Tag Archives: Power Pop

Jud Norman: Apples, Oranges

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Early power-pop from Research Turtles singer/songwriter

Jud Norman is the songwriter, singer and bass player for the should-be-famous Lake Charles, LA power-pop quartet, Research Turtles. Before forming his current band (from the remnants of his cover band the Flame Throwers and his brother’s band, Plaid Carpets), he recorded this solo album in the transition between high school and college. You can hear the seeds of the Research Turtles in these charming pop songs, and also a stronger dose of influences like Matthew Sweet, Big Star, Badfinger and Weezer. Especially Weezer. The album doesn’t have the studio polish of Justin Tocket’s production on Research Turtles, but Norman was already clear on the sound he wanted to achieve.

Playing everything but drums (which were manned by the record’s producer/engineer Bam Arceneaux), Norman might have ended up sounding like a charmingly insular one-man band; and while there’s a hint of that in the self-harmonizing, the end result sounds surprisingly like a group rather than multiple layers of an individual. The lyrics are full of classic power-pop professions of love and longing, made vital by Norman’s then-proximity to his teenage years and the urgency they inspire. It’s rare for a teenage artist, even one heading into college, to have the self-awareness to write these sorts of lyrics, and even rarer to have the musical ear to produce something so melodically fetching.

It’s not perfect, but even the few moments that strain or come a bit too close to Norman’s influences, are more endearing than off-putting. Originally released independently in 2002, the album got little push (one release party, apparently) and no critical notice. Norman moved on to form Research Turtles with his brother Joe (who’s now leaving the band, so they’re looking for a guitarist) and two friends, and this debut was left behind. But through the magic of the Internet, you can now find this little-known, unpolished gem for free on the Research Turtles’ website linked below. Snap it up before the band signs with a label that realizes there’s money to be made in Norman’s catalog! [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Take Me Away
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Research Turtles’ Home Page

The Greenberry Woods: Rapple Dapple

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Top-notch power-pop from the mid-90s

This Maryland quartet had the misfortune to make top-notch power-pop at a time when such sounds contrasted unfavorably to the angsty zeitgeist of the mid-90s. Led by three singer-songwriters, Ira Katz and twin brothers Matt and Brandt Huseman, the Greenberry Woods released this debut album on Sire, garnering opening tour slots with Deborah Harry and the Proclaimers, radio play for the single “Trampoline,” and a couple of television appearances. In a just world these would have sent their album to stratospheric heights, but in the fickle world of pop music, it wasn’t enough to catch on. A superb 1995 follow-up, Big Money Item, faired no better commercially, and with the Huseman brothers working on their not-so-ironically-named side-project, Splitsville, the band fell apart. What they left behind resounds as strongly today as it did in 1994. Their songs are electric-guitar powered ear worms of the first degree, featuring catchy melodies, hook-filled choruses, yearning pop vocals and the Midas touch of co-producer Andy Paley. The CD is long out of print (though used copies can be scored for pennies on the dollar), but with Rhino’s MP3 reissue, power-pop fans owe it to themselves to place a copy alongside albums by Tommy Keene, Material Issue, Teenage Fanclub, Shoes, Adam Schmitt, the Moberlys and the rest of your secret pop crushes. 4-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

“Trampoline” video
“Adieu” video

Reno Bo: Happenings and Other Things

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Classic guitar rock with deep power-pop hooks

