Urgent new discovery alert!

Yes, I've stolen the Drudge siren for this one. Travis Hopper's debut album, All The Lights In The City Tonight, is that stunning. I just finished streaming it in its entirety for the second time, back-to-back, having discovered it only a couple of hours ago among the CD Baby new arrivals, and I couldn't wait to spread the word.

Before I go too much further, I should note that this is not power pop in the classic sense. It's more like poppy Americana (popicana? Ameripop?), as practiced by Wilco (pre-Ghost Is Born), The Jayhawks, Salim Nourallah (who not coincidentally produced, mixed, plays bass and provides backing vocals here), and Whiskeytown-era Ryan Adams. I was hooked 15 seconds into the opening track, "Tietze Park", when Hopper sang "tonigh-igh-ight" and it didn't let me down from there. It's not too often you hear a 10-track album and fall for each track on first listen.

Yet some tracks here are more equal than others, and particular highlights are those closest to power pop: "Saturday Night Christmas Lights", "Can't Tell You Why", "Should've Been In Love", and the marvelous Ryan Adams-ish closer, "Four Pictures". An assured a debut as I've heard, and right now it's going to be battling Supraluxe for my #1 spot in 2006.

Just like I did, you can stream this album, uncut, at Mr. Hopper's site (the mp3 link for the one track appears to be broken). He has a myspace page up as well; but you'd be better served with the streams on his site, which sound of a better quality. And here's even better news: the disc itself is very reasonably priced at $8.99 on CD Baby. It's going to tough to find more bang for your cd buck than this. At times like these I like to quote the master, Not Lame's Bruce Bodeen: this disc is "Big Time Extremely Highly Recommended".

My Top 20 of 2005, #19: James Cooper-Second Season.

When a new artist gets the imprimatur of Michael Carpenter, one of the top power pop artists of the last decade, you have to take notice. Carpenter produced Second Season, the debut of James Cooper, and it's definitely a keeper. Cooper's not a Carpenter sound-alike, however; while MC has a more Beatlesque sound, Cooper comes down more on the folkier side of pop. There's some RouseMeadJohnston here, as well as some early Al Stewart, but also some Elvis Costello, and most definitely John Wesley Harding (the artist, not the Dylan album, although there might be a little of that in there as well).

There's more than one version of Second Season floating around. The cdbaby link above is for the UK version of the album, which features two tracks not on the US version: "Dream Trader" and "Never Know Why". So normally I'd suggest getting that one; however, the UK version omits the fine "Beautiful as You", which is found on the US version (and which is the one I bought here - it's the second one down - and listened to). If money's no object, you can get the UK version and this EP, which also has "Beautiful as You", but you'd be spending $9 to get that track. Decisions, decisions.

You can hear samples at all the links above. Unfortunately, Second Season is not available on eMusic (that could have solved the bonus tracks dilemma), and Cooper doesn't appear to have a myspace page. (There is a myspace page for a James Cooper, but it's some 16-year-old kid streaming Green Day and a video at the same time.)

eMusic Find of the Day: Locksley-Locksley EP

Today's eMusic find is Locksley, 4 guys from NYC who will both literally and figuratively be music to the ears of power poppers everywhere. Their most recent release is their self-titled EP from last summer, which starts off with the absolutely fab "Into The Sun", a great evocation of early-period Beatles. "All of the Time" is a slower number in the vein of "If I Fell" that would make Paul proud, and "She Does" is a powerful rocker that reminds me of Jet's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" Just great stuff.

And if you end up loving this EP, you can grab their 2004 full-length Safely From The City, as well. It's cut from the same cloth. (And if you really, really end up digging Locksley, eMu even has a live album to grab.)

You can stream 4 of the 5 EP tracks at their myspace page, and if you have to have the physical disc in your hot little hands, cdbaby has it here, as well as Safely From The City.

