I'm a fan of American power-pop band Cheap Trick, and I'm a fan of Australian power-pop band Neon, so when Neon covers a Cheap Trick song I come to the conclusion that this is A Very Good Thing:
Today's song by Grand Atlantic sits unobtrusively and unheralded-ly in the band's early, early EP (it was their first official release). I think the song is too good to languish in Obscure EP Land. I think it deserves to be extracted from that EP and placed front and centre on a blog so that people can hear it and say "Hey, that's not a bad song – what's it doing stuck in an obscure EP?":
I'd like to thank the Powerpopaholic blog for today's coincidence (hi, Aaron!). PP-aholic recently had a mini-review of a new album by British band Rhode Island, and he said that one song, "A House", reminded him of Field Music. I'm a bighuge ginormous fan of Field Music, so when PPA compared Rhode Island to them I felt compelled to have a listen to this British band with an American name*. I didn't think "A House" was very Field Music-y, but I did enjoy it. In the song I heard this melody:
(*Yet another band with a geographically misleading name. There's also a British band called Athletes In Paris, and an Australian band called Architecture In Helsinki, and another Australian band called Birds Of Tokyo. Grrr.)
Today's coincidence involves a Swedish power pop band called The Mop Tops and an Australian band I get into trouble (from Blogger) whenever I mention their name.
During the course of listening to a power-pop compilation album the song by The Mop Tops popped up*. It starts like this:
Here are the full versions I don't want to supply you with the full version of the song by The Mop Tops because it appears on a charity album. The album is Sweet Relief, and the proceeds go to victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The makers of the compilation, however, have provided the full song on their MySpace page:
Incidentally, with that track by The Mop Tops I wasn't terribly keen on the singer's "I'll try to sound like Nick Lowe" vocals. (Unless that is the singer's actual singing voice – in which case I apologise to the singer and say "Hey, did you know your singing reminds me of Nick Lowe?") Now, because the vocal delivery was in that Lowe-esque, relaxed kind of drawl, I thought that when he sang the first line of the song instead of it being the correct "two green eyes is..." my brain heard it as "two green asses". That prompted me to picture two nudists sitting on a lawn. I didn't want to picture that.
(*The last few words of that sentence sound rather awkward. Sorry about that. Please don't try to say "the mop tops popped up" out loud.)
Whenever I'm in the mood for a mid-tempo pop song with the guitars dialled all the way up to "cheerfully obnoxious", this is what I usually want to hear:
[Advice: for maximum effect, you may want to listen to this at maximum volume]
Before I finish this post, I just want to mention what may be an alarming trend* for musicians on Wikipedia. The photo for Señor Sweet on his Wikipedia page is what I'd describe as less than flattering (translation: it's dreadful). It's this:
And it really doesn't help that the original photo is 1713 x 1147 pixels. (In other words: enormous.)
To the person who put that photo on the page: What were you thinking?
(*I think it could be a trend because Wikipedia used a less-than-flattering photo for hotshot guitarist Eric Johnson, too. I'm aware of this because I put Eric's music on the blog some time ago, back when I was in a hotshot-instrumentalist phase, and happened to notice how ghastly Eric's photo was – and still is.)
A band by the name of Stereo Soul Future contacted me (hi, Stereos!) and asked if I'd be interested in having a listen to their third album, Ghost In The Night. Although I don't gamble, my immediate response was: "You bet!"
Always eager to hear something I haven't heard before, I listened to the album. I was going to comment on only a couple of tracks, but I got carried away and commented on every track. So it looks like this has become a full-blown album review, which is weird because I'm hopeless at reviewing albums.
By the way, before I go on I want to mention something about the band I mistook. When they contacted me, they said they Boston-based. I realise now, after listening to the album, that they didn't mean they based their music on Boston (the band) – instead, they're a band based in Boston (the city).
Oh, one more thing before I get to the music. I saw this photo of the band on their website:
It looks to me like they were invited to a fancy-dress party and decided to go as The Beatles.
