Before anyone gets too excited, a few caveats: they have reunited, but only for a handful of shows; they don't have new original material, but they have released a new single. It's called "I'll Be Gone", and according to their Soundcloud page, it's "a long time staple of their live show, written by the Swedish pop genius Ola Framby. The track features Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame icon Ian 'Mac' McLagan on keys." Regardless of its origin, it's great to hear Robert Harrison's voice backed by Whit Williams' guitar and Dana Myzer's drums.
You can pick up a copy at iTunes.
Showing posts with label Cotton Mather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cotton Mather. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
The election is upon us!
No, I'm not talking Obama vs. McCain (not much suspense there any more). I'm talking about the "Shake Some Action" Revisited site, where your vote for the top 5 power pop albums of all time is being solicited for the rest of this month in order to come up with a fans' list to go with the Top 200 list John Borack compiled in his excellent Shake Some Action book.
Of course being the opinionated sort that I am, I have my own top 5 picks, which consist of one unsurprising pick, one not-too-unsurprising pick, two unsurprising artists but surprising discs, and one out of left field. Here I go:
1. Big Star-#1 Record/Radio City. The Rosetta Stone of power pop. I don't have any grand new insights on this legendary disc, but I will state that "September Gurls" might just be the perfect song.
2. Cotton Mather-Kon Tiki. I've waxed poetic on this one before, but I will simply state it comes closest to approximating a Beatles album than anything else out there, and I don't mean it simply in the sense of aping the Beatles sound, which a lot of bands are quite capable of. And if Kon Tiki was the best album the Beatles never released, "My Before and After" was the best song they never released.
3. Matthew Sweet-100% Fun. I've taken some heat for picking Clint Sutton as the #1 disc of 2008 in my spring list, and although I'm not sure it'll stay at the spot at year's end, the reason I love it so much is that reminds me of what I consider Sweet's best album and a stone classic. Although Girlfriend gets all the praise and the list mentions, I always thought 100% Fun was the more focused, tighter, melodic and rocking of the two. The first couple of seconds of "Sick of Myself" might be best way to open an album I've ever heard, and the wonderful "Get Older" is probably the most overlooked great song on this disc. (Side note on Sweet: The title is the notoriously thin-skinned Sweet's response to complaints that the Girlfriend followup, Altered Beast, was too "dark". Later, after the 100% Fun followup Blue Sky on Mars took some critical heat, Sweet responded with the bitter "Write Your Own Song" on 1999's In Reverse. So I sure hope he isn't reading this when I mention that his new disc, Sunshine Lies, didn't do much for me.)
4. Marshall Crenshaw-Field Day. Like the pick above, this isn't the disc people have in mind when they think of the artist, and while his self-titled debut would find a spot in my all-time top 20, this one to me is his true best. Maligned at the time as a result of Steve Lillywhite's reverb-heavy production, the controversy about the sound obscured the fact that this was Crenshaw's strongest set of songs, from the perfect power pop of the album's lone hit, "Whenever You're on My Mind", to gems like "For Her Love" and "Monday Morning Rock". My only knock on the debut was that it was a bit too retro-conscious, and what makes Field Day so great is that it marries Crenshaw's brilliant songcraft (which shows a greater depth and maturity here) to a more up-to-date vibe, even without considering Lillywhite's production.
5. Valley Lodge-Valley Lodge. Wha??? Alert and/or longtime readers might recall that this wasn't even my #1 disc of 2005, so what's it doing at #5 of all-freaking-time? Well, first of all if I had to re-do my 2005 list, this one probably would be at the top, and secondly, I've been listening to it a lot lately. But the more I listen, the more I'm convinced this might be the purest, most fun, power pop album I've ever heard, and here I mean power pop in the narrowest sense: rocking guitars, sugary melodies, etc - not the broad parameters I use in the choice of discs I review on this site. This disc has it all - aside from songs that deliver one hook after another, there's an intelligence and sense of humor that prevails here, unsurprising since frontman Dave Hill (ex-Uptown Sinclair) is an adept a professional comedian as he is a rocker. And what seals the deal for me is Hill's penchant for slipping into falsetto in the middle of verses and choruses, which makes these songs so much damn fun to sing along to. If you've been somehow immune to this disc's charms these past three years, do yourself a favor and check it out.
