S. Highball, Yorktown Lads

As a month, March just feels so in between. Lacking any real ‘big event’ or holiday it can seem like we’re all just doing time waiting for spring to start. What we need is something big, something spectacular. So I’m offering a roundup of recent melody-drenched singles to help get you through.

San Francisco’s Richard Turgeon kicked off 2022 with a new career highlight, the infectious stand-alone single “Better With You.” Need a shot of feel good guitar oriented power pop? Turgeon adds a lot of Matthew Sweetener to this track but to my ears the mix is just right. The king of Dad rock is unstoppable! Shifting gears, French outfit Persica 3 takes us in a more ethereal direction with their dreamy “Water Lily,” the most straight-up radio friendly contribution on their new LP Tangerine. The song is like a museum of sonic trappings from years gone by, a bit 1980s keyboard ambience, some lilting 1970s acoustic guitar, and vocals that would be at home in any roomy medieval church. With Commotion Pop Garden Radio have released a tribute album to Creedence Clearwater Revival that pulls together 26 indie artists to remake the band’s canon. It’s a gutsy endeavor because trying to cover John Fogerty often begs the question, why bother? It is gonna be hard to top the master. All the bands make a stellar effort but the contributions from Popdudes and Yorktown Lads really stand out for me. Popdudes key up the jangle guitar and fatten the vocals on “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” in a way that really suits the song, adding something new to this classic. Yorktown Lads hilariously add an early Beatles rocking veneer to “Green River.” The mix could have been just a joke but the band ace melding the disparate styles with such a smoking dexterity you can’t help but be blown away. Michael Goodman’s musical project Goodman is reliably good. Every few years another album comes down the pike full of hooky poprock sketches, drawing from classic 1970s and 1980s indie motifs. His new album is How Close Are You to the Ground? and the whole thing is strong but the obvious candidate for should-be hit single is the punchy “Au Pair.” Goodman mixes up all the various elements with a creative genius: engaging guitar, hooky vocal lines, a staccato seductive lurch to the rhythm.

Like every other Beatlemaniac, I was thrilled to see the band put out some new songs in the 1990s. But somehow I just couldn’t get past the poor quality of John’s vocals on the two singles. Enter Francis Lung with his beautiful and Beatles-faithful rendering of “Real Love,” a version that offers us a more balanced treatment of the song. Now we can really hear how good it is. Sometimes there’s a band doing something that generally is not your thing but then there’s a deep cut that totally grabs you. Well that is Connecticut’s punky, sometime-screamers Anxious for me. Their uptempo material on Little Green House is fine but it was their out-of-character acoustic guitar ballad “Wayne” that really got into my head with its mellow backing and captivating vocal interplay. And looking at album’s cute cover design, it’s really the only song that you’d predict would be there. Let’s say you release an album of new tunes in the October, so what do you do in the new year? If you’re Ricky Rochelle you release a stand-alone single that branches out with a whole new style. 2021’s So Far So Good featured songs that straddled the pop punk and indie rock and roll sound but his new single “In a Dream With You” is something else again. Personally I like where he’s going. The song is a bit more light and buoyant than the previous efforts, with a dreamy hook in the chorus. Minneapolis subs for Memphis when The Cactus Blossoms come to town. Their new album is One Day and it delivers on what fans loved about their debut album Easy Way, an unerring feel for that Everly Brothers/Roy Orbison mode of playing and singing. The new record does branch out a bit into more contemporary song styles (e.g. “Everybody”) but tune in to “Hey Baby” to get your fix of the old magic. Another band living the 1960s musical dream to perfection is New York’s Jeremy and the Harlequins. On their new single “It Won’t Be Love” they reinvent the early 1960s tragic rock song style, adding some Springsteen-ish rocking muscle to proceedings.

