"Better Man" appears on Adrian's 2008 debut album, One Small Stepping Man (cute title). The whole album has that kind of vibe, so if you like "Better Man" you'll like the album. Adrian's voice – and the way it's recorded – reminds me of Linus Of Hollywood, so I reckon if you like Linus then you'll like this album, too. (Now that's what I call useless information.)
I was originally going to describe "Better Man"* as "gorgeous", or perhaps "moderately gorgeous", or maybe "somewhat gorgeous", but then realised that exactly how gorgeous you think it is depends entirely on how much you tolerate Beatlesque, Lennonesque, or Wilsonesque songs – especially ones not performed by The Beatles, John Lennon, or Brian Wilson.
Regular reader FD13NYC has bemoaned the lack of loud'n'energetic, head-noddin', foot-tappin', floor-shakin', temperature-raising, dental-filling-loosening songs on this blog in the last few days. FD13NYC wants to raawwwk.
So, to issue an immediate corrective – and to banish any thoughts of this blog becoming more and more mellow* as time goes by – here are the ever-reliable Hoodoo Gurus with a track from their new album Purity Of Essence:
(*Roger Joseph Manning Jr. has a song called "The Quickening", and it made me think that if the songs here kept getting wimpier I could call this blog The Softening.)
If you're like me, you may be much more familiar with David Bowie's version of "Everything's Alright" on Pin Ups. It's the one I grew up with, so I thought I might as well play you that, too:
The 'long' part is that it goes six minutes. "Recipe for disaster," I hear you say. Not so. The reason for the song's six minutes, and one reason I like it, is that while it's cruising along in its lovely laidback way, Bryan drops an entirely different song right in the middle of it. And when that other song's finished he just goes back to the first song as if nothing ever happened.
The 'not-boring' part is that "Western Tale" is full of nice tunes and sunshine-filled harmonies.
Plus it's two songs for the price of one. I can live with that.
Episodes of The Partridge Family are currently being rerun on TV here, and I'm loving them. (Shirley, Keith, Laurie, Danny, Chris, Tracy, their manager Reuben Kincaid, and Sunshine Pop. Who can resist that?)
And apart from the theme tune ("Hello world, hear the song that we're singin', c'mon get happy!"), each episode featured a song. Bargain!
Anyway, an episode I watched a couple of days ago had Shirley realising their house may be too small, and it looked like they had to sell up and find a bigger house. What resulted in the next 20 minutes was the nerve-wracking possibility of the family moving (they didn't want to move!).
In this episode the song was "As Long As You're There". The start of its chorus sounded very familiar:
Both tracks were released in 1972, but "Mother And Child Reunion" appeared first. It was on Mr. Simon's debut solo album, Paul Simon, which was released January 14 and then appeared as a single in February. "As Long As You're There" was first heard on The Partridge Family Notebook LP which was released in November, and first seen on TV in that moving-house episode which aired December 29.
The similarity may have just been a complete coincidence. But if you're the kind of person who likes to draw conclusions, then grab yourself a pencil and draw to your heart's content.
I was going to return to Australian content after the last two days of continental tunes but I felt compelled to pester you with this.
One blog I read regularly is Powerpopaholic (Hi, Powerpopaholic!), and he does what I occasionally do: mention new bands. But he also does something well do that I do badly: he reviews their records. Tuesday's post featured two new bands, The Small Change and Palmdale. (Which reminds me: The Small Change asked me to post something about their songs a while ago. Er, um, ah, er...) (Note to self: I really should post something about their songs.)
Anyway, I want to focus on Palmdale today because their songs knocked me out (so to speak – I wasn't actually concussed or anything).
Palmdale, I discovered two days ago (thanks, Powerpopaholic!), is a duo comprising Kay Hanley and Linus of Hollywood. They've just released a five-track EP called Get Wasted!, and all of it is available in a playlist thingy (see below).
The first track is "Here's Comes The Summer" (or, in my case, living in the Southern Hemisphere: "There Goes The Summer"), and as it was playing I thought "Yeah!". Then the next track came on and pretty much the same thing happened. "Yeah!"
Now, I don't know if you're going to say "Yeah!" to yourself each time you hear one of these songs, but all I ask is that you press "play" and turn it up:
"Here Comes Summer" reminded me of a few things. It reminded me of Puffy (that's a good thing). It also reminded me of Tinted Windows, but as I was listening to Palmdale I was thinking that this is what I had wanted Tinted Windows to be. And I enjoyed "Here Comes The Summer" so much that in the singing I didn't even mind the emphasis on the "r"s as much as I usually do. (I really really don't like singers emphasising their "r"s. For me, the worst offender is Kevin Cronin in REO Speedwagon's "Keep On Loving You": "When I said that I love you I meant that I love you foreverrrrrrrrrr." Aaaaargh!)
