Tag Archives: Power Pop

The Perms: Sofia Nights

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Power pop from the Great White North

Americans might be surprised to learn that the intersection of “Winnipeg, Manitoba,” and “rock stars” yields no less than the Guess Who, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Crash Test Dummies, and Neil Young. The Perms have been plugging away on the Winnipeg scene since 1997, and their fifth album is a hook-filled collection, heavy on the guitar, bass, drums and harmonies. The vocals range from a low-register that suggests the Smithereens’ Pat DiNizio to the keening edginess of the La’s Lee Mavers; fans of Sloan, Weezer, Teenage Fanclub and Velvet Crush will enjoy these songs of romantic turmoil, adolescent immortality, and the requisite ups and downs one should expect from a power-pop record. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Said and Done
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Tommy Keene: Behind the Parade

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A power-pop true-believer keeps plugging away

Tommy Keene might have more aptly titled his latest release “One Man’s Parade,” as he’s not so much following in anyone’s footsteps as he’s resolutely sticking to his own path. Those who first latched onto Keene through college radio play of his superb 1984 EP Places That Are Gone may be wondering where he’d gone, but long after the EP’s incandescent closing cover of Alex Chilton’s “Hey! Little Child” faded, Keene was still making records. Good records. Good records filled with sweet melodies, chiming guitars and punchy rock ‘n’ roll rhythms. In earlier years Keene worked with Richard X. Heyman, a fellow traveler in the under-appreciated-multi-instrumentalist-rock-singer-songwriter camp, and they’ve each released a new album this year.

Keene’s indie efforts, first for his own label, and then for Dolphin, sparked a contract with Geffen that produced a pair of albums and another EP. There’s great material on each, but without a commercial breakthrough, he returned to the indie world and became a sought-after guitar sideman. His albums – this is the fifth since 2000 – have drawn critical notice, but mostly remained the province of pop fanatics. Keene handles the guitars, keyboards and half the bass playing, with Rob Brill (drums) and Brad Quinn (bass) filling out the band. His sound is largely unchanged from earlier years – thick electric guitars and a rhythm section that surrounds the vocals with sound.

Without a lyric sheet, the setting of the vocals into the instrumentals leaves many of the verses difficult to decipher. The hook lines come through clearly, and Keene’s melodies communicate a lot of emotion, but listeners may be left with the feeling there’s more there than easily meets the ear. There are threads of fatalism and hints of ennui throughout, both in the titles (“Nowhere Drag”) and tone. Keene’s guitar playing is superb, offering beefy rhythm lines and atmospheric solos that drift along with the songs’ often deliberate tempos. This is recommended if you like Velvet Crush, Matthew Sweet, Sloan, Teenage Fanclub and all those who live on the power-side of power-pop. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Deep Six Saturday
Tommy Keene’s Home Page

The Rubinoos: Live at the Hammersmith Odeon

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Seminal power pop band live in 1978

Originally released as part of the omnibus box set Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Rubinoos, the band has released this period live performance on its own for separate download. Taped at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on April 1, 1978, the concert shows off the band’s stellar harmony singing, tight guitar rock, super-tuneful songs and broad stage humor. Jon Rubin’s voice (which still sounds great today) is d-r-e-a-m-y, Tommy Dunbar shows off his killer guitar skills, and the band’s rhythm section is dialed in. This was a really tight live unit. Along with their best-known sides (the original “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” a charting cover of “I Think We’re Alone Now” and the pop-soul “Hard to Get”), there’s the rare “Hey Royse,” an a cappella doo-wop cover of “Rockin’ in the Jungle,” and a monumental jam of “Sugar Sugar” that quotes “Smoke on the Water” and “Downtown” before inviting the audience to sing along. The set closes with an unrelenting take on the Seeds “Pushin’ Too Hard” that suggests maybe rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t quite dead… yet. If you weren’t there, this is what you missed; if you were, this is what you heard, and it still sounds sweet. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Research Turtles: Mankiller – Part 1 of 2

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Terrific EP from Lake Charles, LA power poppers