Wait a minute – I think there is a photo of The Beatles that looks a bit like... hang on...
Yep. Found it:
Ah. So it was deliberate. Okey dokey.
Now to the music (i.e., what you actually come here for). Here we go...
Track 1: "If I..."
Nice strings. And they sound like real strings, too. Yum. The swooning strings in various parts of the song reminded me of another band. For a while I couldn't quite figure out what that other band was until I realised it was Field Music. They use strings in a similar way – close harmonies, and occasional swooping. (Or to use the proper term, glissando.) With this song, the drummer sure liked his crash cymbal in each chorus. (Psh, Psh in the same place in every chorus.)
Track 2: "Are You Free?"
Nup. This one didn't do anything for me. It was all suitably soulful (jazzy guitar chords, pleading vocals) and well played, but for me it was a little too tame. (Not Steely Dan enough.)
Track 3: "Sunday Morning"
A nice familiar chord progression (D major, A major, B minor, F sharp minor, G major, A major, D major) in a nice song. It's nice, in a low-key country-rock way. I much preferred it to the previous, jazz-ish song. I liked the unexpected G minor at 1:29. Very nice. Nitpicking time: I wouldn't have minded the singin' guy doing a re-take from 0:52-0:54 in the line "shadow of a former glory". The first half of the line ("shadow of a") is uncomfortably out of key, but the second half ("former glory") rights itself. And while I'm picking the nits out of the vocals in the song (sorry about this, singin' guy), at 1:19 when he sings "God is laughin' at you..." the "God is" sounds insecure. Having typed all of that, I do want to point that the singin' guy is a much better singer than I am. I am a dreadful singer. I thought the pizzicato strings in the last verse (from 1:59) were pointless (i.e., I couldn't see the point in having them there). I thought that maybe they were there to reinforce the lyrics by signify rain or something, but the lyrics in this section had nothing to with rain (although there was mention of grass, and grass needs to be watered. Maybe that was the link? But if that grass is artifical lawn, that blows my theory right out of the water. Hmm: Water. Rain. I think I should stop typing this sentence.) And a little more nitpicking about the vocals: For me, the harmony singing in the last verse was dodgy. Also – and this is incredibly minor – the harmonising of "crawl in" (at 1:36) sounded weird to me. One last thing before I get everyone in the band hating me: the chap singing the harmony vocal from 2:46 to the end of the song sounded as if his notes were possibly a little too high for him to sing – it sounded to me like he was straining for the notes. It may be why his background vocals are quieter than I'd have imagined. (Those background vocals definitely are in the background.)
Track 3: "Sinking Stone"
As this one was moving along I thought it was doing what it was doing, musically speaking, very well. Because the singer was singing in a high, light voice, it gave the vocals a yearning quality (maybe the word is "keening"), and I thought that was eminently suited to the music... until the bit with the "Be My Baby" drum beat (starting from 1:04). It's here that the vocals fall apart. Where they were yearning/keening/searching/whatever-you-call-it in the verse, here they sound weirdly off.
Disclaimer: At this point of the proceedings, I want to stress that everything above is only my impression of what I'm hearing. For all I know, everything I've heard so far is meant to be the way it is on the recording, including everything in the vocal department. Okey dokey, back to the listening...
Track 3: "Sinking Stone" (continued)
I think that in the "Be My Baby" drum beat bit the lads were going for a dreamy vibe. That section of the song certainly felt sligtly dreamy to me, but the vocal wobbliness kept pulling me out of the dreaminess. However, I do want to compliment whoever decided to put that electric 12-string guitar in the song (starting at 1:28) for the solo. Great choice of instrument. Now, this is odd: the second time they play the "Be My Baby" drum beat bit, the vocals are exactly as they should be, and how they should have been the first time. Well, that's what I reckon anyway. As I've said about other artists' recordings, they're the ones who made those records, not me. I didn't make the artistic decisions that resulted in what you hear, not me. So I do have to remind myself some times (like now) that I probably need to, as Australians like to say, "pull my head in" and stop doing the "If I produced this record" thing. But all the vocals in that second "Be My Baby" bit sounded wonderfully right to me. And the electric 12-string guitar came back for another solo. Yay! Right, next song...