CD of the Day, 2/16/06: John Carrillo-Von Karma

John Carrillo is your classic Beatles-influenced power pop artist, and he's recently released his third album, Von Karma. I'd put Carrillo's sound somewhere between David Grahame and Michael Carpenter, with a bit of 10cc, Small Faces and maybe some English music hall thrown in. And Carrillo knows how to hire the help - legendary session bassist Carol Kaye (Pet Sounds, Phil Spector's Wall of Sound) backs him here. If these names thrown around sound like your kind of thing, Von Karma won't disappoint.

Here's an mp3 download from his site:

Help Me John, It's a Girl

The myspace four-pack is here, and 2-minute streams of the rest are available at the cdbaby page.

Administrative note.

I've enabled anonymous commenting on the posts (I didn't realize it was disabled), so if you wanted to leave a comment while not having to register with Blogger, you can now do so.

My Top 20 of 2005, #20: Checkpoint Charley-Songs One Through Twelve

Time for a new feature here at AP (or should that be APP? I'm still haunted by my decision to make "power pop" one word; maybe I should go with AbPow), my top 20 discs of 2005. I know it's late in the game for a best-of-2005 list, but I didn't have this blog a month ago. Nevertheless, my plan is to roll these out one day at a time in reverse order. For those who can't stand the suspense, a well-crafted search over at the Audities page on Yahoo will yield the list. Anyway, here we go:

The problem with writing about albums that have been out a while is that they've been reviewed several times, so it's hard to find something new to say that doesn't echo a dozen other reviews. In the case of Checkpoint Charley's Songs One Through Twelve, the Jellyfish/Queen comparisons are certainly earned (hell, there's even a track called "Bellyfish").

The way that I listen to music is not an album at a time, but rather in shuffle mode on my iPod. Typically, I have a playlist of the stuff I've added in the last month or six weeks (usually about 800-900 tracks, mostly consisting of full albums). In the case of Checkpoint Charley, my ears always perked up when one of their songs came on. And from me, that's high praise.

Download: eMusic | Sample: myspace| Buy: Not Lame

eMusic find this morning: The Sleepers-Push It Nationwide

Are you ready to rock? Not so much classic power pop as it is Stones/Black Crowes/Faces-type rock, The Sleepers' debut, Push It Nationwide, is worthy of 10 of your downloads on eMusic.

Stream four full-lengths at their myspace page, or listen to the full album in rapid-fire 30-second snippets at eMu (they do a real good job of getting the key 30 seconds of each track, that's what sold me here). Some tracks are also streaming at their own site, at the bottom of the page. You can buy the disc for $10 shipped at the paypal link on their myspace page.

CD of the Day, 2/15/06: Tide-Tide

Not to be confused with The Tyde, Brooklyn's Tide has put out one of the more impressive releases in this new year. The best way to describe Tide's sound is Guided by Voices meets The Kinks (hmmmm..Robert Pollard vs. Ray Davies, probably a closer fight than Westerberg vs. Cuomo). There's also some Fountains of Wayne in there as well. My faves are "Never Knows Your Name" (a killer track), "Over Me", and "Satellite".

"Never Knows Your Name" and three others are streaming at myspace, while 2-minute samples of all the tracks are at the CD Baby page for the album, the best (and apparently only) place to buy it right now.

As they say in Alabama, Roll Tide!

Warren Zanes update.

A few days ago, I touted Warren Zanes' Memory Girls and discussed his new album due out in March. At that point, there weren't any samples from the new one available, so I put up an mp3 of one of the new tracks. Well, there are now five tracks streaming in their entirety at his site. However, as none of them are "Jr's Bag of Tricks", I'll leave that mp3 up.

Featured on Not Lame, 2/14/06

Well, Not Lame is back in the game with some new featured releases, and together with the CD Baby backlog unleashed today, my head is spinning. (I still have two days of CD Babys to check out). Here's what NL is featuring:

Supraluxe-S/T.

