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Tag Archives: The Genuine Fakes

Rock and roll (almost) never forgets

16 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

≈ 1 Comment

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Adam Merrin, Always on the Run, An American Underdog, Andy Reed, Dave Rave, Ransom and the Subset, Summer Fiction, The Genuine Fakes, The Honeydogs

recordsBefore the I started this blog I already had a huge stack of material I’d been gathering for over a year or so – great stuff that deserves a wide audience, songs you might have missed.  So today we go back to the vaults to ensure that rock and roll never forgets.

Andy Reed is a member of that immensely talented group, the Verve Pipe.  Not only have they put out a load of great albums, including some for children (which is much harder to do well than most people think), the band has spawned of host of great solo projects.  Reed’s band An American Underdog has one album, 2011’s Always On the Run, which is chock full of poprock gems like the carefree, hooky “I’ll Miss You Girl” and crunchy “Nothing I Can Do.”  Also, check out Reed’s killer solo version of Elvis Costello’s “Crimes of Paris.”  He takes just a bit of the edge off the Costello version and ups the pop quotient – lovely!

Like so many talented musicians of his generation, Adam Merrin has made his career by mostly placing his music in TV shows rather than releasing albums under his own name.  But the two that have emerged, 2007’s Have One and 2009’s Have Another One, are delightful low key pop excursions.  “Our Love is True” opens with a catchy guitar hook before leaning more on keyboards to drive the song while “Fallen for You” builds to a super chorus.  “This is How You Are” has a great total sonic ambience, mellow but unrelenting. https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/03-this-is-how-you-are.m4aThis is How You Arehttps://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/03-our-love-is-true.m4aOur Love is True

Canadian Dave Rave keeps churning out great poprock.  From a pretty stunning beginning playing on Teenage Head’s boppy single “Let’s Shake” back in 1980, Rave has branched out with a host of different solo projects over the years.  Pick any period and you’ll find some great material.  “All of the Love You Can Handle” is from his 2010 album Live with What You Know and what I like here is the strong vocal, just ever so slightly reminiscent of the Moody Blues in their more poprock period.  This one will get in your head one night and fail to check out the next morning.

Reviewers often mention Summer Fiction and the Beach Boys in the same breath.  Sure I guess its there in the same way that every artist with a wash of breathy background vocals and hints of 1960s melody is another bastard child of Brian Wilson.  But I hear something much more original in Summer Fiction’s dialectical synthesis of 1960s influences.  For instance, there is mordantly sad quality to the vocal style that contrasts the peppy upbeat harpsichord of “Chandeliers” that is pleasantly jarring.  You know this guy is the broody poet type but, like Morrissey before him, he just has to juice the depressing lyrics with far out jangly guitars and hooks.  I also love the quiet intensity of “Throw Your Arms Around Me” and the easy swing of “By the Sea” from the 2010 debut album.  2015’s Himalaya ups the jangle factor on tracks like “On and On” and the clearly Smithsian-influenced “Perfume Paper.”

What is it with Sweden these days?  For a long time it seemed ABBA was it in terms of musical exports – now a flood of great acts are hitting the beach like a new invading force.  The Genuine Fakes have a cute cover of Frozen’s “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” as well as a number of holiday tunes but these songs obscure their more serious material.  “I Want to be a Stranger” is a good example, at times low key, at others killing it with strong hooks, great poprock vocals, and a groovy organ and guitars.https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/02-i-wanna-be-a-stranger.m4aI Wanna be a Stranger

The Honeydogs have all the markings of a classic rock and roll outfit – think Tom Petty and Heartbreakers or even the Replacements.  Adam Levy writes everyman songs that are relate-able.  There are too many choices from the catalogue I could make but I really like “Too Close to the Sun” from 2006’s Amygdala: the solid acoustic guitar backing, cool organ, tight vocals.  This is poprock magic, a really perfect single.  “Losing Transmissions” from 2001’s Here’s Luck is pretty special too in a more rock and roll vein.  Check out their recent release Love and Cannibalism for more of same.