Research Turtles are a terrific power pop band, but releasing records out of their Lake Charles, Louisiana base, and playing mostly local shows, they still haven’t broken through commercially. But their lack of national renown isn’t for want of great music or promotional savvy; they’ve effectively worked music bloggers, and last year they organized fans to vote the band’s self-titled album as Radio Six International’s “Record of the Year” for 2010. The Turtles have recently knocked out the first of two EPs, deepening the punch of their rhythm section, adding fullness to their guitars and adding layers to their vocal harmonies. The band’s five new songs include the rapturously upbeat “You Are So,” the mid-tempo “Bugs in a Jar” and the heavier (and glammier) “Rhinestone Gal.” Influences include Cheap Trick, T Rex, Badfinger, the Cars, Greenberry Woods, Hollies and Beatles, but without too vigorous a nod to any one of them. Won’t somebody sign this band and get them some wider attention already? [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Bugs in a Jar
Research Turtles Home Page

Material Issue: International Pop Overthrow [20th Anniverary Edition]

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Expanded reissue of a power-pop classic

In celebration of International Pop Overthrow’s twentieth anniversary, and in memory of the group’s late leader Jim Ellison, Hip-O select has issued this greatly expanded version of Material Issue’s first full length release. By the time the record dropped in 1991, Material Issue had been together nearly six years, had issued an EP and a few singles, and had toured extensively throughout their native Midwest. The album itself was recorded in Zion, Illinois, the home of another great power-pop band, Shoes, and produced by Shoes’ Jeff Murphy. IPO fit well in a year that was dotted with key power-pop albums from Matthew Sweet (Girlfriend), Teenage Fanclub (Bandwagonesque), Velvet Crush (In the Presence of Greatness), Adam Schmitt (World So Bright) and Richard X. Heyman (Hey Man!).

The album sold nationwide, launching a video for “Diane” on MTV’s 120 Minutes and pushing “Valerie Loves Me” into the top ten of Billboard’s modern rock chart. The group completed two more albums and toured heavily, but never recaptured either the bittersweet poignancy of IPO, or its commercial success. Ellison committed suicide in 1996 amid rumors of romantic and artistic disillusion, but he left behind an album that captures the very core of power pop: melodies whose hooks resound with the craft of the Brill Building and lyrics whose heart-on-sleeve emotion drew a map of joy, heartbreak, anticipation, angst, satisfaction and disappointment.

The anniversary edition of IPO adds eight bonus tracks, six drawn from the pre-LP promo-only Eleven Supersonic Hit Explosions, one (the thundering “Sixteen Tambourines”) taken from a College Music Journal sampler album, and the previously unreleased “The Girl with the Saddest Eyes” to close out the set. Among the bonuses are three covers: an emotional rendering of Thin Lizzy’s “Cowboy,” a glitzy version of Sweet’s “Blockbuster,” and a brash live take on Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer.” IPO is an essential element of a complete power-pop collection, and this expanded reissue is a great upgrade for fans that haven’t previously picked up the bonus tracks. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Richard X. Heyman: Tiers and Other Stories

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One-man power pop band expands his musical and thematic horizons

Since breaking into the underground of power pop aficionados with 1991’s Hey Man!, Richard X. Heyman has released a consistently excellent catalog of pop records. Even more impressive is the singular voice he’s developed by writing all of his own material and playing nearly all the instruments. He augments his bass, guitar, piano, organ and drums with harpsichord, marimba, mellotron, vibraphone and a brilliant array of percussion. He’s sufficiently comfortable as a player, producer and singer to keep his work from sounding like an overdubbing fest, and he expands on his core instrumental talents with guests who add strings, horns and woodwinds. His early proficiency on drums provides his one-man band a sense of time that’s steady but not tensely metronomic; there are musical and rhythmic conversations among his instruments, he just happens to be playing them all.

Heyman has deepened his craft over the years, but he’s done so without sacrificing the basic joys of music making. This double-disc (which he views as two albums, rather than a double-album) is an introspective look at married life, from the earliest days of courtship to the comfortable settling of a life partnership. The sketches of serendipitous meetings, romantic premonitions, youthful left turns, twenty-something freedoms, maturing emotional needs and realized commitments tell of a relationship whose circuitous route turns out to be a circle. It’s a path that will be familiar to most anyone who’s looked into the mirror of their own long-term relationships. Along the way, Heyman has a chance meeting with his future wife, develops the acquaintance into a relationship, leaves to make a career in Los Angeles, makes a name for himself on the West Coast, gets burned by the music industry, flames out and realizes that the life he wants to live is 3000 miles away.

