Pop can put on dozens of hats to cover each nuance of what constitutes the meaning of pop. I will attempt to intertwine some of those definitions with an EP I am listening to as I write this, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop by the disco pop debutants VOIB. It is easily the fifth time I’ve listened to this release trying to find an angle to approach it.
And there we go; our first use of the word pop, associated with disco in this instance. From my trusty Oxford English Dictionary, we learn that, in this usage, pop is “relating to commercial popular music.” Commercials and popular music are usually anathemas in my world. I will, however, attempt to soldier on. Disco, from the OED, is “a style of pop music intended mainly for dancing to, typically soul-influenced and melodic with a regular bass beat, popular particularly in the late 1970s.” Unfortunately, disco was never more than a historical footnote for me. I used to have a t-shirt that said, “Support you local musicians, burn down a disco.” This was by no means an endorsement of violence against the disco movement. It was just me making my dislike of disco music public knowledge. I have mellowed over time and are more tolerant of different music styles, including pop music.
Pop can also be a light explosive sound, hopefully not from a disco burning down! I suppose there are some light pop sounds to be heard in Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop.Pop is also the popping sound when air is equalized in our ears, such as in an airplane ride. Speaking of equalizing air in our ears, I have noticed a trend in popular music to use excessively loud volumes at live shows and more bass than needed. This comes from the house soundboard, so it may or may not be what the band wanted. It can leave our ears ringing more than popping. I use tuned ear buds at live shows and I restrained the volume while I listened to Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, and I have good hearing.
Pop can also be used in writing as an activity, such as popping to the store for a few items or popping Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop into my playlist.
Photo credit to Miranda Fredriksson
The colour in the above press photo for VOIB pops. The muted tones of the photo below are not as striking but tell a different story through different colours.
Photo credit to Miranda Fredriksson
Pop also refers to a large number of beverages. My sweet fizzy drink of choice is Coke Zero. However, I am drinking coffee while I write this blog.
I don’t follow the sport of baseball, but I do know what a pop fly is. A pop fly is a ball hit high in the air but not far from the home plate that usually provides an easy catch to put the batter out. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop is no doubt hoping to go high in the charts, and this easy-listening pop EP may be able to do that. It is an easy catch; enjoy it while you can. Most pop music has a relatively short shelf life. But, who knows, maybe Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop will be the next Stayin’ Alive.
I popped the question to my wife after we had dated for three weeks. It was 31 years ago, so that worked out well.
There are a few other variations of definitions of the word pop, but I think that is enough for the time being. I will pop this up on my blog page for your perusal, and I hope you enjoy listening to the easy-going pop music on the EP Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop from the young lads who go by the moniker VOIB.
Time to dust off my platform shoes and dig the sequinned vest out of the closet along with the bell bottom jeans with the wide cuff and the satin shirt with the ruffled sleeves; we are listening to some new music that could easily pass for vintage psychedelia.
I’m talking about the new album, Friends In Noise, from the London psychedelic music artist Black Market Karma. Friends In Noise is Black Market Karma‘s eleventh full-length album. How could I have missed this up until now? ‘Friends In Noise,’ is an international collaboration rooted in friendship and spontaneity, released via the London boutique label Flower Power Records and the PR of Shameless Promotions. Revolving around songwriter Stanley Belton, Black Market Karma features music heavy with fuzz pedals and a 12-string guitar jingle jangle. Music that takes me back to another era. I love it.
Stanley Belton tells us, “I didn’t really get the idea of an album in my head too much. It’s something that gradually came together over the years through playing and becoming friends with so many good musicians. Collaborations naturally occur when you’re spending time with people who are musically minded, especially when we would hang at my studio. The songs started to build up over time and I thought man, these should all be gathered together on one release so here we are.”
“The last pieces came via two good friends – Craig Dyer of The Underground Youth and Butchy Davy of The Confederate Dead. Craig and I had wanted to make music together in the past but it never came to be – he lives in Berlin, but we managed to make ‘Wonky’ happen. Lastly Butchy came to the BMK studio with an unfinished, instrumental demo and we worked on it together. The result was ‘Ageing Boy'”.
Earlier, Black Market Karma released the singles’ The Sky Was All Diseased’ with iconic vocalist Tess Parks and ‘Aping Flair’ with Ruari Meehan (Tess Parks, Tess Parks & Anton Newcombe and Belakiss with Ringo Starr’s granddaughter Tatia Starkey).