So, I'm still in the honeymoon period with this EP – playing it and enjoying it enormously – but who knows how long that'll last? I may loathe it next week. Anything's possible in the fickle world of Peter's brain. But for now, I'll just press "play" one more time...
Today's song is "Don't Make Waves" by English jazz-rock outfit Brand X. Although you may be saying "Huh?" around about now, and wondering what on Earth I'm doing playing you something that's neither Australian nor power pop in the slightest, I wanted to play it to you for four reasons:
1. It has Phil Collins doing what Phil Collins always did best: play drums. Brand X was Phil's spare-time band when he had a break from Genesis duties, and before he went on to become a derided staple of FM radio stations everywhere (except maybe Ulan Bantor... maybe). And Phil Collins is a great drummer. Always has been. Oh, and Phil is singing on this track, too – but you didn't need me to tell you that, because you'll recognize him the instant he opens his mouth on the recording (anyone can pick that voice a mile kilometer away).
2. It has very frisky bass playing on it (courtesy of John Giblin), especially near the end.
3. It has a jangly drone at 0:13. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about here, another post explains the wonders of the jangly drone.)
One of my all-time favourite songs of the 70's. And just one of the reasons I love this song so much – apart from the tunes, tempo, vocals, harmonies, and instrumentation – is George Martin's production. It's immaculate.
I find the "Oo-ee"'s in that song so catchy that as soon as I hear them I'm singing along enthusiastically. And it doesn't matter where I am. Plus I never fail to sing the "Hey, hey, hey" at 2:16, either.
(*No, it's better than that. It's excellentientinous.)
I was going to blather on about The Beatles and how they changed the face/eyes/ears/hair of Western civilisation, about how they altered the Earth's gravitational pull, and Lennon/McCartney's eventual bending of the time and space continuum, but you know the story so I won't.
(You certainly don't need one more Beatles nut accosting you with information you don't want to hear.)
Regular reader FD13NYC has astutely discovered that I'm not much of a fan of roots-rock, that slightly countrified, slightly barroom-ified* genre quite a few people who aren't me like a lot. I don't get the appeal, but I understand that plenty of other folks do.
In a shameless attempt to mollify – nay, pander to – someone with music (Hi, FD13NYC!), here are the Icecream Hands with "Gentle Annie" (1993), a song that I think sounds a little rootsy:
"Gentle Annie" appears on the band's 1993 debut album, Travelling... Made Easy. The whole album sounds a bit rootsy to me, so you might like much more than I do (I like it, but don't love it).
As a bonus, here's another song from the album. Oh, and speaking of shameless, get a load of the opening chord:
(*I had to look up the word "barroom" to make sure that was the right way to spell it. I'd always thought that it was hyphenated, as in "bar-room". I'm now having trouble coming to grips with the lack of hyphen, because that other spelling looks to me like it's describing a loud sound – "Ba-RROOM!" – rather than a place.)
Today's post is a commemorative one for me. The details will be of no interest to you whatsoever, but it's of historical importance to yours truly, so please forgive me as I go misty-eyed.
Right, here we go...
I recently came across a live bootleg of an AC/DC gig when they played in Adelaide on Saturday 4 December 1976.
No big deal, I hear you say. Fair enough. But what makes this recording special for me is that this is a document of the very first concert I ever went to. (Yes, indeedy: 15 years old, platform shoes, flared trousers etc.) It was a triple-header: The Angels came on first, then Kevin Borich Express, and then AC/DC.
The two things I remember most about the concert are that it was very loud and that AC/DC were very, very good.
Here's AC/DC in all their glory on that very night with a blazing performance of "Jailbreak" (1976):
What I love about this version of "Jailbreak" – apart from me being there – is Angus Young's guitar solo. It's astoundingly good. But then Angus has always been an astoundingly good guitarist.
More details about the bootleg can be found at the Rock on Vinyl blog where you can hear the rest of AC/DC's performance and see a few photos of the band, as well as one of the venue (which is the picture at the top of this post). Thanks, Rock On Vinyl!
And...
More details about the gig itself can be found at AC/DC-Bootlegs – which, incidentally, is where that photo of Apollo Stadium originally appeared (and the original photo is nice'n'big, too). Thanks, AC/DC-Bootlegs!