Supraluxe? Never heard of them. Are they some kind of rock band? Seriously, if you still haven't succumbed to the hype, relax and give in. To quote Bruce, "(T)he always tasteful arrangements make sure that this release will not end up being `just another very fine CD` on your shelf and become one you will be forced, at the least, inclined, to tell others about." Gee, I wouldn't know anything about that.

The Roll Ups-Low Dives For Highballs.

We all have our idiosyncracies and little things that bother us, things that sometimes get in the way of properly appreciating something. For example, I know quite a few people that can't get past Bob Dylan's voice and appreciate the genius that he is. In my case, I can't get past this album cover. It creeps me out. Big time. I will note that this is one time that Not Lame has CD Baby beat on the samples. Other than that, it's glam rock, and a reissue, so I took a pass. But that doesn't mean you should, if that type of thing is up your alley. And especially if you can get past the album cover.

Dave Stoops-Spill Your Drink

This one is new to me, but it looks like a great find by Bruce & Co. I've started to listen to it, and I have to concur with this description: "Stoops sounds a lot like Karl Wallinger of World Party (and like Chris Bailey from The Saints), a very good thing and, in fact, much of the material sounds like the long, lost World Party album that fans have been waiting for the last 15 years or so."

And Mr. Stoops has done something very cool for us - he's put the entire album up on his site in mp3 format. So there's no excuse not to be listening to this one, and if you like the album, don't just keep the mp3s, buy it from Not Lame. Stoops has gone out on a limb here, and we should support artists willing to trust us with their music.

The Badways-Leave Us Alone

This one's new to me as well, and my first impression is that it definitely rocks. From what I'm hearing, it sounds like Steve Van Zandt couldn't have invented a better band for his Underground Garage channel on Sirius. I'm really digging the second track, "Two Worlds", which I'm hearing for the first time as I type this. I definitely see myself picking this one up.

You can stream "Two Worlds" and three other tracks at their myspace page.

The Clintons-Strange Day In Mexico

This one I am familiar with, having picked it up back around October. The point of reference that immediately came to mind was the Bodingtons I featured yesterday, and I see Bruce mentioned The Badlees in his writeup, so I remembered them correctly. This is the type of cd that's mainstream-sounding enough that you can play it for your non-powerpop-obsessed friends (unless they're perhaps Republicans, although you could always tell them they're named in honor of George Clinton).

They've had several albums out, and there's a variety of stuff you can stream at their site. When you get there, click on the "launch music player" button to get an idea of what they're like. And as usual, there are four streaming tracks on their myspace page.

Breather-One In a Million

Bruce really pulled this one out - it dates back to 2001. Tough to find samples, etc. online (Swedish bands from 2001 usually don't have myspace pages), so hit the Not Lame page linked above and decide for yourself.

The Hazey Janes-Hotel Radio

Listening to as many bands as I do, it isn't easy keeping up with what they're all up to. So it was a pleasant surprise for me to discover tonight that this Scottish band has put out a full-length, as their self-titled EP from last summer was a favorite of mine. And I see that this new one isn't repeating tracks from the EP. Very nice. The HJ's are at the intersection of my two favorite styles of music: power pop and alt-country. The Jayhawks and Cosmic Rough Riders comparisons are most certainly apt.

All of the tracks can be sampled here.

All in all, a lot of good stuff tonight from the good folks at Not Lame.

The hostages are freed!

As we entered Day 8 of the CD Baby new music hostage crisis, a breakthrough was reached today, as a daring commando attack on their Portland, Oregon offices resulted in the freeing of hundreds of new releases from captivity. The hostages are being held here for debriefing. More on this breaking story as events warrant.

UPDATE: I plan on bringing this one and this one in for further questioning.

Congrats, Supraluxe!

We can't enough of pimping Supraluxe around here, so we're pleased to pass on the news that the track "Love Sweet Love" was selected as Popbang Radio's Single of the Week. Get over there and listen!

Some quick eMu news.