Featuring recordings captured over nine years, ‘Friends In Noise’ is a series of collaborations between Black Market Karma and friends. Apart from Tess Parks, this album also involves The Underground Youth, Les Big Byrd / Joakim Ahlund, The Confederate Dead and Ruari Meehan. More recently, Stan has also collaborated with Pete Kember (a.k.a. Sonic Boom) of Spacemen 3 fame on a forthcoming release. I happen to dig the grooves of Spacemen 3, so it is no surprise that I also dig the tunes of Friends In Noise.
Friends In Noise features some sharp lyrics to accompany the psychedelic music. Here are a few examples that I notice.
“I got love but I don’t deserve it
I got time but all I do is blow it.”
–Wonky
YouTube is a friend of my wasted time.
–Norman
“Went walking in the sun
Felt all the rainfall.”
‘The Sky Was All Diseased‘
“The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright–
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.”
-Lewis Carroll from Through The Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There
Friends In Noise is an excellent example of reimagined music. It sounds familiar, like a flashback to an old friend remembered. And it sounds fresh, like making a new friend that reminds you of an old friend. At the end of the day, I have found Friends In Noise to be a delightful visitor to my home. I hope you invite Friends In Noise into your home and make friends with Black Market Karma.
As of January 13, the ‘Friends In Noise’ album will be available everywhere digitally, including Apple Music, Spotify and Bandcamp. ‘Friends In Noise on 180-gram coloured vinyl from the label, as well as their latest’ Aped Flair & Hijacked Ideas’ LP. Tickets for upcoming tour dates can be ordered here: https://www.bandsintown.com/a/261797-black-market-karma
I’ll start 2023 with a blog about the band The Yets and their eponymous debut EP. I will dive right in and look at the first track, Waterline. This track starts with shimmering guitar hooks from Craig Anderson Snook built around smooth synths and a bass that leads the drums that lead to the soaring vocals of Robin Wilson. The remainder of Waterline is about keeping our heads above the water, even in our turbulent times. I’ll sneak in a brown M&M shout-out to my brother, Terry, who works on the waterline of the Fraser River.
The Yets are the combined musical musings of Robin Wilson on vocals and guitarist-producer Craig Anderson Snook. I have to tip my hat to the production of this EP. Much of the lack of quality in today’s top ten music stems from the lack of quality production; much of it sounds like a mono sludge. Not so on The Yets EP. Craig Anderson Snook uses the two channels well, and the songs dance between the speakers.
Track two should be the rallying cry of the baby boomer generation. Remember. Well, actually, no, I do not remember. I do not remember much short-term, but I can spin yarns about the good old days till the cows come home. A great song about entering “the twilight of our days,” “Who will remember?” This song conveys a lot of what I have been living through recently. A cousin of mine recently passed away, but before he went, he carefully journaled and wrote extensively about his life and those around him. He remembered so that others could keep those memories alive for a while longer. Remember? And please do not keep asking those of us with fading memories if we remember. No, I do not remember. But, I too have done extensive writing to try and push the envelope further when the question is asked, “Who will remember?”
I remember that The Yets are based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,”Somewhere at the intersection of sound and emotion lies the description of those things we all treasure the most, ‘Letter To A Boy’ is about that special feeling a mother has for her son. It’s unique and difficult to express. It’s extremely hard to put so much feeling into so few words. Lyrically, it’s the most challenging I’ve ever done. It’s also the most rewarding,” says Robin Wilson.
“In a very general sense, this album is about life: the passage of time, relationships and the consequences of the choices we make along the way. I’ve always wanted to bare my musical soul, but never had the right vehicle. That musical soul has always wanted to speak to the world, but never had the right voice. The Yets is that vehicle, and Robin is that voice,” says Craig Anderson Snook, who has performed semi-professionally since he was 13. His musical passion led him beyond cover bands into composition, arrangement, audio engineering, production and ultimately to running his own Royal Terns Records label and studio, where he recorded, mixed and produced the new EP.
The passing of time is measured out colourfully in the song Fades To Gray.
Hansa
Hansa is a beautiful, brilliant shade of yellow
Veridian …
Fades to gray
(Viridian is a blue-green pigment)
Cadmium …
Fades to gray
(Cadmium is a silvery-white metal )
Alizurin…
Fades to gray
(Alizarin is a prominent red dye)
And the hairs on our heads fade to grey, even the blue-green ones; they may even be silvery-white or bright red. And the beautiful, brilliant yellow sun goes down and another life goes with it.