A while back I played you Marty Rhone's cheesy bubblegum hit "Denim And Lace" (1975). Marty then had two non-fabric-related hits ("Star Song" and "I'm On The Loose Again") but in 1977 he returned to his first love with the even cheesier "A Mean Pair Of Jeans" (1977):
I was contacted by Splitsville, a US band I have actually heard of. (Hooray! A band I've heard of!) They sent me a few songs to listen to, but after listening to them I was convinced that each song was by a different band.
I like the songs they sent, but I'm having trouble getting my head around the idea that they're all from the same band.
If you're game, give these tracks a listen. Try them out for size then tell me it's just one band. I won't believe you...
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Nice, dreamy, and with extra-distorted guitars to give you that luxurious My Bloody Valentine vibe. Overall, I like this song a lot. However, there's a chord choice in the chorus I'm not particularly keen on. The first time it happens is when the singer's a-singin' "You might say I know..." (which starts at the 19-second mark). The chord changes from something (E minor I think) to something else (E major? E7?) when he sings "I know" (at 22 seconds), and I find it jarring. Unfortunately for me, because it's in the chorus it keeps happening. Grrr. And while I'm on the subject of things I don't like about this song, since when have tears ever been "cool"? Who enjoys watching someone cry? Is the singer being poetic or cruel? Am I interpreting the lyrics too seriously? Does anyone care? (Answer: no.) This is all probably nit-picking, so feel free to call me Nit-Pickin' Pete.
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This doesn't sound like the same band to me. Unlike the previous song, this one is straight-ahead 80's-ish power pop with a nice little nod to Van Halen ("...dance the night away..." at 0:57). I like the lyrics:
"I'll get there late, don't get me wrong
I like your band but hate your song
The parts that suck are obvious
Need I explain them to you..."
Splitsville - "The Love Songs of B. Douglas Wilson" (2001)
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Isn't this The Wondermints? (Actually, it could be any number of bands that worship Brian Wilson – there are plenty around – but this is a cut above a lot of those other "any number of bands" because it's a pretty good pastiche of all things Pet Sounds-y.)
I've come to the conclusion that this is one schizophrenic band.
Honestly, if you're the kind of person who listens to bands and complains that their songs all sound the same, then Splitsville is definitely the band for you.
Oh, yeah. One more thing before you start wondering if this post will ever finish, I found a musical coincidence in one of the other songs the band sent to me. (Whichever band it is. I'm still not convinced those songs are all by the same band.)
Here's a bit of Splitsville's "White Dwarf" (2004):
I know it's a small coincidence, and won't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but I noticed it and wanted to show it to you. Yep: Nit-Pickin' Pete.
(*I've just discovered that although Splitsville recorded "Tears Are Cool," they didn't write it. It's a Teenage Fanclub song – which shows you how much I listen to Teenage Fanclub. In light of this, I take back what I said about the possibility of Splitsville's singer being cruel. Now I'm wondering about what kind of chaps the members of Teenage Fanclub are... Tears are cool? Huh?)
By the way, "(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice" was originally an Italian song called "Il Paradiso Della Vita" ("Paradise Of Life") and recorded by Italian band La Ragazza 77 in 1968. It had its first English-language recording the same year by Welsh outfit Amen Corner, and their version went to number one in the UK – which may or may not have inspired someone in Toby Jugg to say to the rest of the band: "Hey, that's a great song! Let's record it!".
Here are both those versions (as well as a Finnish reworking of it called "Paratiisi" by Bamboo)*:
There are other versions of the song, but I don't know how much tolerance you have for la-la-la's so I won't inflict all of them on you. Instead, you can read about how cosmopolitan this little ditty is (there's even a Belgian version) on PopArchives.
(*I nicked that playlist from FINNPICKS. Thanks, FINNPICKS!)
Luke is a British gent currently living in Canada. Considering the sentiments expressed in the song, I'm guessing that Luke prefers living in Canada (possibly because it's not England).
I must admit that up until three days ago (when Luke emailed me asking to mention his music), I knew none of those things. I never even knew there was someone called Luke Jackson.*
By the way, you can hear a whole pile of Luke's songs on his website where he has a selection of tracks which he calls his, er, "Lukebox": www.lukejackson.com/lukebox/.