Reno Bo’s played sideman in Mooney Suzuki and Albert Hammond Jr’s backing band, and on his debut as a leader he shows himself quite the student of guitar rock and power pop. There’s an obvious influence of Big Star (especially the songs of founder Chris Bell), but what power-pop band with killer hooks doesn’t trace its roots to #1 Record? The meatiness of the guitar playing favors Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend, and there’s an early ‘70s pop and rock vibe that dominates – the post-Beatles sounds of Badfinger, the heavier solo sides of Andy Kim, the latter-day echoes of the Posies and Velvet Crush, and the throwback guitar interludes of Oasis. The album’s first single, “There’s a Light,” is a terrific piece of pop-soul lifted high by a chorus that begs for sing-along. Bo’s original animated video for the song salutes the styles of Terry Gilliam, Shel Silverstein, Schoolhouse Rock and Yellow Submarine, and illustrates the song’s hopeful message with psychedelic collages and icons of flight. The harmonica and acoustic-gutiar folk-pop “Baby, You’re Not Feelin’ Me Tonight” plays like a page out of the Sloan & Barri’s songbook for the first iteration of the Grass Roots, and the guitars of “Sugar Suite Blues” bring to mind Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy. The sincerity in Bo’s voice adds a glow to the falling-in-love lyric and Beatle-esque melody of “You Don’t Know,” and Byrdsian folk-rock is heard in the guitar and vocal of “Here Right Now.” Bo’s musical influences (like his artistic antecedents – check out the Sgt. Pepper-styled album cover) are readily familiar, but that familiarity breeds quick comfort and the musical hooks will lash you tight to these songs. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | There’s a Light
Free Download of “There’s a Light” Video
Reno Bo’s Home Page
Reno Bo’s MySpace Page

Research Turtles: Time Machine EP

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Homemade EP of power-pop and rock

This four piece power-pop band from Lake Charles, LA released this DIY EP a year before their official debut album [review]. The sweet voices, winsome lyrics, catchy melodies and guitar-drive are here, but without the polish they’d find in a proper studio. The bass is a bit heavy, though they do a great job of setting the vocals into the mix, managing to keep the harmonies afloat without ever breaking loose from the instrumental backing. Of the seven titles only the opener, “Damn,” was repeated on their album; the other six each hold unique charms, including the whistled opening and folk harmonies of “Tabula Rosa,” guitar riffing of “Red Dress,” and sci-fi lyrics of the title track. There are terrific vocals and guitars throughout that will please fans of Left Banke, Greenberry Woods, Teenage Fanclub, Rooney and Matthew Sweet. Check out the album Research Turtles first, then come back to hear the garage in which it was hatched. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | I See the Sun
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Research Turtles’ Home Page

Research Turtles: Research Turtles

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Throwback power-pop and rock with modern energy

Okay, their white shirts say “children of The Knack,” which would also make them grandchildren of the Beatles. And with Doug Fieger having passed away last month, it’s great to hear the next generation carrying the torch for power-pop and rock. Raised in Lake Charles, LA, the Research Turtles could easily have been an Americana or redneck rock band, but they latched onto classic pop and rock sounds of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, kicked up the tempo and turned up their electric guitars. You can hear the Ramones in the opening riff of “Mission” before it breaks into a power-pop harmony rocker that will remind you of the Greenberry Woods. Remember the scene in Bring it On where Torrance dances on her bed to a song written for her by Cliff? Well you should, and then you’d understand the sort of effervescent abandon the Research Turtles can inspire. Great hooks, powerful playing, tight harmonies and terrific production add up to some truly great power-pop. On the heavier side they have a Lenny Kravitz-styled number called “The Riff Song,” hit a driving Nirvana-styled groove on “925,” and show off their lead-guitar chops on the closing “Break My Fall.” Calling all fans of Matthew Sweet, the Plimsouls, Smithereens, Teenage Fanclub, Material Issue, Sloan, Rooney, Fountains of Wayne and, of course, The Knack – take a listen and join the horde of fans that wonders how this band could still be unsigned. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Mission
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Research Turtles’ Home Page

Luther Russell: Motorbike EP

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Inviting EP sampler of singer-songwriter psych, pop, folk and blues

Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Luther Russell previews his upcoming double album The Invisible Audience with this diverse six-song sampler. Variety has always been one of Russell’s strong point, and here he offers a mix of hypnotic modern rock, drifting country-folk, chugging minimalist blues, gutsy power pop, and an airy piano waltz. There are droplets of 1970s Canterbury prog-rock, Meddle-era Pink Floyd, Revolver-era psychedelia (including fantastic “Rain” styled McCartney high-fret bass trills at the end of “Tomorrow’s Papers”) and the modern iterations of Oasis. It’s a lot to fit into nineteen minutes, but Russell strings it together with terrific fluidity, gaining bonus points for the electric sitar sound on the title track.