Track 4: "The Freeze"
Yep. Like this. Love those hand claps. (Even though they're too quiet. Oops – I'm going into "If I Was Producer" mode again.)
Track 5: "Unmake The Oddity"
And back to the low-key country-rock. Nice cello in the left channel. This was all very pleasant, and I think the only thing about this song I objected to was its title. "Unmake The Oddity"? Huh? I know he's singing about being an oddity, but singing about how he wants to "unmake" himself is linguistically awkward. (Well, for me anyway.)
Track 6: "Whisperers"
When this started I thought of one word: "moody". But once the band started I thought "Bloc Party". This song is one of those chk-chk-chk-chk songs that are currently popular, with guitars (almost always Telecasters) playing single-note parts, and drums playing double-time on hi-hats. A lot of people call the music "alternative" but that doesn't say much. (Most rock music nowadays likes to call itself "alternative", probably to gain "street cred" with The Young People of Today.) Other people have called it "post-punk" and I'd say that's closer to the mark. The music sounds to me like it comes from the British minimalist rock movement in the 80's (think Joy Division). For me, the current kings of this minimalist-guitar-rock movement is Bloc Party. They're the only band playing chk-chk-chk-chk Telecaster music I like. I think I need to get back to talking about Stereo Soul Future. (Note to self: You do, Peter – because this is a post about them. Focus, Peter, focus.) This song – by Stereo Soul Future and no-one else – does get a bit rockier in places, and has a bit of variety. Overall, I enjoyed it.
Track 7: "Watching Circles"
I liked this. It's straight from an 60's American garage to you. Anyone who likes garage rock will like this.
Track 8: "Killer Klown"
Unfortunately, the title of this song made me think of that 'scary-clown' band. Despite that unhelpful association, I enjoyed this song. The beat and instrumentation reminded me of "Living A Lie" by The dB's.
Track 9: "Psychics"
Stereo Soul Future describes their music being "roughly in the vein of Wilco, Spoon, and the Super Furry Animals". I think I've heard Super Furry Animals, but I don't remember their music. (It's entirely possible that I actually haven't heard their music at all. Who knows?) I definitely have heard Spoon, and do remember what they sound like. I listened to them for a while to find out why critics loved them so much. After a few listens to their most acclaimed albums (which, apparently, is all of them), I realised that their music did very little for me. Their instrumentation was too sparse for my liking, and I thought they took themselves and their music way too seriously. I don't listen to Wilco (I did watch a documentary about them once, but don't remember the music), so maybe this song is Stereo Soul Future being Wilco-esque.
Track 10: "Faith In Me"
I didn't mind this. Didn't love it, but I didn't loathe it. This one reminds me of Spoon. Maybe this is their Spoon song. Actually, the more this song went on, the more I enjoyed it and the less I thought about Spoon. I ended up mildly enjoying it.
Track 11: "I Need Something To Lose"
Oh-oh. One voice, one piano... that spells "sensitive ballad" to me. But at 1:22 the rest of the band comes in. Phew. I'm glad the album didn't end with a sensitive ballad. The cello from earlier in the album came back for this song. (In the right channel this time.) Excellent. I'm mighty glad it came back. (The cello is my favourite instrument.) I'm afraid that I'm about to get nitpicky again, but it's not about the vocals. It's about the guitar solo (from 2:34 to 3:29). I think the guitar solo is, er, um – how can I put this diplomatically? I think it's not very good. And to me, exacerbating its not-very-good-ness is that it sounds to me like it's either a compound solo (i.e., various takes put together to make one solo) or it's two guitars "duelling" (I'm thinking that's a possibility because the guitar's tone alternates during the solo). I really have to apologise for this, because it's an unkind joke, but I feel the need to say it: When this song had finished and I looked up at the song title, I saw "I Need Something To Lose". My immediate response was: "Yeah – the guitar solo." I am truly sorry about that.