(Maybe "Luke Jackson" is a pseudonym. It sounds like it'd make a great cowboy name:
"The sun burned fiercely on the faces of the townsfolk waiting for the new sheriff to arrive. It was a hot day, but no-one wanted to miss out on seeing the man who would clean up their town once and for all. A small, indistinct shape appeared on the horizon. A few people wondered, 'Could it be? Is it really him?' The shape grew larger as it came toward them. Slowly but steadily the shape was becoming more discernible. It was the shape of a man on a horse. 'It is! It is him!' a boy cried. 'It's Luke! He's here!' A few more minutes passed under the blazing sun as the townspeople gathered together to welcome their new sheriff. The man rode slowly down the main street of the town towards the expectant crowd. Finally, in front of what appeared to be the population of the entire county, he stopped his horse with a firm but gentle pull on the reins. He looked at all the faces staring at him, tilted his hat upward, and said in a friendly drawl: "Well, howdy folks. The name's Luke Jackson. How y'all doin'?"
A chap by the name of Jeff Shelton got in touch* with me a couple of weeks ago about his band The Well Wishers. He asked the perfectly reasonable question, "Would you mind having a listen?", to which my first thought was "Why me?".
Once I got over the shock of a US musician asking an Australian listener with faulty ears to appraise their hard work, I bunkered down and started listening.
The Well Wishers is basically Jeff, who plays all the musical instruments with strings on them, and another chap called Nick Laquintano who pesters the drums. They're pretty much a two-man band, a pair of do-it-yourselfers who record everything themselves except for when they occasionally let someone else have a go (such as an extra guitar once in a while – because you can't have too many guitars).
As well as playing almost all the instruments, Jeff also writes all the songs. And sings them. And produces them. And occasionally does the album artwork. And if that doesn't make him busy enough, Jeff also hosts two weekly radio shows: The Power Pop Show and The 80's Underground. (You can hear podcasts of them here.) Does this man have any spare time at all?
Once I started listening to The Well Wishers I noticed that Jeff likes guitars in songs. Lots of them. So do I. Jeff also likes melodies. Me, too.
Oh, by the way: a few people have mentioned elsewhere online that The Well Wishers are reminiscent of power pop bands such as The Posies, Matthew Sweet, Cheap Trick etc. That may be so, but it's actually Jeff's singing that I find to be most reminiscent of another artist. The tone and timbre of Jeff's light, high tenor sounds to me like Gerry Beckley from America (think "Sister Golden Hair" or "You Can Do Magic").
Enough of these unhelpful comparisons. Let's get to the music.
The following tracks are from two albums, Under The Arrows (2005) and Jigsaw Days (2008). You can buy those CDs at CD Baby or Not Lame if you're so inclined – and after listening to the tracks, you may very well be.
Anyway, I'll offer my thoughts on each song. You're under no obligation whatsoever to agree with them – or even read them. You can just press "play" and make up your own mind instead.
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This song is a nice introduction to The Well Wishers Sound™, and gives you a good idea of where Jeff's coming from. Guitars, guitars, guitars. I can dig it, baby.
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This song reminds me a little of Green Day's "Holiday," or maybe "Minority" (probably because of the foot-stomping beats), but for me "Double Vision" is infinitely preferrable to either of those songs because it has, you know, tunes.
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One reason I like "Lost At Sea" is that there's a little musical coincidence involving it and Split Enz's "Give It A Whirl" (1979). Jeff may not like this, but here's the coincidence:
Jeff may now be sitting in a chair, gnashing his teeth, glaring in my direction, and muttering something along the lines of "OK, smartypants – you come up with a tune..."
But any song that gets me thinking of Split Enz is alright by me.
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Every time Jeff sings the phrase "super fragile love life" in this song (at 1:52), I automatically think he's going to sing "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" instead. Every time. It's mildly annoying.
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If you're in the mood for a Foo Fighters song but don't want to hear Dave Grohl yelling at the top of his lungs all the way through it again, then this may be the track for you.
To summarise "Moving Mountains"...
1. Driving beat: check.
2. Lots of distorted guitars: check.
3. Vocal harmonies: check.
4. No Dave Grohl screaming: check.
I hope that all of those songs give you a fair idea of what The Well Wishers sound like. I also hope that Jeff doesn't contact me and say "Hey, stop giving all my songs away!"
(*I guess there may be some people would read the phrase "got in touch with..." literally. For those people who do, I just want to let you know that Jeff didn't actually touch me. He's in America and I'm in Australia, so I haven't even been able to shake his hand, let alone give him a big blokey hug and say "I like your songs, Jeff!".)
I love listening to this song on headphones because of a guitar in the mix. In the verses it moves steadily from one side of the soundstage to the other – left to right – and when it gets to the end it starts from the left all over again. Love it, love it, love it. I suppose for some people it might be infuriating, but I find it hypnotic (sort of like "follow the bouncing guitar"). The song also has wonderful layered vocals in the choruses, and towards the end of the song there's an entirely new melody for the chorus. Great stuff.
