Tags
Answering Machine, B.U.D., Bombardier Jones, Daily Worker, Electric Looking Glass, Goodman, Jeremy Porter and the Tucos, Laura Stephenson, Mattiel, Ramirez Exposure, Robert Sherwood, Rooftop Screamers, Ten Tonnes, The Floor Models, The Forty Nineteens, The Rose Petals, The Shambles, The Uptights, Weezer, Your Academy
It’s so close you can almost taste the vodka cocktails. Summer! And that means music to accompany those warm breezes, surf and sand, and lazy, hazy days of scorching heat. To that end, let me present an almost summer bevy of selections for your mixtape, uh, I mean, playlist. In this first of two installments, we offer up 20 suggestions for high rotation seasonal singles.
Let’s get started with my hometown, Vancouver, and some nice ringing guitar from The Uptights on “The Pulse.” The song is from the longplayer Back Again, which came out right near the end of 2020. I love the organ that really comes to fore as the song progresses. 4000 kilometres away (but still in Canada!) Waterloo’s B.U.D. rises from the ashes of Goldfinch in a new solo project from Omar Elkhatib. There’s not much not to like here. Crunchy guitars, punchy synths, and a solid swinging hook anchors “What’s the Point of This (If I’m Not Into It).” A promised follow up EP has yet to materialize but a few more singles have arrived, like the rollicking fun “Popstar Rock N’ Roll.” Ok, enough Canadian content (for now), we’re off the NYC and a bit of a boundary tester for this blog from Laura Stephenson. “After Those Who Mean It” is just a heart-wrenching acoustic number from an artist who normally rocks it up a bit more. There’s something searing and so melancholy about this performance. I can be such a sucker for a good sad song. In Memphis, Your Academy offer a pick-me-up with “Starlight,” a great guitar poprock tune with a slight country feel, from their recent self-titled debut. Now I say ‘debut’ but the band are all veterans of the local music scene and it shows all over this tight record. Brooklyn’s Answering Machine also have a debut album out (well, actually, it’s been out for a year …). Verdict? Bad Luck is more of the eerie melodic rock goodness that appeared on previous EPs and stand-alone singles. For me, the stand out song here is “Marie.” The lead vocal has the soulful country ache of Neko Case cast against a driving lead guitar hook and surging rock and roll beat. It would be a killer cut live in concert, no doubt.
Now, generally speaking, I’m not a live album guy. But when I saw the cover of The Shambles Live at the Casbah with its obvious nods to The Beatles Second Album (Long Tall Sally in Canada) I thought it warranted a needle drop. The opening cut was the band grinding through their first single from 1993, “(She’s Used to Playing With) Fire,” and from the opening rhythm guitar I was hooked. The performance is anything but a shambles: loose yet solid, exciting, with great harmony vocals. The album was assembled from various shows at this location early in the new millennium and it showcases the band’s strong material and serious live chops. Another California band effectively working the retro rock and roll scene are The Forty Nineteens. Their new album The New Roaring Twenties vibes those classic 1960s rock and roll outfits (e.g. Rolling Stones, CCR) while still giving off a bit of 1980s indie (a la The Replacements), depending on which track you pick. I was torn about whether to choose the rockin’ Joe Walsh-ed vocal on “I’m Always Questioning Days” or the more melodic package that is “It’s the Worst Thing I Could Do.” I went with the latter, with its pumping piano and judicious use of jangle guitar. Throwback Suburbia’s drummer had an interesting idea. Write some songs and then ask a gang of different artists to sing on different tracks for a new band, Rooftop Screamers, and a new album, Next Level. It’s a project idea that can easily lose its focus but Mike Collins makes it work, largely because the songwriting is so consistently good. Case in point: “Buckle Up,” featuring Jellyfish vocalist Tim Smith. The song has the sleek pop aura of a top rank Crowded House single. I fell hard for the ear candy that was Ten Tonnes “Better Than Me” from his 2018 self-titled debut. Recently he reignited that spark with the glammish “Girl Are You Lonely Like Me?” with its shuffle beat and emotional vocal, kinda like The Vaccines or Haircut 100 in therapy. The kid’s got swing and killer sing-along background vocals. For those of us who can’t get enough of the Bryds, a very special record is due out soon from an exquisite jangle-friendly band, The Floor Models. You can get a taste of their fab back catalogue from the 2013 retrospective Floor Your Love but here I want you to enjoy their indie-fied version of “Lady Friend,” a teaser from their soon-to-be-released album, In Flyte Entertainment: A Tribute to the Byrds.