POSITIVE CONCLUSION
I'm very keen to end this post on a positive note. (Being an incurable optimist I always look for the best in anything – despite what you may have read above.)
I'll say that overall I listened to album and enjoyed it. Regardless of a little niggling here and there, I did enjoy it. (Note to self: A "little"?? "Here and there"??? It looks like you were moaning throughout the whole post, you fool.)
But me hearing it and you hearing it are two different things. I heartily recommend you completely ignore my (occasionally uncharitable) comments and listen to it for yourself. After all: you have your ears, and you'll hear what you hear – not what I hear.
That song isn't fair. When I played "Valder Fields" it made my eyes moist. Now I can't see properly. And now I think I might be in love – with that song.
Concluding our two-part series of Songs I Like That Were Released In 1982 And Have The Word "Dancing" In Them, here are The Kinks with their last hit single:
Boy, this riff sure is popular. It was only a few weeks ago that I noticed a tune in The Move's "I Can Hear The Grass Grow" that appears in a couple of other songs. (Gruesome details here.) Now I've found it in another song.
First, though, a reminder of the original tune. In "I Can Hear The Grass Grow" it's the "Get a hold of yourself now baby" part in the song's middle eight:
In addition to the other two songs I found that tune, this time it's in Australian band Grand Atlantic's "Smoke And Mirrors". I heard a guitar near the start of the song playing something suspiciously familiar (it's in the right channel):
I must admit that this coincidence is one of the oddest I've ever noticed, as the two artists make very strange musical bedfellows.
I discovered this coincidence when I got Rickrolled the other day. I was on YouTube, listening to bass solos by Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones. (I'm a bass player, and it's the kind of thing bass players do: go to YouTube and listen to bass solos.)
Anyway, something claiming to be a "John Paul Jones Epic Lemon Song Bass Solo (VERY RARE)" turned out to be Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" (enter at your own risk):
Unfortunately, once that chorus entered my head it stayed there for the rest of the day. As I was hearing that chorus over and over again in me noggin, it dawned on me that I'd heard that insistent rhythm ("Never gonna GIVE YOU UP, never gonna LET YOU DOWN..." etc.) somewhere else:
The fabulously friendly Kenny (Hi, Kenny!) from American band The Turnback let me know recently (actually only a few hours ago) that he and his bandmates have created a video for one of their songs that's quite possibly a world first.
The world-first bit is this: the video was shot entirely on an iPhone 4S. (Or, as Apple, the makers of the iPhone, put it, "the most amazing iPhone yet!". Hang on – I thought their last phone was the most amazing iPhone. How can they both be the most amazing iPhone? I'm confused.)
Anyway, Kenny reckons it's probably the first ever music video to be made with "the most amazing iPhone yet!".
Maybe that song should be renamed "Cell-o-Phone Sky". And hopefully that's the worse pun you'll see all year.
Well, no matter what electronic gadget it was made with, I liked that video. I must admit, though, that as I was watching it I was constantly trying to resist the urge to say "groovy, man!" I liked the lights on the drumsticks – or maybe I was imagining it. (Did I just eat some mushrooms I shouldn't have? No, that can't be it – I don't even like mushrooms.) I might have to watch it again to make sure.
An amazingly productive band called Orange Hat emailed me to ask if I'd have a listen to their music. My response was "Yes, please!" (as it usually is when people let me know about music I haven't heard before), so I was electronically escorted to their Bandcamp page where I found a dauntingly large amount of songs. Orange Hat's discography there listed five albums, each having an entirely unreasonable amount of songs on it.