A straightforward blast of poprocky goodness can be found The Summer Holiday’s “What Happens When You Lose.”  I hear a bit of the New Pornographers in the song’s poppy twists and turns. The band’s creative force Michael Collins is working on material for new album, according to I Don’t Hear a Single. So there’s that to look forward to. The Hoodoo Gurus are back after eleven years with a new album and winning, timely single, “Carry On.” Though written back in 2005, the song manages to give voice to healthcare workers struggling to keep going amidst this seemingly never-ending pandemic. The song has everything you’d expect from the HGs, big guitars, in-your-face vocals and solid rock and roll hooks. Another band with a big sound is Cardiff’s Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard. Their new album Backhand Deals is chock full of a 1970s sense of poprock abandon, all driving keyboards and different vocals playing off each other. But it’s “Break Right In” that will really knock you over. The lyrics are eccentric and the mood is a shot of seventies 10cc meets Queen in full-on pop mode. Seems it was just yesterday that The Orange Peels re-released their 1997 debut Square to serious reviewer accolades (it was 2019, actually). But the band is not living in the past. Their most recent album is Celebrate the Moments of Your Life and it’s full of perky song sketches, like “Indigo Hill” and “Human.”  I hear a real Shins vibe on the former but the latter reminds me of The Pixes, particularly the keyboard work. Former Figgs and NRBQ member Pete Donnelly moves in a more decidedly poprock direction his new EP Anthem of the Time. You can really hear it on the title track, a song that has some definite Beatlesque turns and benefits from a relentless dose of jangly lead guitar work.

The Summer Holiday – What Happens When You Lose

Norway’s Armchair Oracles must be working up to a new album, what with the slew of singles they’ve released over the past three years. “Addicted to the Ride” is the latest and this time out I’m hearing a very Gerry Rafferty gloss on the vocals (and that’s a good thing!) while the tune is very Macca in mid-period Wings flight. Surge and the Swell is an Americana project from Minnesota’s Aaron Cabbage, working with the Honeydogs’ Adam Levy. I think you can really Levy’s impact on “Gravity Boots” with the electric guitar licks really adding some poppy hooks to the song. It just shows how a creative songwriter and producer can work together to blur genre boundaries, with good effect. I really got into Sarah Shook and the Disarmers on their 2017 Sidelong album, a wonderfully ramshackle bit of what Rolling Stone dubbed ‘agitated honky tonk.’ But that didn’t prepare me for their new single “I Got This.” The song defies genre. The playing reminds me of Darwin Deez in its economical roominess while the vocal is full of surprises. Gone is the surly country twang, replaced by a more direct delivery in the verses and disarming falsetto in the chorus. Altogether a delightful surprise. Another genre crosser is Oliver Tree. He describes his new album Cowboy Tears as ‘cowboy emo’ but on the earwormy single “Things We Used to Do” I get a more Front Bottoms or Grouplove vibe. This one will seduce you slowly, its shuffle beat and acoustic guitar anchor lulling you into hitting replay multiple times. One of the many delights of 2019 was the debut effort from Glasgow’s U.S. Highball. Great Record was indeed a great record. So the teaser release of a single from their upcoming new record A Parkhead Cross of the Mind is most welcome. “Double Dare” sounds a bit different off the start but once it gets going it’s not too different. There’s the jangle, there’s the poppy melody, there’s the distinctive vocal harmonies we’ve come to rely on from this duo. There’s even a cool keyboard solo halfway through.

Surge and the Swell – Gravity Boots
Sarah Shook and the Disarmers – I Got This
Oliver Tree – Things We Used to Do


Let’s wrap up this 21 song March spectacular with Tamar Berk’s new single “Your Permission.” Berk was one of the breakout indie stars of 2021 with her smart, stylish debut album The Restless Dreams of Youth and particularly the single “Socrates and Me.” But let the reinvention process begin because with “Your Permission” she offers up a striking change of direction, shifting from a guitar to keyboards focus to create a gorgeous pop setting for this tune. The song itself channels the sophisticated song-writing and performance of a Suzanne Vega or Aimee Mann. A new album can’t arrive fast enough.

Whew, what a cavalcade of should-be stars! With these tunes you can cast aside your winter doldrums and put a bit of spring in your step. Even if there’s still snow left to shovel.

Post photo courtesy Swizzle Gallery.