Fades To Gray
After being immersed in the music scene in high school, Robin found her way to the University of South Carolina in Columbia, where she fronted the goth-rock band Bachelors of Art (B.O.A.). Upon relocating to Atlanta, Georgia, she fronted the female alt-rock group Skirt, touring the USA extensively and supporting numerous high-profile acts.
“My previous musical endeavors were always hard rock-based. I wasn’t involved with the actual songwriting except for my vocal melodies and lyrics. With The Yets, I’ve broken that mold, helping to compose and produce a whole new sound. I’ve combined my artwork and media arts degree into the whole creative package. We recorded and produced our own CD in our own studio. We created our own videos and designed and built our own website,” says Robin Wilson.
The EP closes with what sounds like a personal rant, Happy Now. Are you happy now? I’ve done all that I could!
Craig Anderson Snook and Robin Wilson have done all they could to make a lovely recording for us, and I am happy now. My ears are delighted. I love this recording. It carries me through a gamut of quick emotional sound bites, happy, sad, struggling, remembering, giving in, and love. “Faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love.”
‘The Yets’ EP is out now, streamable via Spotify and available to order, digitally or on CD, directly from the band via Bandcamp.
Another year is almost gone as I write my annual look back at what graced my real and imagined turntables in the past year. As anyone who follows me probably knows, I do not do top ten lists or any other ranking system of what I have been listening to recently. I compile statistics and highlights, so if your album isn’t on this list, do not despair; it has been listened to and will still be in my library, waiting to be heard again.
So, diving right in, what has vibrated the air in my listening space in 2022? So. It is a damn good album that should be listened to at least once every year. Breaking from his string of four self-titled albums, Peter Gabriel released So in 1986 to generally good reviews and tremendous commercial success. Another instance of the people voting with their wallets and not according to the pundits’ jabs. Rising above the pack in 1986 was no easy task. It was a year that, in hindsight, was loaded with significant and lasting music; however, So was still able to sell like hotcakes and make tons of best-of lists and awards nominations. I still enjoy listening to the album, and the video for Sledgehammer is one of the rare videos I will watch from start to finish and more than once.
I have to slip Elysian Fields in here with their album Once Beautiful, Twice Removed. They deserve a spot on the list because they make good music and also because their album cover has a review mirror.
Andy Zipf released an album in 2022 that garnered traction on my playlist, and you can read more about this outstanding album, How to Make a Paper Airplane, here.
Aside from having a name that instantly got my attention, Paris Music Corp. made a standout eponymous album. It flew under the radar and didn’t get a blog, but it still got multiple replays throughout the year.
Here’s an interesting one. The band Black Rose Burning released a new album in 2021, The Wheel, and I listened to it so much this year that it got a blog in April. It has maintained that momentum and made my end-of-2022 listening list.
Tracy Chpman released an album in 1988 that I relistened to three times this year. Her self-titled release has the top ten track Fast Car, but it is not an album defined by top ten songs. Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution is the lead track, and it sets a pretty high bar for the remainder of the pieces to follow. But follow it they do, with Fast Car being the next song. The rest of the album gets pulled along in the Fast Car draft and fills out a darn good slab of vinyl.
Othered is a musical collaboration that created a nine-song album called Vol.1, and I can’t wait for Vol. 2. This album garnered a blog in April of this year and has held that momentum and pushed it onto this list. Othered Vol. 1 is an easy choice, full of good music with some a bit on the heavier side of musical offerings, which adds to my contention that good music is good music no matter the genre or label that gets slapped on it. And this is good music.
I can’t go a year without mentioning some close-to-home musical offerings. St. Arnaud was already a favourite live band and this year found them with a new album, Love and the FrontLawn, and a catchy radio-friendly single, Catching Flies. Extensive touring included a stop in Edmonton at The Starlite Room, where I scored a signature from Ian St. Arnaud himself on a pre-release CD. Thanks, Ian; I hope to see you on the stage in 2023.
Another show in Edmonton, this time at The Station on Jasper, and another home-grown artist, Vic Wayne. Vic spearheads a top-notch band, Star Collector, who now works out of the wet coast, and they gave us an energetic and entertaining show. The tour was in support of their new album, Game Day.
