A bunch of stuff.

Been trying to post since last night, but up until only the last hour or so Blogger has been down. Anyway, here's a roundup of news, links, and thoughts:

* The Nines are about to unleash a new album, Calling Distance Stations. I have to confess I wasn't too familiar with them, but after reading their pedigree (involvement with the likes of Jason Falkner and Andy Partridge) my interest was piqued. After a listen to four outstanding tracks from the new one at their myspace page, and hearing samples from the rest at Not Lame's special page for them (replete with pre-order goodies), I grabbed their previous release, 2001's Properties of Sound, from eMusic. Just great stuff.

* The new Cheap Trick is ready to hit retail next Tuesday, and it's been mentioned by many as a return to form and their best since anywhere from 1979 to 1997, depending on who's doing the talking. I heard several tracks from it (some are streaming right now at their site), and they sound darn good.

* Speaking of hitting retail, Doug Powell's Four Seasons is out now. I blogged about it when it was announced, leading to a mini-controversy about whether Powell is a "pop genius" or not (see the comments). His versatility is certainly on display here, and the six "New Cars" tracks are worth the price of admission alone.

* An EP worth checking out is Get Steady, by the band Jonny Lives. Listen at their myspace page, where you can also buy the EP. They're garage pop/rock out of NYC with a real melodic sense. Been emphasizing the softer pop/singer-songwriter types quite a bit lately, so it's equal time for those who put the power in power pop.

* Speaking of power in the power pop, I know I mentioned them in passing about a month ago, but I just want to emphasize again what a great record The World Record's Guitars Forever is. One power pop gem after another, with my particular favorites being "See Saw Swell" and "We're #1". If there's any justice in the world, the latter will find some airplay in connection with winning sports teams (it's already my unofficial theme song of the national champion Florida Gator basketball team) with "We Are The Champions" having been done to death. And the song can be heard, along with three others from the album, at their myspace page.

* Another great song that I want to mention is one of my favorites from last year: "Amelia", by the Straw Dogs. The Dogs are one of my favorite poppy Americana bands, and this tune about legendary aviator Amelia Earhart is one of their best. Sung from the perspective of Frederick Noonan, the navigator who accompanied her on their ill-fated flight, it's haunting as well as melodic: "Everyone wants us to be on some island/everyone's hoping that we're still alive/nobody knows we got just what we wanted/we all died." I'm streaming it as my song of the day on the Absolute Powerpop myspace page, and the album can be bought and sampled here.

New Jon Auer on eMusic.

Just back in from the long weekend, and will be busy today, but I want to quickly pass on the news that eMusic added the fine new Jon Auer album, Songs From The Year of Our Demise, this morning. Make sure you get it if you haven't already, and only another day or two to take advantage of the 50-track offer.

Time's a-wastin'!

Only five or so more days to get 50 free downloads from eMusic, before the promotion gets scaled back. Click over at the top right to sign up - if it turns out you don't like it, you can cancel and keep the downloads. Here's one more worth downloading over there.

CD of the Day, 5/25/06: The Vestals-Songs About Girls....and Other Mysteries

The Vestals are a power pop band out of Minneapolis led by brothers Ben and Jeremy Gordon, whom Amplifier Magazine called the "Jon Brion and Jason Falkner of the Twin Cities" upon the release of their self-titled debut album in 2004. Well, they're back with a new one, Songs About Girls...and Other Mysteries, and this should be right up the alley of our readers here.

Things couldn't get off to a better start with "Before I Run", one of the better power pop songs I've heard this year. Other tracks of note include "Going Going Gone", which sounds like Jon Brion via Queen via Pugwash complete with groaning cellos and the like, and the strings reappear on the closer "Broken Letters", with betrays similar influences. "Motorcycles and Butterflies" is piano power pop of the first order, while "Drag to be You" brings us the Falkner/Jellyfish sound. In other words, there's something for everyone here, and we have another top-10/top-20 contender for 2006.

"Before I Run" and "Drag to be You" are streaming at their myspace page, and "Motorcycles and Butterflies" is streaming at their official site. Sample the rest and buy it at the Baby. Have yourself a listen - don't be a Vestals virgin.

UPDATE: Their first album was no slouch either, and can be found at eMusic.

Another singer-songwriter plug.