Over to the wet coast for Seattle’s Ransom and the Subset.  This band’s 2014 album No Time to Lose deserves to be a big hit, the whole thing is solid and eminently enjoyable.  Their love of Fountains of Wayne comes through but in a subtle way, for instance on tracks like “Questions” and “When Will I See You.” But the standout track is the amazing “Anna,” a single so perfectly sculpted into shape it screams AM radio hit.

Not forgetting means not being a stranger.  So make sure to visit Andy Reed, Adam Merrin, Dave Rave, Summer Fiction, The Genuine Fakes, The Honeydogs, and Ransom and the Subset online.

Holiday poprock

23 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by Dennis Pilon in Poprock Themepark

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Best Coast, Bobby Helms, Dropkick, E, Eels, Fountains of Wayne, John Lennon, The Genuine Fakes, The Kings, The Rosebuds, Wavves, Weezer, Yoko Ono

19570000_Captain_Santa_Claus-Bobby_HelmsThe holiday music scene is a bloated market, artificially inflated by the pushback of the start of the Xmas season to sometime shortly after midnight on November 1st. Department stores, malls and elevators everywhere crave more songs to wallpaper two months of shopping with holiday music. Still, despite the saturation, I love Xmas music. My collection has both old and new contributions and a surprising number of b-sides. For instance, a top ten choice for me is the flip side of Bobby Helm’s “Jingle Bell Rock,” a space age number called “Captain Santa Claus.” Santa’s sleigh breaks down, the elves build a rocket ship, you get the picture. But rather than simply being a novelty cash grab, it’s actually a decent song. Another great b-side is the backing track to John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas,” performed by Yoko Ono: “Listen the Snow is Falling.” Ok, that one will be more controversial – but I like it.

The internet is crawling with holiday music playlists and definitive collections of holiday music from every era and style imaginable – so I won’t do something like that here. Instead, I’ll just riff on the theme with a few choice poprock selections.

fountains-of-wayne-i-want-an-alien-for-christmas-1997Many people are familiar with Fountains of Wayne’s “I Want an Alien for Christmas” but I prefer their more subtle ruminations in “The Man in the Santa Suit” from their 2005 rarities and b-sides collection Out-of-State Plates. The song has great hooks but it is FOW’s unerring ability to capture the social ennui of the holidays that sets it apart. Everybody in the song – from the boozy mall Santa-for-hire to the vomitous and unhappy children – is trying but not really succeeding in living up to the joyous demands of the season.

https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/06-the-man-in-the-santa-suit.mp3  Fountains of Wayne – The Man in the Santa Suit

For a rockier tune, Best Coast and Wavves “Got Something for You” has more of a ‘buzz guitar with dreamy vocals’ vibe. On the poppier side, before he fronted the Eels, Mark Everett was known simply as ‘E’ and offered up more crafted poprock than his band’s later edgier material. “Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas” harkens back to his E rather than Eels’ days. 220px-ChristmaswithweezerComing back to edgy, Weezer transforms “Come All Ye Faithful” to bring out the great pop elements of the song with a treatment that reminds me of Me First and the Gimme Gimmes’ cheeky punk-pop makeovers of classic poprock songs. For some Canadian content, The Kings were a Toronto band best known for their 1980 hit “This Beat Goes On/Switching to Glide” but on a follow up EP they performed their own holiday number, “This Christmas” which I always thought warranted more attention.

 

https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/05-o-come-all-ye-faithful.mp3 Weezer – Come All Ye Faithful

https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/15-everythings-gonna-be-cool-this-christmas.mp3 E – Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas

https://poprockrecord.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/01-this-christmas.m4a The Kings – This Christmas

frozen-the-genuine-fakesTo wrap up, three more recent songs, one by the Scottish band Dropkick, another by Sweden’s The Genuine Fakes, and the last from North Carolina’s The Rosebuds. Dropkick’s “When Santa Comes Around” is from their strong holiday EP, 25th December, while The Genuine Fakes offer up their poprock reinvention of “Do You Want to Build a Snowman,” originally featured in the movie Frozen. The last song here I heard on an holiday themed episode of The Flash and it stuck in my head so much that I tracked it down online: the Rosebuds “I Hear (Click, Click, Click).”

You can find the artists featured in this post here: Fountains of Wayne, Best Coast, Wavves, Eels, Weezer, The Kings, Dropkick, The Genuine Fakes, and The Rosebuds.

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