Heyman’s an excellent storyteller (see a few examples of his prose here), and his feel for the longer form translates nicely into a pop opera whose songs form chapters in a larger arc. The second disc of this set, And Other Stories, provides a coda for the song cycle of Tiers, looking at the contented doings of a married couple, the characters of city life and the rhythms of passing seasons. Even Heyman’s consideration of mortality, “Baby Boom,” is inquiring and philosophical, rather than dark or fearful. Both discs tint Heyman’s pop roots with complex changes that draw his voice from its usual Stevie Winwood-esque sound to the more unusual style of Donald Fagan. There are touches of country, baroque-pop (reminiscent of the Left Banke’s Michael Brown), and even some Rockin’ Berries-styled harmonies on “Yellow and Blue.” And Other Stories hasn’t the thematic focus of Tiers, but the quality of Heyman’s work never wears out its welcome. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Fire in the Country
Richard X. Heyman’s Home Page

Ian Moore: El Sonido Nuevo

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Catchy originals from a singer-songwriter and his power-pop trio

Moore’s earlier years as a guitar-slinging Texan have completely receded from his rear-view mirror, but the last fifteen years has seen the blues not so much abandoned as muscled into balance with soul and pop flavors. His guitar playing is still beefy, and he can rip up rock solos, but his songs don’t rely on 12-bar progressions, his melodies are upbeat rather than blue, the harmonies reach to the British Invasion and California sunshine pop, and he offers himself more as a singer-songwriter than a guitarist. Those changes have developed organically over several years and albums, and here he transforms again from the psych inflections of Luminaria and experimental arrangements of To Be Loved to straight-ahead pop-rock. The new sound (or el sunido nuevo) is due in large part to the reduction of Moore’s band, the Lossy Coils, to a power-pop trio of guitar, bass and drums. The production skips layer-upon-layer overdubbing, favoring instead the trio’s rhythm section and strong, clear vocals. Moore’s stylistic reach is broad, from the tightly arranged a cappella intro of “Silver Sunshine” to the superb pop balladry of “Newfound Station” and blues-based punch of “Let Me Out.” At times the music takes on the pop-edged rock sounds of ‘70s bands like Foreigner, Electric Light Orchestra and Pink Floyd, with some David Gilmour-eque guitar adding power to “Hilary Step.” Moore’s a skilled songwriter, managing to close-rhyme “things I’ve missed” with “miscreants,” turning a pep talk into a nervous glance at a darker past, and weaving themes of uncertainty, self-doubt and loneliness into several songs. The closing “Sad Affair” provides a melodic homage to Alex Chilton’s “Holocaust,” and its downcast appraisal segues neatly back to the pub-rock energy of the opener. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Newfound Station
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Debate Team: Wins Again

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Catchy SoCal power-pop side-project

The best known names here are OK Go drummer Dan Konopka, OneRepublic guitarist Drew Brown and The Hush Sound bassist Bob Morris, but the songs (and vocals) come from guitarist Ryan McNeill. Collaboration between McNeill and his then-roommate Brown began in 2003, but was sidelined when OneRepublic scored a hit with “Apologize.” Flash forward a couple of years to a chance meeting between McNeill and Konopka that reignited interest in the abandoned band’s material, drew the drummer into playing as a side project. Though some of the material had been around for years, it was fresh to the newly formed band and the result is a buoyant collection of guitar pop whose instantly memorable melodies spring from ingratiating hooks; the playing is tight and the production polished, but retains the imaginative ideas (such as the chance meeting of racially diverse lookalikes in “Curious Pair”) and sincerity that major labels would worry away. Fans of Velvet Crush, Rooney, Sloan, and Teenage Fanclub (not to mention OK Go, OneRepublic and Hush) will take a strong liking to this all-too-short eight track mini-LP. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Curious Pair
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Starz: Attention Shoppers!