Don DiLego-Photographs of 1971
This one I didn't discover sifting through the virtual bins at CD Baby (although it is available there); instead, I heard several tracks from it over the past few weeks on XM Satellite Radio's The Loft, Channel 50. The Loft is XM's singer-songwriter channel (our motto: "All Josh Rouse, all the time") and they have some really good stuff on there (a recent show spotlighted David Mead's Tangerine, for example). Anyway, I picked up this album last week and have been enjoying it, with my favorite track being "Somebody Leave The Lights On" (it's got that Radiohead "High and Dry" guitar riff that Coldplay made a staple of their sound). You can stream that track as well as three others at Don's myspace page, and sample the rest at CD Baby.

A side note: I may also be partial to this disc because its cover art evokes memories of my own childhood while growing up on Long Island during the early-mid 70s. We had one of those paneled basements with brown wall-to-wall carpeting that served as a den/gameroom as well. This Matthew Sweet album cover (presumably taken during the 70s as well) is pretty much up the same alley. Brown was such a popular color back then - what were we thinking?

"Feel" the love at Not Lame.

Not Lame has now given the red carpet treatment to the new album from Feel, Steps to Reach a Human. The entire album is streaming, and there are plenty of goodies they're offering to those who pre-order the disc from them. (I had pre-ordered it from the band's site myself). The word is that the new one's a return to a more heavier sound after last year's mellow (but brilliant, made my top 20) Invisible Train.

My #1 Album of 2000: The Jayhawks-Smile.

Time to resurrect my "#1 album of" series today, and next on the list going back in time is The Jayhawks' Smile, my favorite disc of 2000. The Jayhawks, of course, are one of the seminal alt-country bands of the 90s, but after primary singer/songwriter Mark Olson left the band in 1996, Gary Louris decided to soldier on and moved the band in more of a pop direction in 1997's Sound of Lies. But it wasn't until Smile (the album title itself is a nod to Brian Wilson) that Louris and the Jayhawks achieved pop perfection. Louris brought in veteran producer Bob Ezrin (who's produced albums by artists as varied as Alice Cooper and Air Supply) to man the controls, and it was the band's big move to try to break mainstream.

But while Smile failed to catch the general public's ear, it was still a brilliant pop album and was well received critically (in fact, the following year an article about the album appeared in the New York Times titled "What if You Recorded a Masterpiece and No One Cared?"). Had this album been released in 1975 instead of 2000, we might be talking about it today they way people talk about, say, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. The album starts off with the anthemic title track ("Smile when your're down and out"), and leads into the irresistible single "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me", which actually did receive considerable airplay at the time. Co-written with Music Row pro Taylor Rhodes, the chorus is one of those you can't put of your head. "What Led Me To This Town" follows, and along with "A Break In The Clouds", represent the more traditional aspect of the Jayhawks' sound. Both are beautifully written, melodic gems in which Louris duets with Karen Grotberg for a real Gram-and-Emmylou feel. But in between those two tracks is "Somewhere In Ohio", another pop gem complete with looped drums (!) and a great "ba ba ba" refrain in the chorus.

Other standouts include "Queen of the World", an almost danceable number, and in case the title of the album wasn't allusion enough, we get "Mr. Wilson", Louris's paean to the tortured genius of both Brian Wilson and Alex Chilton in one of the album's more poignant tracks. And even the back end of the album is filled with quality: the pulsing "(In My) Wildest Dreams", "Better Days", a great Americana-ish number, and the closer "Baby Baby Baby".

Sample it at Amazon, where there are several used copies selling for less than $2 in the marketplace. It'll be the best >$2 + shipping you'll ever spend.

By the way, for those new to the site or otherwise interested, the previous entries in this series can be found for 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.

Video of the Day.

Big Star-September Gurls (Live Stockholm 2-19-06)
While this is a homemade audience video, it's great just to see Alex Chilton out there still singing this song after making it through Katrina last year. Plus, this is still possibly my favorite song of all time.

New on eMusic.

A few interesting additions to the eMusic catalog this morning. First, a couple of really good indie pop releases:

The Happy Bullets-The Virtue and Vice Ministry. This one was featured on Not Lame a few months back, and as Bruce & Co put it, "Fans of The Sunshine Fix, Flaming Lips, Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor Control and the whole idea of doing Side 2 of "Abbey Road" by indie-rock-pop kids will love Happy Bullets` "The Vice And Virtue Ministry", as do we!"