Poprock Record’s 25 must-have LPs for 2019

15 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

*repeat repeat, Berwanger, Bombadil, Dan Israel, David Brookings and the Average Lookings, Johnny Stanec, kiwi jr, Lolas, Martha, Matthew Milia, Mondello, Nick Eng, Pernice Brothers, Richard Turgeon, Scandinavia, Sofa City Sweetheart, Telekinesis, The Boys with Perpetual Nervousness, The Brothers Steve, The Cactus Blossoms, The Golden Seals, The John Sally Ride, The Maureens, The Vapour Trails, Trip Wire

Screen Shot 2020-01-13 at 11.39.35 AMPoor Myrtle. She’s only got Muzak® to keep her company through the long shift at work. If only she had access to this great new list of must-have LPs from 2019, helpfully assembled by Poprock Record, she might actually close that Henderson account and get off early. The lesson? You can take an oldies fixation too far. You don’t have to live in the past to love that retro sound. This year’s best-of round up of LPs from 2019 is definitive proof that everything old can be new again!

Just a word of caution – there’s no science to the list and rankings below. Here are just 25 albums and 10 EPs that caught my ear this past year and kept me coming back for more. There was something about each, their combination of elements (songwriting, instrumentation, performance), that I thought really worked as a coherent whole. And that’s saying something in our world of social media distractions and a renewed music biz focus primarily on singles.

So let’s begin with Poprock Record’s 25 must-have LPs for 2019:

  1. Bombadil Beautiful Country
  2. Matthew Milia Alone at St. Hugo
  3. The Brothers Steve #1
  4. The Maureens Something in the Air
  5. Richard Turgeon Go Deep
  6. The Golden Seals Something Isn’t Happening
  7. Pernice Brothers Spread the Feeling
  8. *repeat repeat Glazed
  9. Martha Love Keeps Kicking
  10. Scandinavia Premium Economy
  11. The Vapour Trails See You in the Next World
  12. The Cactus Blossoms Easy Way
  13. Johnny Stanec Things Were Better, When
  14. The John Sally Ride Nothing Doing
  15. The Boys With Perpetual Nervousness Dead Calm
  16. Telekinesis Effluxion
  17. David Brookings and the Average Lookings Scorpio Monologue
  18. Mondello Hello, All You Happy People
  19. Nick Eng Long Shot
  20. Sofa City Sweetheart Super (b) Exitos
  21. Dan Israel Social Media Anxiety Disorder
  22. Berwanger Watching a Garden Die
  23. Lolas Bulletproof
  24. kiwi jr Football Money
  25. Trip Wire Once and Always

Screen Shot 2020-01-15 at 2.26.05 PMI really like the variety covered in this list. There’s everything from jangle (4, 11, 15, 25) and country (12) and Dylanesque stylings (21), to keyboard contemporary (8) and acerbic social commentary (10, 23) and straight-up Beatlesque poprock (17, 19). And there’s a lot of sweetness, like Mondello’s impressive 20 year labour of love (18). My number one album, Bombadil’s Beautiful Country, embodies this commitment to diversity. It’s got an overall indie-folk vibe but the songwriting and playing are so sophisticated that somehow the label fails to capture all of what’s going on. Believe me, it’s a 37 minute journey through a myriad of lyrical and musical delights. Close behind at #2 Matthew Milia’s Alone at St. Hugo represents an amazing synthesis of melodic rock influences, from the Beatles (obviously) to the more mellow Fountains of Wayne moments. It’s an tone setter – put it on and drift away! At #3 was #1. Confused? #1 was the name of the debut album from the power pop veterans behind The Brothers Steve and it did not disappoint. The record is like a veritable hit machine. I can only imagine that this was what it was like to get your hands on a new Beatles record in the 1960s: immediately engaging, inventive yet relatable, and with nary a bum track. And I could go on about every entry on this list … but instead just click on the links to go my original posts about the bands and you can judge them for yourself.