Two releases of note were added on eMusic this morning:

Josh Rouse's Bedroom Classics Vol. 2, an EP of unreleased material that came out in physical cd form a few months ago, featuring the sublime "Oh, I Need All The Love", as well as - oh what the heck, it's Josh Rouse, dammit, just make sure you get it; and

The Steady Hand, the brand new release from New Radiant Storm King, a veteran Massachussetts band that features Peyton Pinkerton, guitarist for the Pernice Brothers. NRSK is more "indie rock" than power pop, but there is a definite Teenage Fanclub vibe going on here.

CD of the Day, 2/14/06: Onestop-Pop Shop

Washington DC's Onestop had been a covers band for a few years before finally committing to recording original material, and 2005's Pop Shop is the result. After listening to Pop Shop, I have to come to the conclusion that the boys sure must have done quite a few Barenaked Ladies covers. The result is pretty much a BNL album without the quirk (which is both a blessing and a curse) and the Canadian accents.

Nevertheless, it's pretty solid stuff. Tinges of Americana show up ("If I Only Knew Now"), and other deviations from the norm here include the 6+ minute "Lover's Land", which could pass for a Journey power ballad, and "High School Halls", a bouncy number with Beach Boy harmonies. The first three tracks from the album are available as mp3s from their site:

Big Design
If I Only Knew Now
She's Everything

You can stream these three, along with "Lover's Land" at their myspace page, and hear samples of the rest at cdbaby.

And for some reason I was craving orange soda after visiting their site. Luckily, I had some Publix store brand orange on hand; it's better and cheaper ($1.99 for a 12-pack) than Sunkist. Mmmmm....orange soda.

The Raconteurs.

After mentioning Brendan Benson's association with Jack White the other night, it's kind of fitting that I stumbled over the fruits of their labor a few minutes ago. Jack + Brendan = The Ranconteurs, and the results are, well, mixed.

First of all, the site is a hoot. I won't spoil the surprise, just check it out. Unfortunately, the music isn't quite as compelling. Two tracks are streaming at the site, "Steady, As She Goes" and "Store Bought Bones". The former features White on vocals, and the bassline is stolen from Joe Jackson's "Is She Really Going Out With Him". It's a decent track, even if the last minute or so is White singing "steady as she goes" ad infinitum. It doesn't sound that radically different than a White Stripes track. The latter, though, sounded like a disaster to me. This one has Benson on vocals, but it sounds like bad 70s prog rock, nothing like the brilliant power pop we've all come to enjoy from him. I guess you could say it's the aural equivalent of the site.

These two tracks have been released in the last couple of weeks as a double-sided vinyl 7" single in the UK, and apparently a full-length is due out this summer. After hearing these two tracks, it's not quite the slam-dunk no-thoughts buy I figured it to be when I first heard of the project.

The Tyde rolls in.

While checking some things out regarding a band whose cd I plan on featuring in the next couple of days (which band it is will become painfully obvious when the post goes up), I ran across the news that The Tyde is finally about to release their third album. I had been wondering what they'd call the new one, considering the debut was titled Once and its follow-up was Twice. I was figuring either "Three Times" or "Thrice", but instead it's "Three's Co." (clever lads there, with the .co abbrievation for "company"). Perhaps it's a homage to John Ritter.

And a new track from 3CO (see, I can come up with cool abbreviations as well as the next guy) is available at their myspace page, titled "Brock Landers".

Also streaming there are their two "hits" from Twice, "Blood Brothers" and the incredibly awesome (if I do say so myself) "Go Ask Yer Dad", one of my favorite songs of 2003 (or was it 2004? I'm getting so old, the years start to blend together). But why stream these two when you can download them?

Go Ask Yer Dad
Blood Brothers

There are also some more downloads, including live tracks, at the band's site. Just click on "media".

3CO is due out in the UK only (damn) on March 13. Guess I'll have to call my mortgage broker today for a loan to pay the import prices (actually, it's cheaper to buy directly from amazon.co.uk and pay the shipping - saved about $25 on an Al Stewart box set last year doing that).