The Little Ones-Sing Song EP. I picked this one up a while back, and gave it a brief mention. Good stuff.

The Pyramidiacs-Stuff 'n' Junk. This is a 2-disc anthology of one of the great Aussie jangle pop bands of the 90s and beyond (more details here). Of course, the only problem here is that there's 43 tracks, which will exceed the 40-download plan or eat up about half of the 90-download plan. Might be worth cherry-picking a few. There's a cover of the Replacements' "Kiss Me on the Bus" in there, by the way.

Miscellany.

* eMusic added a Live at Maxwell's set from Jon Auer recorded only eight days ago - 16 tracks in all, many from his fine new album Songs From The Year of Our Demise, capped off with a cover of the Replacements' "Swingin' Party".

* Scamper, whose Keep Your Glasses On was a quality disc, has a new digital-only EP out titled The Boulevards, with four new tracks. It's only available through iTunes and Rhapsody at the moment. Lead track "Barcelona" can be streamed at their myspace page.

Singer/Songwriter Day at Absolute Powerpop, Part III.

Mike Schmid-The High Cost of Living
Now on to the last entry in Singer/Songwriter Day. LA's Mike Schmid has crafted an piano-based pop album reminiscent of Billy Joel, Joe Jackson and (dare I say it - again) B-n F-lds. In fact, the title track reminds me quite a bit of BFF's Reinhold Messner album. Like Mark McAdam, profiled earlier today, Schmid has had some of his songs used on TV; three of his earlier tunes were played on Felicity. There's a bit more orchestration on this album than the previous two featured today as well, and a standout in that vein is "Wave Goodbye".

You can stream five tracks from the album at his site; four at myspace, and as usual, sample the rest and buy it at CD Baby. It's going for $12.97, so that's how much extra the high cost of living with a Mike Schmid CD will be.

Singer/Songwriter Day at Absolute Powerpop, Part II.

Yesan Damen-The Never Beginning Story
No videos directed by Hollywood celebrities here, just solid songwriter pop from Seattle in the person of Yesan Damen. Highlights here include "Someday", "Deception at Its Best" and especially the Coldplay-like "Tonight". All of these can be streamed at his myspace page, and the disc can be ordered and sampled at CD Baby. A good disc? Yes and amen.

Singer/Songwriter Day at Absolute Powerpop, Part I.

I wanted to give a shout out to three recent releases that I've been listening to a lot and enjoying lately. None are strictly power pop; they're more "adult pop" or "singer/songwriter pop". Here's the first:

Mark McAdam-Cavalcade
McAdam is out of NYC, and his music has been compared to Wilco and Big Star and has been played on the hit TV series Grey's Anatomy. "Always Almost", the first single from the album, is one of my current favorite tracks, and here's the video for it, directed by none other than Mike "Austin Powers" Myers:



If you'd rather stream the track than watch the video, head on over to his myspace page, and you can sample and buy at CD Baby.

CD of the Day, 5/16/06: David Mead-Tangerine

Well, we've been hyping the week-by-week rollout of tracks from this album, so now that it's officially T-Day and the album is released, it's the obvious choice for today's CDotD.

Having now finally heard the whole thing, I've come to two conclusions: 1) it's not the pop masterpiece that Wherever You Are was, and 2) nevertheless, it's a darn fine album. Tangerine is a fairly eclectic mix of pop styles, from the downright funky "Chatterbox", to the gospel of "Reminded #1", to the more conventional pop of "Hallelujah, I Was Wrong" and "Fighting For Your Life". Hopefully most of you that regularly read this site have heard most of these songs as they were rolled out on his myspace page, so you should have a pretty good idea of what you're getting here.

If you need to refresh your memory, or are new to these tracks, I strongly suggest you send yourself David's e-card from his site, which streams 10 of the 12 tracks on the album. And the album is available from eMusic, so subs can grab it there (yet more reason to click over on the right and sign up) and everyone can get quick 30-second samples. Otherwise, it's available at just about any online music seller, as this is hardly an obscure indie release.