Next up, Poprock Record’s 10 must-have EPs from 2019:

  1. David Molter Foolish Heart
  2. Omicrom J Trauma You Should Have Thought About That
  3. David Woodard Everything in Between
  4. Brett Perfect Patterns
  5. Project: Ghost Outfit Project: Ghost Outfit
  6. Super 8 Head Sounds
  7. scienceisfiction Don’t Everyone Thank Me at Once
  8. Ducks Unlimited Get Bleak
  9. Jean Caffeine Love. What is It?
  10. Lost Ships All of the Pieces

The revival of the EP is very much in the spirit of the times as performers try to woo listeners to fork over for music in an era of YouTube shuffles and streaming. Personally, I’m usually left feeling that most are just bloated maxi-singles or Readers Digest condensed albums. But these ten show just how punchy an EP can be! Content-wise, I’ll just say this about my number 1 choice: wow. Dave Molter got his musical start in the 1960s (as evident on the record!) but waited until his 70s to put out Foolish Heart. What you get are five gems polished to poprock perfection: hooks, harmonies, the whole deal.

One last thing: a special mention for Aaron Lee Tasjan’s Karma for Cheap: Reincarnated. The original record was my number 1 album for 2018 and this reinvention beautifully reimagines all those great tunes in often stark and stripped down ways. If you liked the original, you’re gonna love the remake.

Foreverly Yours: The Cactus Blossoms, Billie Joe + Norah, and Motel Mirrors

24 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

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Tags

Billie Joe + Norah, Motel Mirrors, The Cactus Blossoms, The Everly Brothers

screen shot 2019-01-24 at 4.42.47 pmThe Everly Brothers are part of the DNA of poprock. They didn’t rock like Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis or Chuck Berry. They were just nice country boys whose vocal harmonies made the world swoon. The Everlys’ influence is all over everything that comes after them, from the Beatles and Crosby, Stills & Nash to Rockpile and the Proclaimers. And it remains a powerful influence on poprock today, as exhibited by today’s selections.

screen shot 2019-01-24 at 4.57.34 pmThe Cactus Blossoms are brothers Page and Jack who hail from Minneapolis, Minnesota but sound more like Memphis with their eerie, almost reincarnated Everly/Louvin brothers sound. Close your eyes and listen to “You’re Dreaming” and it’s 1958 all over again. This is pure shiver city. “Clown Collector” captures the rollicking ‘party time’ vibe of so many uptempo Everly numbers while “If I Can’t Win” has the aching feel of the Everly’s slower material. Meanwhile “Mississippi” and “Stoplight Kisses” wouldn’t have gone amiss in Patsy Cline’s catalogue. The brothers have a new record on the horizon, Easy Way, featuring a more new wave, Nick Lowe/Dave Edmunds retro sound, sample-able right now on the preview single, “Please Don’t Call Me Crazy.”

https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/02-youre-dreaming.m4aYou’re Dreaminghttps://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/03-please-dont-call-me-crazy.m4aPlease Don’t Call Me Crazy

screen shot 2019-01-24 at 4.55.28 pmI would not have picked Green Day lead vocalist Billie Joe Armstrong or Norah Jones as Everly-philes, but their Everlys tribute album, Foreverly, is full of delightful surprises. The record essentially rerecords the Everly Brothers’ 1958 album, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us and the modern duo manage to add new energy and a bit more swing to the material. The opening cut, “Roving Gambler” is a case in point: a bit more bright on the delivery compared with the Everlys’ more dirge-like performance. Moving to Memphis proper, Motel Mirrors have got a broad set of retro sounds to showcase on their new record. From the Johnny Horton rockabilly of title track “Gotta Lotta Rhythm” to the Elvis-ey quality of “Ooh Las Vegas” the band is firing on some pretty original rock and roll cylinders. But “Meet Me on the Corner” has the jaunty guitar work and hooks reminiscent of the Everly’s early Warner Brothers records.

https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/01-roving-gambler.m4aBillie and Norah – Roving Gamblerhttps://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/03-meet-me-on-the-corner.m4aMotel Mirrors – Meet Me on the Corner

Keep the Everly spirit alive by supporting The Cactus Blossoms, Billie Joe + Norah, and Motel Mirrors at their local internet real estate.

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