If you grew up in Canada in the 1970s there was a strong chance that someone at your home lived for the weekly fall-through-winter broadcast of Hockey Night in Canada. With a two-four of Canadian brewed beer nearby, everyone in the house would know things were getting underway when they heard the distinctive instrumental lick that defines the show’s theme. Now Toronto instrumental guitar starlets The Surfragettes have immortalized the rather formal and staid original by giving it a reverb-drenched remake. The track opens giving us the traditional lead line, all guitared up. As they crank it up they take a few liberties, particularly as they head past the most recognizable parts of the tune. There’s some strong organ playing here too. And they even throw in some 1970s era play-by-play to end things off. In the liner notes they remind us that the show is the longest running, most popular broadcast in Canadian history. That certainly makes it worthy of such a grand treatment as this. This foursome are certainly this games’ four stars!
Check all the great guitar goodness of The Surfragettes at their website and bandcamp pages.
Throughout the year I try to set aside seasonal songs for a range of holidays and I have to say the quality and quantity of Halloween fare has been steadily improving. Here’s a spate of fright night singles and a top rank compilation album dedicated to chilling, thrilling and haunting your playlist. Candy not included.
Justin Kereczsays he’s living in “Devil Town.” The song kicks off with a mournful tone, almost Springsteen-esque. But things pick up halfway through, adding drama and depth. Toronto’s The Suffragettes rewrite a classic classical-music instrumental as “Satan’s Holiday,” leaning heavily on surf guitar. And they don’t spare the tremelo. It’s corpse cool for sure. Bloodshot Bill takes us back to a 1950s rockabilly monster rock with “Meet the Count.” Goofy but offset with deadly hip lead guitar work. Victoria’s The Origin strike some lighter pop notes on their winsome track “So You Think You Can Necromance.” I love the wordplay! A dip into Crater Creek’s Horror Anthology could expose you to some chilling screamcore. But the two songs featured here are anything but. “Caveman” is 25 seconds of blistering narrative development while “See Through” adds a Beach Boys beach-party campfire feel to a lovelorn ghost’s failure to connect with his human target. And it can’t be Halloween without an appearance from those reliable holiday pop punksters Vista Blue. “I Didn’t Get Invited to the Halloween Party” works on so many levels. It draws from neo-1950s disaster song motifs, elevating and intensifying the elements with a 1990s punky panache. These guys never get old (hm? Are they zombies?).
The major event this Halloween music season comes from Big Stir Records in the form of a compilation album entitled Chilling, Thrilling Hooks and Haunted Harmonies. The record contain 41 tracks, divided between 21 songs by different acts associated with the Big Stir stable of artists and 20 short spoken word/sound affects ‘link’ tracks that give the package a semblance of a thematic show. The album is an obvious homage to the 1964 Disneyland Records release Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House, right down the spoken word/sound effects components and a cover clearly inspired by Paul Wenzel’s distinctive artwork from the original. But it is the music that makes this release so special. Let’s face it, thematic holiday albums can often feel like forced, slapdash affairs. Not this one. The 21 original tunes here are quality power pop, holiday or not. Opening musical cut “Ghoul You Want” from Librarians With Hickeys sets the bar high with its subtle, smooth Zombies elan. This is the hit single, surely. Not that the other 19 songs aren’t worthy of maximum Halloween-radio rotation. Really, this is such a solid collection of songs, though more than I can cover in detail here. Instead I’ll just single out three more tracks that really caught my ear. First up I’d draw attention to Splitsville’s “I Was a Teenage Frankenstein.” Plenty of power in the pop here, melding melody-rich vocals with striking rhythm guitars. Then The Gold Needles crank up some hypnotic lead guitar lines on “Ghost in the Airwaves.” I love hearing the reverby guitars ring. Last on, The Incurables give us a throwback to that 1950s meets seventies garage rock on “Halloween Bride.” The album’s short spoken-word segments performed by The Pepper’s Ghost Players could have descended into cringey cheese but instead evoke the fun over-the-top melodrama of 1960s monster movies. Chilling, Thrilling Hooks and Haunted Harmonies is a fabulous collection, lovingly crafted, expertly executed, and nicely priced. It’s a must-have double-album addition to your vinyl, CD, or digital music crypt.
I do the love the cheese of early 1960s fright night music/entertainment and, as you can see here, that tradition remains alive and well. Click on the links above to stock up on Halloween tunes while letting I. Jeziak and the Surfers guide you musically to the exits with their All Hallows’ Eve instrumental “Mummy Walk.”