CD of the Day, 5/15/06: Gregg Swann-Everybody's Got to Be Somewhere

This one took me by surprise. Found it on one of my CD Baby listening marathons, and it stood out like a shiny diamond ring on a pile of garbage. (OK, maybe that's a bit too harsh a comparison for the other stuff, but the magnitude of contrast was definitely there). Swann's disc is vintage power pop, equal parts melody and crunch. Vocally, he sounds a lot like Mitch Linker (the ex-Day Trader who put out a fine solo album last year and has a new EP out), and also reminds me quite a bit of Ed James as well as the non-Sloan Chris Murphy I featured last month.

Swann wastes no time getting down to business with the rocking "Darkness Is Cheap", a two-minute blast featuring a great guitar riff that'll stick in your head. Next up is the apparent single, "Easier Said Than Done", power popcraft of the highest order; "I Remember When" follows with more of the same, complete with a Merseybeat guitar middle. The tempo drops a bit with "Let Me Get This Straight", but the quality doesn't, and things pick up again with "Hollywood". There really isn't a subpar track among the remaining five either, including closer "The Truth Hurts", an outstanding midtempo number. Don't be surprised to see this disc in my top 10 come the June 1st update.

The only negative here is the relative lack of samples to be had. He apparently has no myspace page, and his site is pretty bare bones. You can stream "Easier Said Than Done" from there, but that's about it. You'll just have to get into it the way I did, off the 2-minute CD Baby samples which should be all you'll need, and where you can wisely spend $10 to buy it.

Ask and ye shall receive.

A couple of weeks ago, we noted that Wiretree had new material up on its myspace page, but lamented the fact that the new stuff was only in snippets. After our public plea, and another one on Wiretree's page, Kevin Peroni has graciously put up a full-length stream of "Big Coat". It's a great track, so head on over and listen.

Monkeeman on eMusic.

German power poppers Monkeeman's latest album was the featured disc at Not Lame this week, and from what I've heard of it, it sounds great (I probably should order a copy). So it's of note that their previous disc, 2005's Burn to Shine, is available on eMusic as of this morning, along with a couple of cd singles spawned from the album. Check 'em out.

Attention Cotton Mather fans!

Many, if not most, of you reading this blog are famiilar with the late, great Cotton Mather, possibly the best Beatlesque power pop band of the past decade or so. Kontiki is a true classic - no self-respecting power popper's collection is complete without it. Unfortunately, they broke up after 2001's The Big Picture and little has been heard from the individual band members since. But that's about to change. Guitarist Whit Williams (Cotton Mather's secret weapon) and drummer Dana Myzer have hooked up with fellow Austinite Ron Flynt to form Stockton, and they have a full-length due out later this year. The first fruit of their labor can be downloaded here:

Dreamworld

If you'd prefer to stream, head on over to their myspace page. While it doesn't quite have the transcendent brilliance of Mather classics like "My Before and After" or "40 Watt Solution", it's a great track. Williams' guitar work is immediately recognizable, and the sound isn't too far afield from Mather.

(hat tip to Jennifer Leduc of the Audities list for bringing this to attention)

CD of the Day, 5/10/06: Partly Dave-Own Up

Corvallis, Oregon is where today's CD of the Day comes from, courtesy of the gents known as Partly Dave. Own Up is their debut disc, and it's a keeper. The sound here is classic guitar pop, with Teenage Fanclub and The Posies coming to mind. Highlights include "So Yesterday", "Out of My Hands" (which sounds a lot like a cross between Matthew Sweet and Gary Louris-era Jayhawks), and "Pick Me". These guys do harmonize well (they self-compare to the Lovin' Spoonful on that score).

Not finding a myspace page for them, but you can get a couple of mp3s directly from their site:

So Yesterday
There Isn't Enough (To Go Around)

Sample the rest at CD Baby, where it's available for purchase. They may be Partly Dave, but they're all good.

Song of the day.

I can take or leave Gomez, and while I can't wholeheartedly recommend their new one, How We Operate, there is one great song on there which could be considered power pop: "Girlshapedlovedrug". And if you haven't heard it yet, click on the "Stream It Here" song of the day link on the right where I have it streaming on my myspace page. It'll be 3-4 minutes well spent.

The Alpacas are Orgling again.