Even more impressive is the ensemble sound Russell fashions from his overdubbed playing, never once suffering from the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none syndrome that plagues many one-man bands. The album’s title track is a swirl of revitalization and multicolored dust found in the freedom of two wheels on the open road, and the closing “Somehow or Another,” sung with Sarabeth Tucek, imagines a fiery end; in between Russell haunts with the wordless vocalizations of “Dead Sun Blues” and “Et Al.” One can imagine how this variety will expand on the forthcoming album, but here it feels complete at EP length. Listen to this as a digital download or on the limited edition white vinyl disc – but do listen! [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Motorbike
Luther Russell’s Home Page
Luther Russell’s MySpace Page

The Plimsouls: Live! Beg, Borrow & Steal

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L.A. rock ‘n’ roll at the height of its 1981 power

Alive Records seems to be on a mission to get all of Peter Case’s early material into circulation. They issued the first official CD of the Nerves EP (with bonus tracks!), a live Nerves LP, Case’s post-Nerves hook-up with Paul Collins in the Breakaways, and now this supercharged live show by the Plimsouls. Already one of L.A.’s most potent rock ‘n’ roll bands, the Plimsouls hit a sixth gear when they played live. Fans have previously enjoyed another live set on One Night in America, and though the audio seems slightly more compressed on this October 1981 recording, the performance is a few degrees hotter. Peter Case sings with a ragged, full-throated soulfulness that’s urged along by Dave Pahoa and Lou Ramierez’s rhythms and goosed by Eddie Munoz’s electric guitar riffs.

The Plimsouls were a non-stop live act. They launch from the gates at full-speed with “Hush Hush” and never let the pedal up from the floor. “Lost Time” assembles itself from stabbing rhythm guitar riffs, rumbling bass and propulsive drums, and “Women” teases with a moment of confidentiality before roaring down the strip with all cylinders firing. Plimsouls originals “A Million Miles Away” and “Everyday Things” get an extra measure of passion on stage, and when the band kicks into their encore covers of the Kinks’ “Come on Now” and Gary “U.S.” Bonds’ “New Orleans” (with the Fleshtones sitting in on the latter) it’s as if they’re offering their souls on the altar rock ‘n’ roll. Their cover of Thee Midniters’ “Jump, Jive & Harmonize” is missing the signature organ whine, but Case sounds absolutely possessed throughout this and the rest of the set.

Power pop fans treasure the Plimsouls’ studio recordings, but their live set proves them one of the era’s top rock ‘n’ roll bands. When they get deep into the groove it feels as if Peter Case is doing all he can to stay on top of this hard-charging band. Nearly thirty years later this set still commands you get up and move around – the Plimsouls’ powers transcend time and space. Less than half the titles here, recorded at the Whisky A Go Go, overlap with One Night in America, and the inclusion of “Lost Time,” “Women,” “Zero Hour,” “I Want You Back,” and “Everyday Things” makes this disc an essential for fans. Alive’s packaging includes a six-panel insert with terrific period photos (including the stellar color cover shot). Now if only they could get 1981’s The Plimsouls back in print! [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Zero Hour
The Plimsouls’ MySpace Page
Hidden Love Medical Relief Fund for Peter Case (backstory here)

Here they are two years earlier:

Alice Cooper: Zipper Catches Skin

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Alice Cooper sounding a bit labored in 1982

A year after the stripped-down attack of Special Forces, Alice Cooper produced another album in the same vein; though this time with added theatrical flair and the return of guitarist Dick Wagner. Cooper continued to assume new identities, such as the famed swordsman of “Zorro’s Ascent” and the put-upon son of “Make That Money (Scrooge’s Song).” Some of the performances seem labored, and Wagner’s distinctive guitar riffs feel as if they were grafted onto the songs to add flash. The stagey ballad “I Am the Future” might have worked well as a production number, but with Cooper descending back into alcohol addiction there was no tour. What works well is Cooper’s humor on “No Baloney Homosapiens,” “I Like Girls” and “Remarkably Insincere.” And on “Tag, You’re It” he indulges his longtime love of cheesy cinema with a song full of slasher-film clichés. If there was no 1970s legacy with which to compare this, one might stumble upon this and think it’s a long-lost power-pop album from a surprisingly talented lyricist. It’s all quite listenable, and even fun as it passes by, but it’s not nearly as memorable as his earlier (and some of his later) works. Collectors’ Choice’s domestic reissue adds the UK-only 1982 single “For Britain Only,” and its four-panel booklet includes new liner notes by Gene Sculatti. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Bruce Eaton: Radio City 33-1/3