The Challenge
Pardon me as I get mathematical. I feel I need to do this to show just how daunting the task of listening to Orange Hat is:
Paisley Thrash has 5 songs (that's not too bad – but only because it's an EP)
That's 80 songs. Eighty. A. T.
And those albums all start with the letter "P". Why?
Anyway, I set myself the task of listening to all those songs. So I did. But I have a terrible admission to make: I didn't listen all the way through each of those 80 songs. The typical scenario for what I ended up doing is this: I'd listen to half a song, get a feel for it, then look at the track list and squeal "Eek! Too many songs!"
Nevertheless, I did listen (albeit partially) to every song. For this post, and for the purposes of brevity (!), I'll try to give an overarching view of the band's oeuvre by playing you what I hope are representative songs from each album.
8. Why does the singing sometimes remind me of Glenn Tilbrook, especially in songs like "Squidhead Farmplow"and "Girlfriend Ex"? (Sorry, that was more of a rhetorical question. You don't have to answer that.)
10. The less I say about "Hellfire!"the better. (That wasn't a question at all. It was more a "Please don't ever record anything like that again" statement.)
A Plea To Other Bands
If you'd like me to listen to your music, I'd be happy to. But please don't send me your entire back catalogue. Thank you. I think I'll have a little lie-down now.
Today's song is from a chap I'd never met before until he emailed me with a request to play one or two of his songs on the blog. The chap in question is Mike Barnett (Hi, Mike!), and he said something along the lines of: "Hey, Peter – would you mind puttin' me songs on yer blog?"
(I must confess that Mike didn't actually use those words in his email. He was grammatically more accurate than the above attempt at relating the gist our electronic meeting.)
I know that sometimes when I listen to music I get nitpicky, but I was very pleased that I noticed only two nitpicky things in today's song. I won't point them out because I don't think it'd be terribly fair on Mike to highlight a couple of little things when the overall his music is enjoyable. (Believe it or not, I don't go looking for faults in recordings. They just let me know they're there.)
Incidentally, the last time I mentioned what I thought were faults in a recording by a new artist I received a none-too-happy reply from said artist*, so in the interests of smooth relations with people I, I'm happy to keep silent on matters of unimportance and let you listen with your own ears.
Beware: if you're going to listen to this song with headphones, be prepared for the shock of hearing the song start with an acoustic guitar in the right channel (and I mean completely in the right channel – there's nothing in the left channel, and it felt weird that there was no sound at all going into my left ear when the song started).
Hopefully, those songs will give you a taste of Mike's music.
By the way, those songs appear on Mike's album, Bigger Than This, which received a review over at the Absolute Powerpop blog (Hi, Absolute!). That review is much more helpful than this post.
Also by the way...
I don't know if it's just me, but I reckon that in the photo on the cover of the album (see above) Mike looks a little like Eric Clapton in acoustic mode:
or
Maybe if I reverse that so Eric is facing the same direction as Mike:
I think I've just wasted your time. Sorry about that.
Serial pests gentle reminderers The Bynars sent me yet another a friendly email letting me know about their latest song. As you probably guessed by the graphic above, and the time of year it is for people in the land of Americans, the song is Halloween-themed. It's also free:
I'm glad The Bynars let me know about their Halloween-themed ditty, because it reminded me of another haunted house song:
Their Sunday post (courtesy of NYMary) was of a new song by American band The Jayhawks. The song is called "She Walks In So Many Ways", and as I was listening to it I kept thinking it was going to burst into the chorus of a different song by a different band.
If you'll indulge me, please listen to The Jayhawks song first. That way, you can hear what I heard:
I found this early song by the Bee Gees on the Interwebs the other day and instantly fell for its charms.
(It's prompted me to see if the lads recorded anything* before their official Australian debut album in 1965 and their official international debut album in 1967. If any of their very early stuff is even half as charming as today's track, I'll be hooked.)
And the song's title has given me the perfect excuse to play you one of my favourite Cheap Trick songs.