Jeremy Porter and the Tucos’ “Dead Ringer” is straight ahead melodic Americana, reminding me of the more upbeat moments on that first Peter Case solo album back in 1986, particularly vocally. I love the synth snippet that kicks in at 3:10 in the final few moments of the solo. It’s featured on their new longplayer, Candy Coated Cannonball, and it’s just one of many highlights. Given that Ramirez Exposure’s latest album is named after an environmental newsletter that advocated the end of humanity as a solution to environmental crisis, the contents are surprisingly chirpy. Opening track “Bridges and Roads” is light and sunny, but it is the title track “Exit Times” that really grabbed my attention with its cool electric guitar arpeggiations and dreamy vocals. Sometimes I imagine NYC as just teeming with bedrooms for making pop music. Like the work from Goodman. I’ve featured this talented, almost totally one-man-band before and every new release reveals new depths and influences. On his new record Goodman Versus the Nostalgia Machine he is like Ray Davies reborn, piling up catchy tunes with clever commentary. “Bitter. Alone. Again” shimmers with sneaky, subtle hooks and vocals that add emotional colour and depth. From the mean streets of Baltimore Bombardier Jones offers us the cool vocal delivery of a Steve Miller. “Great Ideas” from Dare To Hope is just a straight up AM radio goodtime single, circa 1975. Love the spare piano solo to bursts on the scene two thirds in. Cotton Mather guitarist Harold Whit Williams has a side project that might conjure up the ‘s’ word for any remaining red diaper babies out there. It’s called Daily Worker. Now you don’t have to be a card carrying anything to enjoy what he’s doing here. I mean, check out the shuffling strut behind “I Got Hypnotized” with its creative mix of acoustic guitar rhythm, sixties organ, and tasty lead guitar. The rest of Hometown Hero is a winner too, with a Harrisonian soft rock flair competing with a Plimsoulsian new wave vibe.
You’d swear contemporary LA band Electric Looking Glass were giving it to you straight from 1968 Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. It’s not like they’re hiding their influences with an album title like Somewhere Flowers Grow. But it really is there in the music too. Opening cut “Purple, Red, Green, Blue and Yellow” kicks off with a solid blast of psychedelic pop guitar before opening up into a great bit of Turtles/Jefferson Airplane hippie poprock. Moving back to the future, there is something so cool about the brooding New Order-ish riff kicking off and driving Mattiel’s recent single, “Those Words.” I really enjoyed the rough-hewn rock and roll sound of the band’s last effort Satis Faction and this new song suggests there more where that came from. The band’s vocalist/songwriter Mattiel Brown really delivers on both here, with a striking performance and timely lyrics. Some bands like a real challenge, like writing a song about American President Warren G. Harding. Who, you might ask? He’s no Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, or Kennedy but The Rose Petals manage to turn out a western style performance a la True West or Rank and File all about Harding’s many foibles. It’s the opening track on the band’s engaging debut LP American Grenadine. Now for a complete change of mood, there’s Robert Sherwood. On Mr. Sherwood he showcases a bevy of light pop sketches that remind me Roddy Frame’s Aztec Camera. Sherwood does wonders with interesting vocal harmonies and spare but intriguing lead guitar work. On “Blue All Over” and the rest of this highly listenable record there’s more than a hint of a genius song arranger bearing similarities to Richard X. Heyman or the Eels’ Mark Everett. Ok, big finish time and what better band to close things out by taking us over the top than Weezer? Seems like an army of haters are out there just waiting for Rivers and Co. to stumble but the band just keeps on delivering the goods. The playful Van Weezer is no exception. “The End of the Game” cleverly rides the edge of rawk bombast with love while delivering the band’s signature knock-out hooks. And there’s more to love here – my blog writing friends can’t agree on what track they love the best.