Of course being the opinionated sort that I am, I have my own top 5 picks, which consist of one unsurprising pick, one not-too-unsurprising pick, two unsurprising artists but surprising discs, and one out of left field. Here I go:
1. Big Star-#1 Record/Radio City. The Rosetta Stone of power pop. I don't have any grand new insights on this legendary disc, but I will state that "September Gurls" might just be the perfect song.
2. Cotton Mather-Kon Tiki. I've waxed poetic on this one before, but I will simply state it comes closest to approximating a Beatles album than anything else out there, and I don't mean it simply in the sense of aping the Beatles sound, which a lot of bands are quite capable of. And if Kon Tiki was the best album the Beatles never released, "My Before and After" was the best song they never released.
3. Matthew Sweet-100% Fun. I've taken some heat for picking Clint Sutton as the #1 disc of 2008 in my spring list, and although I'm not sure it'll stay at the spot at year's end, the reason I love it so much is that reminds me of what I consider Sweet's best album and a stone classic. Although Girlfriend gets all the praise and the list mentions, I always thought 100% Fun was the more focused, tighter, melodic and rocking of the two. The first couple of seconds of "Sick of Myself" might be best way to open an album I've ever heard, and the wonderful "Get Older" is probably the most overlooked great song on this disc. (Side note on Sweet: The title is the notoriously thin-skinned Sweet's response to complaints that the Girlfriend followup, Altered Beast, was too "dark". Later, after the 100% Fun followup Blue Sky on Mars took some critical heat, Sweet responded with the bitter "Write Your Own Song" on 1999's In Reverse. So I sure hope he isn't reading this when I mention that his new disc, Sunshine Lies, didn't do much for me.)
4. Marshall Crenshaw-Field Day. Like the pick above, this isn't the disc people have in mind when they think of the artist, and while his self-titled debut would find a spot in my all-time top 20, this one to me is his true best. Maligned at the time as a result of Steve Lillywhite's reverb-heavy production, the controversy about the sound obscured the fact that this was Crenshaw's strongest set of songs, from the perfect power pop of the album's lone hit, "Whenever You're on My Mind", to gems like "For Her Love" and "Monday Morning Rock". My only knock on the debut was that it was a bit too retro-conscious, and what makes Field Day so great is that it marries Crenshaw's brilliant songcraft (which shows a greater depth and maturity here) to a more up-to-date vibe, even without considering Lillywhite's production.
5. Valley Lodge-Valley Lodge. Wha??? Alert and/or longtime readers might recall that this wasn't even my #1 disc of 2005, so what's it doing at #5 of all-freaking-time? Well, first of all if I had to re-do my 2005 list, this one probably would be at the top, and secondly, I've been listening to it a lot lately. But the more I listen, the more I'm convinced this might be the purest, most fun, power pop album I've ever heard, and here I mean power pop in the narrowest sense: rocking guitars, sugary melodies, etc - not the broad parameters I use in the choice of discs I review on this site. This disc has it all - aside from songs that deliver one hook after another, there's an intelligence and sense of humor that prevails here, unsurprising since frontman Dave Hill (ex-Uptown Sinclair) is an adept a professional comedian as he is a rocker. And what seals the deal for me is Hill's penchant for slipping into falsetto in the middle of verses and choruses, which makes these songs so much damn fun to sing along to. If you've been somehow immune to this disc's charms these past three years, do yourself a favor and check it out.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
CD of the Day, 10/3/07: Stockton-Euphonia
At long last, here's the debut CD from Stockton, who teased us with the brilliant "Dreamworld" last summer on their myspace page. For those who need a refresher, Stockton is 2/3 of the late, great Cotton Mather (guitarist Whit Williams and drummer Dana Myzer) plus ex-20/20 member Ron Flynt. Along with former Mather frontman Robert Harrison's Future Clouds and Radar, we now have two Mather-related projects available in the same year after a six-year drought since 2001's The Big Picture.