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‘70s hard-rock band goes power-pop

For those not paying attention to hard rock in the mid-70s, the terrific power pop of Starz’s third album seemed to appear out of thin air. For those who had listened to the band’s first two albums, Starz and Violation, the change in direction must have been a rude surprise. The band had always shown a keen sense of melody and even harmony vocals, but their riffing guitar jams and macho arena rhythms had been more apiece with Kiss and Aerosmith than the Raspberries. In retrospect, you can hear the change coming as the band’s lone Top 40 hit, “Cherry Baby,” opened Violation. The rhythm guitar had the richness of a 12-string, the lead vocal was softened slightly, and the chorus had the hook of an Andy Kim record. The remainder of the album, save the prog-folk “Is That a Street Light or the Moon,” fit more with the hard rock of the debut, but the dream of commercial success was clearly planted.

For their third album, the band produced itself and chased the pop sound that had garnered brief chart success. From the opening drumbeats of “Hold on to the Night,” the melodic twin guitar intro and the mid-tempo major key melody were a new direction that surely caused existing fans to blanch. Yet, anyone who was grooving to Dwight Twilley would have warmed quickly to Starz’ new sound, with the remainder of the album’s first side paying more dividends as the bands sounds like Bram Tchaikovsky, 20/20 and the Beat. Michael Lee Smith sings lovelorn lyrics without the macho strut of the band’s earlier pop-metal, though the power ballad “Third Time’s the Charm” would work well in a set with Poison’s “Every Rose Has its Thorn,” and the album closing “Johnny All Alone” has the length of an arena showcase.

The guitars offer up memorable hooks, and the band’s harmonizing works even better here than it had on their earlier albums. There are a couple of tracks, the bluesy night out, “Waitin’ On You” and especially “Good Ale We Seek,” that flash the band’s hard-rock roots and prog-rock edges, and a taste of punk rock’s abandon can be heard in “X-Ray Spex.” Unfortunately, Starz’s core fans weren’t buying this, and power-pop fans couldn’t seem to shake the band’s history. It’s too bad that college radio wasn’t yet as influential as it would become a few years later, as Attention Shoppers! slipped onto quite a few campus turntables between Cheap Trick and Sparks. It’s great to have this in a digital reissue, all that’s missing is the shopping bag liner that came with the original record! [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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The Rubinoos: Automatic Toaster

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Power-pop, soul and garage-rock from the Rubinoos

Few groups have had as strong a second wind as the Rubinoos. After releasing two beloved albums in the late ‘70s (available together in a box set), the group went on hiatus for over a decade. But since their return to studio for 1998’s Paleophonic, they’ve dropped four albums of new material alongside numerous reissues, odds ‘n’ sods collections and live recordings. This latest album, their first since 2005’s Twist Pop Sin has been released initially in Spain (where the band has been warmly welcomed on tour) and features the longtime core of Jon Rubin (vocals/guitar), Tommy Dunbar (guitar/vocals/keyboard) and Al Chan (bass/vocals). Joining the trio on drums this time out is the album’s producer (and, yes, one time “Cousin Oliver”), Robbie Rist.

Dunbar’s nine original songs (including new versions of “Must Be a Word,” previously waxed by Vox Pop, and “Earth #1,” which appeared on the band’s Biff-Boff-Boing!) are complemented by a pair of covers: a sumptuous guitar-and-harmony take on Johnny Johnson’s soul side “Blame it on the Pony Express,” and a punchy run through Los Bravos’ “Black is Black.” The new tunes celebrate the basics of four-piece rock ‘n’ roll, the early days of the Beatles, and the superiority of our third planet from the Sun. There are garage rock riffs, kid-friendly horror and humor, and the sort of heartaches that make the band’s early records so memorable. The terrific “Same Old Heartbreak,” released several years ago by the song’s co-writer Kyle Vincent as modern pop on Sweet 16, resounds with the romantic urgency of the Rubinoos’ earliest gems.

Jon Rubin’s voice is as sweet as ever, and Tommy Dunbar’s guitar and pen continue to turn out hummable melodies with clever, catchy lyrics. It’s a shame today’s teen singing stars don’t mine the band’s catalog for undiscovered gems of adolescent longing. Dunbar’s songs are more tuneful and true to teenage emotions than Disney’s factory writers typically achieve. The power and crispness of Rist’s drumming is a nice addition to the band’s sound, though a couple of cuts get overpowered. Heading into their fifth decade, the Rubinoos remain a potent rock ‘n’ roll band whose fine harmonies and guitar-bass-and-drums haven’t lost a step. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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