The pent up energy for a perfect summer this year is swelling all out of control. People are desperate for fun. Here at Poprock Record we take our public service role seriously. So relax, we’ve got your music sorted. And even more is on the way with part II, coming soon.
This particular turn of the dial takes us all over the musical map, sometimes to the very edge of poprock country. From indie folk-rock to proto-mod to alt country and then some, we have a lot of ground to cover.
On their 2012 debut album The River and the Road were a pleasant folk rock band, hailing from Canada’s major west coast city. But with Headlights, their 2015 release, some kind of transformation occurred. More electric, certainly, though the album also featured a number of strong acoustic numbers. No, something changed in their musical demeanor, kinda like they’d hit the musical gym, bulking up their sound and impact. Case in point – “Mistakes” rips open with a muscular electric lead line that keeps searing into the tune, aided by the full band dropping in at the 8 second mark. This is not really poprock. It’s got more of an edgy indie vibe but still there is something very hooky about the band’s guitar work. “I’m Broke” swings with a strong alt country melody, roughed up just a bit by the band’s more rocking sound. By contrast, “Strange Disease” reverberates with a drone-like banjo backing. And this is just a few highlights – really, the whole album is great. You may think you know what you’re getting with a band like The River and the Road (i.e. four on the floor Americana) but the record keeps pushing its own boundaries.
I’m BrokeStrange Disease
When the name of your band is a reference to a 1976 song by another band, which is in turn a reference to a line from a 1965 movie, you’re deep into a very self referential world defined by its own measure of cool. Seattle’s Shake Some Action have been at it a decade now and they sound like a band whose sound has been forged in the fire of 1960s poprock, the late 1970s mod revival a la The Jam, with a healthy dollop of 1980s jangle pop. Their brand new album, Crash Through or Crash, is a sonic treat, all shimmery guitars and hooky reverb-drenched vocals. The opening cut, “Waiting for the Sun,” is a strong single, masterfully arranged to hit all the marks, from the hypnotic lead line to the seductive ‘ahhs’ that announce the chorus. I couldn’t help recalling all those great Mighty Lemondrops records, just for the sheer joy captured here. “Whose Side Are You On” is another tremendous song while “Starting Again” utilizes the Rickenbacker electric 12-string to great effect.
There is nothing precious about Rozwell Kid’s art. The West Virginia band specialize in the sort of ironic, sometimes goofy, sometimes smurky odes to nerdy dudes and their pathetic attempts to be cool. Thus their 2017 release, Precious Art, dials the irony up to eleven on a super collection of slightly off-kilter, buzzed-out guitar tunes. There are highlights galore. “Wendy’s Trash Can” sounds like Weezer meets Fountains of Wayne. “Mad TV” emotes a bit of Bad Books and some of Ken Devine’s solo material to me. “Michael Keaton” channels Weezer and tells a great story. And so on.
Toronto’s First Base are mining the same theme as Tommy and the Rockets and all the other bands whose origin story ultimately links back to the cartoon pop punk of the Ramones. Their bandcamp 
Heyrocco’s “Yeah” kicks off in a fairly standard rocking vein but then pushes the melody pedal at the 22 second mark in a way that really hooks me. The chorus says jump up and down and shake your head with 40 other people crowding the front of the stage. Melody is not Heyrocco’s main thing but when they make it a priority, they do it right. I usually find one tune I really love on their releases. On 2015’s Teenage Movie Soundtrack it was the great swinging slow rocker “First Song” with its Bernard Sumner vocal. “Yeah” is my fave from the band’s 2016 EP Waiting on Cool. Every now and then I hear just a bit of Sugar Ray in this band, which, personally, I think is a very good thing. Also, check out the fantastic demo version of “First Song” below, from the band’s 2013 Greatest Hits of the 1990s.Yeah
I was blasting through the Forty Nineteens new album, Good Fortune, thinking ‘ya, this is nice’ but it wasn’t grabbing me the way a new release needs to if I’m going give the replay button some exercise. Then I hit the very last song and completely changed my mind. “Two Pillows” is single-worthy magic. Great tune, killer arrangement, wonderful performance – I could go on. Laid on a bed of electric piano, the song has a poprock country feel, sharpened by a searing yet melodic guitar solo and great vocals. It made me go back and re-evaluate the whole album.
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