L.E.O. has a couple of new tracks up at its myspace page, and they're both treats. "Don't Let It Go" is in the style of ELO rockabilly numbers like "Rock 'n' Roll Is King" and "Hold on Tight", while "Suckers are Born Every Minute" ranks right up there with Jeff Lynne's classic ballads. Git on over and listen!

CD of the Day, 5/9/06: Fresh Mowed Lawn-Fresh Mowed Lawn

Fresh Mowed Lawn, the self-titled debut album from Sun Sawed in 1/2's Tim Rose, has been one of the more anticipated power pop debuts of the year, if for no other reason than Not Lame (which is serving as label as well) has been advertising its upcoming release since about Christmas. It's finally due out next Tuesday, and having listened to it for a few weeks now, it was definitely worth the wait and will be a top-10-of-06 contender for many out there (perhaps including myself).

Bruce at Not Lame compares it to

Elvis Costello`s "Imperial Bedroom", Van Dyke Parks, High Llamas, The Sea & the Cake, XTC, Tears For Fears (think: "Sowing The Seeds Of Love" vibe), The Polyphonic Spree and Beulah.

I can't disagree with these comparisons, but a couple I'd like to add are even bigger names in the pop pantheon: The Beatles (I get a Side 2 of Abbey Road vibe here at times), and Big Star (circa Radio City and especially Third/Sister Lovers). My personal favorites are the Chiltonesque "Wish It All Away", the pure pop of "Curded Wheys", and the opener "Watching The World Turn Slowly/From This Day Forward".

Not Lame is offering up a full-length mp3:

Wish It All Away

Full-length mp3 streams are available at Rose's site; just click on "music" and you can hear the whole album, one track at a time. It's really the type of album you need to listen to end-to-end. I wasn't giving it justice as part of a random iPod rotation when I first received it, but when I took the time to listen to it all the way through, its high quality become readily apparent.

A bargain.

Get on over to Not Lame and take advantage of the special they're running on Edward Rogers' Sunday Fables: only $3. Can't beat that for this fine 2004 jangle-pop release. Here's a full-length review from Pop Matters on this album, and you can sample tracks at the Not Lame page as well as at CD Universe. For $3, you can't go wrong.

CD of the Day, 5/7/06: Mike Previti-Extraordinary

Mike Previti is another quality artist from the thriving Boston power pop scene (Candy Butchers/Mike Viola, Bleu, The Cautions, Frank Ciampi et al). To date, he's only given us a couple of EPs, one of which was the fine Audio, and just this week he's finally released his first full-length, Extraordinary. Of course giving that title to your debut album is kind of asking for trouble; while I wouldn't term it "extraordinary", it'd call it pretty damn good.

Previti's sound is pretty similar to his fellow Bostonians mentioned above, and some of the best tracks from Audio are reprised on Extraordinary, including the EP title track and "Beautiful", as well as he title track of the album itself, which is another winner and reminds me of Millicent Friendly.

"Extraordinary" is the only track streaming at his myspace page, so you'd be better off streaming from his official site, where "Audio" and "In Again" are streaming along with "Extraordinary". And the CD itself is a bargain - only $6.99 at CD Universe.

New full-length from Feel.

Feel, whose Invisible Train was in my top 20 of 2005, continues its prolific ways with the release of a new full-length, Steps to Reach a Human. This is on the heels of an EP they released over the winter. The new one can be ordered for $10 shipped at their site. I've ordered one, and I'll report in after receiving it.

Get 'em while you can.

Just got word that eMusic will no longer be doing the 50 free downloads promotion (I think they're scaling back to 25) after the end of this month. So if you were on the fence about joining up, now would be a good time to do so (by clicking on the ad to the right). You can get the 50 tracks without further obligation, provided you cancel, but if you're a big music fan, you probably wouldn't want to. A scroll through the archives here at Absolute Powerpop would give you enough to fill several months worth of downloads, and I haven't even touched on stuff like nearly the entire catalogs of Bill Lloyd, Sloan, and others. And it all comes to about 22-25 cents a download depending on your plan, and you get non-DRM'd mp3s (i.e, playable on any mp3 player) that average about 192kbps.