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Superb accounting of Big Star and their second album

While the title suggests this book focuses directly on Big Star’s second album, and though most of its pages do, author Bruce Eaton also provides context with a compelling look at the band and its members. Most importantly, his fresh interview with Alex Chilton provides flavor from one of the band’s visionary singer-songwriters, which is something that eluded Rob Jovanovic in Big Star: The Short Life, Painful Death, and Unexpected Resurrection of the Kings of Power Pop. Eaton recounts familiar elements of the Big Star story, but couched in their studio work, they reveal new angles. His research into the recording sessions for Radio City turns up new detail on the monophonic sound of “Oh My Soul,” and offers a clear explanation of the Dolby Fuckers sessions that resulted in “Mod Lang” and “She’s a Mover.”

By the time you’re finished reading, you’ll be surprised with how holistic and organic Radio City sounds, in light of the ad hoc circumstances under which much of it was recorded. Eaton’s song-by-song notes are best read with the album playing, the better to hear the many subtleties he highlights. Ideally you should have the original album, the 2-CD Thank You Friends and the box set Keep an Eye on the Sky to cover all of the versions Eaton discusses. The book’s only real disappointment is the paucity of lyrical analysis – though there are a few enlightening revelations. No doubt Chilton’s dismissal of the words, which in his mind were slapped together without a great deal of craft, left Eaton without a living source of comment.

It’s a shame that Chris Bell didn’t survive to participate in this book, or to be the centerpiece of a companion volume on #1 Record. It’s clear from Eaton’s account that Bell’s vision for the band, which Chilton didn’t fully dismantle until Big Star Third, had significant impact even after his departure. The small form of the 33-1/3 books is cute, but the copy needs better editing and the photos need to be reproduced larger and more clearly. These complaints are minor points though, given the quality of Eaton’s research and writing. His recounting of playing with Chilton is a nice personal touch and caps a terrific read for Big Star fans. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Chris Bell: I Am the Cosmos (Deluxe Edition)

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Expanded reissue of Big Star founder’s posthumous solo album

Big Star founder Chris Bell, like his band, is an enigma whose mystery has endured even as his details have been dispensed in retrospective bits and pieces. At the time of his greatest achievement, Big Star’s #1 Record, he and his band’s fame extended only to the rock literati. By the time the Big Star cult began to build, stoked by the reissue of their first two albums in the summer of 1978, Bell was only months away from death, at the age of 27, in a single vehicle car crash. At the time few had sought out his artistic details or inspirations, and musical archaeologists piecing together the strands of Big Star originally had to work from scant materials: the iconic Big Star album, a solo single of “I Am the Cosmos” b/w “You and Your Sister,” a few fanzine articles, and reminiscences of his friends and family.

Interest in Big Star continued to grow, but with Alex Chilton avoiding the press and Bell no longer living, details had to be divined from bits and pieces added retrospectively to the group’s legacy. Chilton released an EP, Singer Not the Song, in 1977, the long-delayed release of Big Star Third came in 1978, along with Bell’s single, and Chilton then released a string of solo albums that diverged further and further from his work with Big Star. It would be another eight years until the first two Big Star albums would appear on CD in 1986, and another six years until additional archival material was made available. In 1992 the floodgates opened with Ryko’s release of Big Star’s vintage radio performance, Live, and Chris Bell’s mid-70s solo album I Am the Cosmos.