Mather comparisons are inevitable here, and it doesn't hurt that Flynt isn't that different vocally from Harrison. But I always thought that Williams was Mather's secret weapon; normally in power pop, guitar virtuosity takes a distant back seat to the song, but Williams is one of the rare power pop guitarists who has his own distinctive sound (just think of "My Before and After" and "40 Watt Solution" for instance), and this makes Euphonia more the "new Cotton Mather record" than Future Clouds and Radar (which was no slouch either). His mark on the disc becomes apparent very early, with the extremely strong opening quintet of "Free Drinks", "My Foreign Legion" (there's a Matheresque title if I ever heard one), the aforementioned "Dreamworld" and "Pipe Dream Blues", several of which feature harmonies sung over Williams' Revolver-like guitar play, almost like a mash-up of "Because" and "Rain". In fact, these four tracks as a unit trump any combination of four tracks from The Big Picture (unless it's "40 Watt Solution" played four times).
Which is not to imply that there's a cliff-like drop-off after the first four tracks. "See Rock City", "Lowbrow", and "Make It Right" would be the highlights of most band's albums, and here they're fighting for fifth place. And album closer (not counting the "Dreamworld" reprise) "Night Is Over" is an altogether different treat, sounding nothing like Mather but instead like kind of a laid-back "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)". To make a long story short, we have another top 10 of 2007 contender on our hands here.
MySpace | Kool Kat | iTunes
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Random Musings
* Mark Bacino has a new album in the works and has made an mp3 from it available for download:
Happy (www.thequeensenglish.com/mp3s/Happy.mp3)
(Note: You'll have to cut and paste the link here due to some Blogger quirk I can't manage to figure out, as it kept putting extraneous stuff in the link when I tried to hyperlink it.)
If you're not familiar with Mr. Bacino, head on over to eMusic and sample his previous release, 2003's Million Dollar Milkshake, or his myspace page. Or better yet, grab several mp3s from that album and his first, Popjob, at his official site.
* If like me, you loved Ryan Adams circa 2001's Gold but grew impatient with his subsequent genre exercises, grab a hold of the latest Griffin House disc, Homecoming. It's available at eMusic, and the highlights include "Burning Up The Night" and the Adamsesque-titled "The Guy That Says Goodbye to You Is Out of His Mind". Three tracks from it are also streaming at myspace.
* In case you wondering whatever happened to Cotton Mather's Robert Harrison, wonder no more. He has a new band/project titled Future Clouds and Radar, and they're releasing a self-titled double disc on March 13. From what I've heard ahead of time, it's going to be more art pop than power pop, but you can judge for yourself from these two mp3s:
Drugstore Bust
Quicksilver
Meanwhile, nothing new to report on Stockton, the band formed by the other two former members of Mather, who gave us the brilliant track "Dreamworld" (still streaming at their myspace page). If you go to their myspace, it still states the debut album is to be released in "late 2006".
Happy (www.thequeensenglish.com/mp3s/Happy.mp3)
(Note: You'll have to cut and paste the link here due to some Blogger quirk I can't manage to figure out, as it kept putting extraneous stuff in the link when I tried to hyperlink it.)
If you're not familiar with Mr. Bacino, head on over to eMusic and sample his previous release, 2003's Million Dollar Milkshake, or his myspace page. Or better yet, grab several mp3s from that album and his first, Popjob, at his official site.
* If like me, you loved Ryan Adams circa 2001's Gold but grew impatient with his subsequent genre exercises, grab a hold of the latest Griffin House disc, Homecoming. It's available at eMusic, and the highlights include "Burning Up The Night" and the Adamsesque-titled "The Guy That Says Goodbye to You Is Out of His Mind". Three tracks from it are also streaming at myspace.
* In case you wondering whatever happened to Cotton Mather's Robert Harrison, wonder no more. He has a new band/project titled Future Clouds and Radar, and they're releasing a self-titled double disc on March 13. From what I've heard ahead of time, it's going to be more art pop than power pop, but you can judge for yourself from these two mp3s:
Drugstore Bust
Quicksilver
Meanwhile, nothing new to report on Stockton, the band formed by the other two former members of Mather, who gave us the brilliant track "Dreamworld" (still streaming at their myspace page). If you go to their myspace, it still states the debut album is to be released in "late 2006".
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