CD of the Day: 5/5/06: Blindswitch-Shadows on the Wall

NYC's Blindswitch debuts in fine fashion with Shadows on The Wall, putting the power into "power pop" not unlike contemporary faves such as Waltham, Rooney and Weezer, with a touch of Fountains of Wayne and Jet thrown in as well. Led by singer/songwriter/frontman David Litvinsky, Blindswitch manages to mix things up to good effect. "Little Girl" is the obvious standout - it can probably be best described as Fountains of Weezer. "I Know" is melodic rock at its best; "Kick Me" ventures out of the powerpop genre into straight-ahead hard rock, while "Til Tomorrow" and "World of Dreams" are power ballads that any 80s hair band would kill for.

One-stop shopping on this one: Head over to their site, and stream all of the tracks in their entirety. You can also buy the disc there, or through cd baby with the provided link.

CD of the Day, 5/3/06: The Mains-The Higher You Get, The Higher You Get

I don't have the time to do a full writeup on this one, but The Mains' The Higher You Get is a lot of fun - possibly the best (and only) true Oasis "tribute" out there. Lead singer Foster Calhoun does a great Liam Gallagher impersonation (sans the English accent but still retaining the audible sneer), and this is the great lost Oasis album that folks have been clamoring for since Morning Glory or Be Here Now. It's almost Rutlesque in its evocation of the Oasis sound: for example, "Rock and Roll" is the Mains' equivalent of "Rock and Roll Star", "So Far Away" is a dead ringer for "Married With Children", and the 7 1/2-minute closer "Two in a Million" is in the tradition of Oasis epics like "Champagne Supernova" and "All Around The World".

Check 'em out at myspace, and sample clips of the remaining tracks at their site. Available from all the usual suspects, including Not Lame, Kool Kat and CD Baby. Believe me, if you liked mid-90s Oasis, this is the album for you.

Some new Ben Folds material.

Just received this email from Ben Folds' site/label:

Ben Folds has FIVE new songs on the Over The Hedge movie soundtrack, which will be in stores May 19! The soundtrack to one of the most original animated films includes new material from Ben in addition to music by Rupert Gregson-Williams.

The Over The Hedge-Music From The Motion Picture soundtrack includes Folds' "Rockin' The Suburbs (Over The Hedge version)" featuring William Shatner -- found only on this CD! -- plus brand new Ben Folds songs "Still," "Heist," "Family of Me," and Ben's cover of The Clash's "Lost In The Supermarket."

Sounds interesting. Hoping this stuff is better than Songs For Silverman.

Top 10 of 2006 (May 1 update).

As promised, here's my monthly update of the top 10 of 2006 so far. Only one change (at the bottom, where Geoff Smith replaces Warren Zanes), but a few get shuffled within the top 10. Travis Hopper takes the biggest drop (from 3 to 7), as I've found myself enjoying the ones which moved above it a bit more.

1. Supraluxe-Supraluxe
2. Rhett Miller-The Believer
3. David William-One Way Ticket
4. Chris Brown-Now That You're Fed
5. Copperdown-Something True
6. Red Guitar-Beauty Will Save The World
7. Travis Hopper-All The Lights In The City Tonight
8. Justin Levinson-1175 Boylston
9. Phil Ayoub-Schoolbus Window Paper Heart
10. Geoff Smith & The Tonewheels-S/T

The Third Floor Story I featured a couple of weeks ago, and the World Record I mentioned on Friday have some potential to crack this list next month once I've listened to them more.

Wiretree (or is that Wiretease?) update.

One of my favorite EPs of 2005 was the debut release of Wiretree (a.k.a. Kevin Peroni), and it was one of the first I wrote about when I started this blog. So it was good to see (thanks to alert reader Johnston) that Peroni is at work on a full-length and has posted some of the new material at the Wiretree myspace page.

And unlike many bands who put their best stuff on the EP and then struggle to fill out a full-length, the new tracks really sound great. But there's one problem: the new songs on myspace are only 1:15 snippets, not the full tracks. Of the dozens if not hundreds of bands I've checked out on myspace, this is a first, at least when the songs haven't been labeled as snippets. By all means check them out, but it'd be great if we could get the full tracks up there - otherwise, it's more Wiretease than Wiretree.

* Nothing to do with Wiretree, but there's another new David Mead track up on his myspace page as well, "Suddenly a Summer Night", a nice but unspectacular slower number. Tangerine will be out May 16, meaning the rollout of songs is about to stop, and I'll have one less thing to write about each week.