It’s popular to paint Santa in petit-bourgeois hues, as if he’s the boss of the North Pole. For many he’s like a festive foreman, running the workshop as a seasonal overseer. But what if Santa is just another worker, one perennially doomed to work the night shift? It’s plausible. I mean, it’s not like he charges for the toys – we’re told he gives them away to boys and girls for no more payment than good behaviour. That hardly seems the ethos of some kind of profit-obsessed Christmas CEO. And if you set aside the magically-conceived-baby thing (and let’s face it, most of us do) what you’re left with actually sounds pretty socialist. In a sharing, caring, skip the work-camps sort of way. So corral your work-team into the break room – it’s time for our annual spate of poprock holiday hymns.
My go-to source for hooky holiday material is NYC’s mysterious merrymakers Make Like Monkeys. Do they work hard for holidays? I count twenty separate seasonally-themed pages on the band’s Bandcamp page so the answer would be yes. Here they get us into the spirit of getting busy with “Let’s Go Christmas,” a song that levels with you about what is to come (and it may be painful). Another reality check comes from Norfolk, Virginia’s The Mockers as they dispel the make-believe culture war nonsense of the political right on “(There’s No War on Christmas) When Christmas Is In Your Heart.” Keeping to the reality theme Jeremy Fisher completes our initial trio of tunes with the inflation-timely “Economy Xmas.” With a chorus consisting of ‘I owe, I owe, I owe’ this is clearly a real singalong number for many this year. So if you’re just looking for a Quiet Christmas this year, check out Jeremy’s album of the same name.
Trees and presents are essential components of consumer Christmas – we have to cover them. But we’re not heading to that in-town Xmas three lot, no sir. Instead we’ve signed up Sweden’s The Genuine Fakesto take us to Taylor Swift’s “Christmas Tree Farm.” It’s in a rougher part of the outback than Taylor usually frequents. Sometimes the guitars get turned up to 11. Moving on to presents, well you never know what you might get. Here to monetize that anxiety are everyone’s fave pop punkers Vista Blue with a track from their new EP Christmas Every Day entitled “What Are You Gonna Get?” But why worry about stuff when there’s love on the line? The Mockers explore the real meaning of the season and good deal of NYC and its boroughs on their beat group-inspired “(What’s a Better Present) At Christmas Time.”
Christmas is also about geography. After all, Santa’s got to cover a lot of ground in just one night. Perennial pub rocker Geraint Watkins draws our attention to classic humanist theme of harmony and togetherness in his beautiful, piano-based ballad “Christmas Day All Over the World.” Chicago’s Alpine Subs have a more narrow focus, finding Santa “Over Wichita”. There’s a nice Shins-meets-Paul McCartney vibe going on here. LA’s Sofa City Sweetheart draws our attention to the less savory side of a sunshine state seasonal celebration on “Christmas in California.” Still, it’s sung so pretty everything still sounds like a pretty good time. And there’s a whole album to go with it – you can literally spend Christmas on the Sofa.
What about feelings? We know that all the hyped holiday togetherness wallpapered through Xmas advertising gets a lot of people down. Geoff Palmer gives voice to some of this on “Lonely Christmas Call.” It’s basically a George Jones family break-up song but done in a more Nick Lowe poprock style. Make Like Monkeys hit the Beatles pedal hard on “Found Love for Christmas.” It’s an old, old story – everyone can see your new flame is about to go out. Looks like you’re getting heartbreak for Christmas. By contrast, Tall Poppy Syndrome are taking it slow. Why not just “Come Some Christmas Eve”? Seems like a curious time for a drop-in date but what do I know? The song is an oldie from Robin Gibb while the band features Vince Maloney from the original sixties version of the Bee Gees. Their version is both sixties immaculate and rather timeless.
You know what makes Christmas cool? Ok sure, snow. But beyond that you need a healthy dose of surf guitar holiday song instrumentals. Toronto’s all woman Surfrajettes go on a lovely guitar-lick-filled “Marshmallow March.” Then to the Jersey shore where The Evergleams take up the tempo on “Marshmallow World.” So much marshmallow, so little fire. Guitar virtuoso Joel Paterson is back with a second installment of his Hi Fi Christmas Guitar series, dubbed The More The Merrier. So hard to choose just one song from this fabulous collection. His take on “O Tannenbaum” is so groovy, one part Vince Guaraldi, one part shake and shimmying goodness. But then his work on “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer” takes a song most of can’t bear to hear again and makes it jump with new life. I’m just going to put them both right down here.
Wrapping things up, Vancouver’s Said the Whale remind us of the “Weight of the Season,” the different ways it affects us all. Now that Saint Shane is gone York’s Bullget my vote for most emotionally-charged Christmas tune with their new “Gay Days.” In their view the world may be shit and darkness reigns but as long as ‘you’re coming home for Christmas’ they can muster up a choir, some horns, and few penny whistles. We end our melodious journey where we began, with Make Like Monkeys and a focus on St. Nick. On “Father Christmas” the band reflect on the old man’s drive to make some good happen for those who believe while battling wind and weather and whatnot. Kinda like the rest of us (well, some of us).