The genesis of Bell’s solo recordings lay in the same aftermath from which Chilton bred Big Star Third. Bell had departed Big Star after the failure of #1 Record in 1972. From all reports, including Rob Jovanovic’s Big Star: The Short Life, Painful Death, and Unexpected Resurrection of the Kings of Power Pop, Bruce Eaton’s Radio City 33-1/3, and Bob Mehr’s lengthy essay in this deluxe reissue, Bell took the failure of #1 Record harder than anyone else, and by the sound of his solo recordings, he didn’t seem to have ever fully recovered. Recording in Memphis, France and England in 1974, and continuing to tinker with the recordings at Ardent for several more years, the results aren’t as anarchic as Chilton’s post-Big Star sessions, but they’re often as edgy. Most of the adolescence and winsomeness of Big Star had been rubbed out of both singer-songwriters by this point.

Several of Bell’s post-Big Star performances sound stressed, as if he’s striving to find meaning among ruined expectations for #1 Record and a mental state that wasn’t always sunny. The recordings can fatigue listeners’ ears with the high-end of Bell’s voice and the piercing splash of cymbals, but there are moments of musical art that match anything he’d achieved before. The album’s title track, presented in both its finished form and a slower version that extends over five minutes (two minutes longer than Ryko’s 1992 edit), can be read simply as a plea to a departed lover, a reassessment of the musician’s attachment to his former musical mates, or as a metaphysical song to Bell’s own youth. It’s a powerful song whose interpretations deepen with time.

Another of the album’s aces is the ballad “You and Your Sister,” featuring Alex Chilton on backing vocal. Here the yearning in Bell’s lyric and voice, framed by a pair of delicately fingerpicked acoustic guitars, underlined by deep bass and filigreed by a string quartet will stop you in your tracks. Two alternate versions, both present on Ryko’s 1992 edition, show how the song developed. An earlier take from 1974 is busier, with double-tracked vocals and a mellotron in place of the strings; a demo, also from 1974, lays out the song’s emotion in a stark acoustic performance that’s equally as effective as the final production. The inward searching and outward seeking heard here, along with a general restlessness and sense of despair echoes throughout the album.

“Speed of Sound” features lushly strummed acoustic guitars, accompanied by bass, volume-flanged electric guitar, and primitive moog behind a lyric of romantic defeat, disappointment and devastation. An alternate version recorded during the same sessions is sung deeper and more wounded than the master take, and without the moog the focus stays squarely on the vocalist’s pain. Bell reunited with his former Big Star rhythm section of Andy Hummel and Jody Stephens for “I Got Kinda Lost” and “There Was a Light,” the former a guitar-driven rocker, the latter a mid-tempo piano-and-guitar ballad. Bell’s growing relationship with Christianity is heard in “Better Save Yourself” and “Look Up,” and by 1976, his last known track “Though I Know She Lies” finds his voice is remarkably restrained; it’s hard to tell whether he’s comfortable or defeated.

Bell shopped the tapes around, but even with several top-notch singles and strong album material he was unable to get anyone to release his solo album. Chris Stamey issued “I am the Cosmos” b/w “You and Your Sister” as a single in 1978, but the rest of the material sat in the vault for another fourteen years. It wasn’t until Ryko issued a CD in 1992 that Bell’s post-Big Star voice was widely heard. Rhino Handmade’s 2-CD reissue includes all of the material on Ryko’s original CD and adds a dozen extras that include pre-Big Star tracks from Icewater (“Looking Forward” and “Sunshine”) and Rock City (“My Life is Right”), alternate recordings and mixes of album cuts, early demos, and Bell’s contribution to the Keith Sykes Band on “In My Darkest Hour.” The set closes with a moving acoustic instrumental, “Clacton Rag,” showing off the emotion of Bell’s guitar playing.

The discs are delivered in a six-panel digipack alongside a 32-page booklet featuring an extensive essay by Bob Mehr and track notes by Alec Palao. Casual fans will be satisfied with the original Ryko single disc, but anyone trying to build a more detailed picture of Chris Bell will want to listen to and study the extra tracks, historical notes and photos presented here. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Stream selected tracks from I Am the Cosmos