EP of the Day: Frankel-Chatterbox

Todays' EP find is Chatterbox, the debut from the artist known as Frankel (actually the nom de plume of Michael Orendy). Elliott Smith and Jon Brion are the names that the critics have been throwing around for comparison purposes, and I can't disagree - the string-laden "The Great Unknown" would have fit right in on Smith's posthumous From a Basement on the Hill. I also hear some Grandaddy in there as well, and "Antidote" even sounds a bit like one of Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters ballads. The best track here is "Don't Leave", which is where the Smith-meets-Brion influence is at its most overt. But you don't have to take my word for it, here's the mp3:

Don't Leave

If you'd rather stream than download, Frankel/Orendy has the obligatory myspace page with "Don't Leave" and "Method Actor" featured.

CD of the Day, 2/13/06: The Bodingtons-The Bodingtons

Another disc I picked up over the holidays was the debut by The Bodingtons, a band that rose from the ashes of The Badlees, who put out some pretty good albums in the 90s. The cd is a mix of roots rock and power pop, and is reminiscent of The Edisons, a band local to my area (Tampa Bay) who made a bit of a splash in the power pop world last year with their Lost In The Dream release. And although it's a bit different stylistically than the rest of the album, the standout track here is "Hold On Me", which reminds me of the Teenage Fanclub classic "Neil Jung".

Here's a free mp3 download of the leadoff track:

As Long As I Like

You can also stream that track, as well as "Hold On Me" and two others, at their myspace page.

EP of the Day: 2nd Day Crush-624

Today's featured EP was one I discovered kind of accidentally. Many artists on CD Baby choose to include their cds as part of a 3 for $15 sale. So when I went to order a particular disc recently, I noticed that it was part of the sale, and I figured I'd better find two more to get the discount. Now with as much as I buy from them, I've pretty much exhausted most of the ones I really want that are available 3 for $15. So these days I'm getting a bit more adventurous when it comes to filling out these slots.

624 was one of the $5 specials I took a chance on, and it's paid off handsomely. 2nd Day Crush is a high-energy, almost punk-pop band, and this EP is right up your alley if you're a fan of Rooney, Weezer, and/or Cheap Trick. They even pull off the slower ones ("Someone") with some facility.

The EP can be streamed at the band's site, and you can also pick it up at eMusic.

And looking at their site, I've noticed you can even order a ringtone of "Something Now" here. Now I like this EP, but even I'm not willing to go that far. Now maybe if we're talking a David Mead ringtone....

eMusic find for Sunday.

While The Spectacular Fantastic is the name solo artist Mike Detmer uses for his recorded output, it's also two adjectives that comfortably describe his latest opus, The Spectacular Fantastic Goes Underground. Are you down because Robert Schneider broke up Apples In Stereo? Ready to slit your wrists because Miles Kurosky broke up Beulah? Well, cheer up - this one's for you. Bravely soldiering on as if the Elephant 6 collective were still alive and well (and as if he were a charter member), Detmer gives us the Beach-Boys-filtered-through-indie-rock sound we've come to know and love, from the Apples-influenced leadoff track "Darkest Hour", to channeling the Shins on "You've Got It".

While eMusic subscribers can download it at the link above, you can stream the album in its entirety at the SF's web site. Plus, they're offering up a free EP here*, which includes a cover of the Del Shannon classic "Runaway".

Meanwhile, if you must have the physical cd, you can get it here.

And if you like what you hear, you can delve further into their catalog on eMusic, with previous releases Vortex of Vacancy and New Equations for the Simple Mind.

*NOTE: I had some problems trying to save these with the "save target as" right-click option. They would play upon clicking, but wouldn't save the normal way. So I changed my browser preferences for mp3 to "save to disk" instead of having it play with winamp (or whatever mp3 player you might have set as a helper in your browser) and that did the trick.