It’s been a rough year for the working classes at home and abroad and wherever you may be. So please accept a merry happy whatever-you-celebrate this year from us here at Poprock Record.
Image courtesy Tatsuya Tanaka from his Miniature Calendar. I feature his image in part to help promote his great project – check it out here.
There aren’t enough superlatives in the thesaurus to really capture how great Grady Martin was. He played all those super rumbly rockabilly riffs that elevated songs by Johnny Horton, Pasty Cline, Marty Robbins, and many others. It is rumoured that he played the anchor lead line on Roy Orbison’s monster hit “Oh Pretty Woman.” You can hear a sampling of those riffs in the compilation video below. Sadly, Martin never released a solo album of instrumentals that really did justice to his genius for guitar technique. His 1965 album Instrumentally Yours (from which we’ve copped our post title) buries his guitar work under a cheesy torrent of strings. So as a tribute to this great performer we’re featuring a bevy of melody-rich, guitar-based instrumentals on today’s post.
Tuscon’s The Resonars are not known as an instrumentals band but they offer up a nice acoustic guitar ramble on their 2008 album That Evil Drone. “Yes Grosvenor” sounds more like something you might hear on a Bruce Cockburn album than the Ventures but it’s bright and sprightly, kicking off with a “Norwegian Wood “feel before heading in a more studied folk direction. Denmark’s Tremelo Beer Gutshift things to a more smoky night club scene and max out the rumble on their guitars with “Shabby Moscow Tremelo” from their 1999 album The Inebriated Sounds of … They make shabby the new cool. Next door in the Netherlands Bruut and Anton Goudsmit hit the surf with the aptly named LP Go Surfing. The sound is very Ventures but with a jazzy tinge, particularly on their swinging rendition of “Music to Watch Girls By.” Located in LA but named for an eastern European car, Trabants fall somewhere between Ennio Morricone and Herb Alpert on the spaghetti western guitar spectrum. Their 2018 release Nel Cuore Di Una Terra Selvaggia (In the Heart of a Wild Land) conjures desert landscapes and mad dashes toward moving trains on “Theme for Savage Land.” Seriously, this recording must be haunted by The Man With No Name. Bellingham Washington might not seem like surf territory but Rich Arithmetic will change your mind with his languid, one-off surf single “Saving Sunset (Last Surf the Day).” The song plays up all the usual surf guitar motifs but also drifts into surprisingly melodic directions. Get your wet suit ready.
Brutt and Anton Goudsmit – Music to Watch Girls By
Chicagoan Joel Paterson looks more like a 1950s accountant than a guitar god. But man can he make that instrument sing! In 2019 and 2020 he brought out two albums of Beatles instrumentals Let It Be Guitar and Let It Be Acoustic Guitar that breathe new life into your fab faves. Both records are highly listenable, covering a broad range of the Beatles canon. But here I’ll just focus your attention on Paterson’s delightful treatment of “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party” with its super-enriched Bakersfield sound. In 2021 the endlessly talented Graham Gouldman decided to bring out an album of instrumentals as a benefit to raise money for musicians hurt by the pandemic lockdown and break in touring. No Words Today is lovely collection of delicately rendered covers, except for one new original tune “Resonator Rock.” The guitar here almost sounds like a banjo and the slide guitar adds to the downhome southern feel. The Babalooneys hail from Quebec City, Quebec but you don’t need to parlez Francais to catch the drift on their mostly instrumental EP The Babalooneys Are Here! “Bikini Drag” combines killer surf riffs with that sense of 1950s drag race menace. Floridian Kurt Lanham has a light guitar touch on his instrumental covers, sketching out the bare elements of the melody line with an artful grace. Listen to how he transforms the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” damping down the exuberance to better feature jauntiness of the melody. We wrap things up in party mode with Toronto’s incredible surf guitar demons The Surfragettes. Their new album Roller Fink is a feel good trip around the roller track, with inspired covers (e.g. Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” and the Beatles “She Loves You”) and strong originals. To help you ease on your skates I’ve chosen “Warm Up,” a track that oozes the melodious warmth and confidence of rock solid instrumentals bands like Los Straightjackets.
Kurt Lanham – I Want to Hold Your Hand
My favourite lead guitar players know how to ‘serve the song’ with their playing. For them, it’s more about melody than some ferocious onslaught of notes. Grady Martin influenced generations of players without ever really taking the spotlight for himself. In that he was, indeed, instrumentally yours.
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