The album title of the year goes to Ollie for his album Even When I’m Happy I Listen To Sad Music. Even without the title, this album is a winner. Another Canadian entry, I got to support the home team.
I tasked myself with going through our record collection A to Zed. Below are a few standout albums that don’t get played as much as they deserve. And a few albums that get played yearly and often more than once.
Riding a wave that started in 2018 is the album, Your Queen Is A Reptile by Sons of Kemet. In 2019 I purchased the album at Rough Trade Records in London, England. In 2021 it made my end-of-year list, and Your Queen Is A Reptile is getting bumped onto the 2022 list.
Jackson Browne, Running on Empty. A good friend gave us tickets to see Jackson Browne perform live with James Taylor. Wow, that was a good show and Running on Empty is still a good album.
The Dave Brubeck Quartet gives us Time Out and Time Further Out.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and their fantastic album No More Shall We Part. This is an album that I keep repeating repeatedly. It is deep listening territory.
mewithoutYou was captured live in Vancouver on their farewell tour. I am so glad we saw them live since their records are never far from the turntable. We listened to two of them tonight—[A→B] Life and [untitled].
The Clash. I listened to all of The Clash’s albums in my continuing journey through the alphabet of albums. I enjoyed all of those listens but on this go-round, Sandinista! seemed to connect the most.
Bim. A Kid Full Of Dreams is for acquired tastes, but Bim is a master storyteller, collector of music (78’s primarily) and an all-around good entertainer. I saw him live, and this album is a yearly player.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The catalogue for CSN&Y is profound, and picking one album is impossible, so I will pick two, which is barely possible. Déjà Vu and 4 Way Street.
Daniel Amos is another band with an extensive catalogue, but I am sticking to one entry for them, Darn Floor, Big Bite from 1987.
Deep Purple, Shades of Deep Purple
Miles Davis, Bitches Brew
Okafur Arnalds, Some kind of peace-piano reworks
Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
Ten Years After, A Space In Time
The Beatles, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Call, Let The Day Begin
The Carter Family
This is starting to evolve into a long boring list of everything I listened to in 2022, and I do not want this to be that, so that will evolve into this—time for some fun with numbers. I listened to about 500 albums this year. I only keep tabs on full album listens, no singles.
206 LPs
49 CDs
16 EPs
1 Cassette
227 albums streamed from various sources
It came down to a tight race between the physical slabs of vinyl and streaming albums. Streaming narrowly came out on top due to my blogging for various music promotions. A big shout out to Mystic Sons, Big Stir Records and Shameless Promotions for feeding me a steady stream of new music to inform you, the reader, about. I won’t list them all, but I also want to thank the musicians and bands that tossed CDs or MP3 files my way. They are all appreciated.
The year with the most listens was, no surprise, 2022, with 219 albums.
The oldest record played was from 1956.
The remainder was a shotgun blast at the barn door this year, with the 70s and 80s having a slight edge numerically. No surprise since those were my formative listening years, and I gravitate to them naturally.
I don’t track genres; it is just too messy.
I seemed to gravitate to music featuring females in 2022, an interesting demographic shift from the traditionally male-dominated field.
Apple Music has this thing called Apple Replay that gives a snapshot of my yearly listening, but it is weird to use, mainly because it focuses on singles, and I focus on albums. Just for fun, here are a few things from Apple.
2305 songs played
The top two songs are ones that I enjoy listening to as I fall asleep, The Ultimate Sleep System. The Ambient Music Therapy amassed 549 minutes of playtime as I nodded off to sleep.
Othered, a band that made my list above and were featured in a blog, came in at number three in Apple. Good on them; they deserve it.
I listened to 671 different artists this year; gotta spread that love around. The top five, according to Apple, remember that I don’t make top ten lists: Ambient Music Therapy, Daniel Amos, Star Collector,David Bowie, and Víkingur Ólafsson.
Apple says I listened to 399 albums on their streaming platform, with Víkingur Ólafsson nabbing the number one spot with a whopping 78 plays. I am not sure how Apple arrived at that number, but I know that as much as I like that album, I did not listen to it 78 times.
I don’t listen to a lot of curated playlists on Apple, but there are a few that I drop in on. Modernism and Postmodernism, Essentials of Roots Reggae and Classic Rock featured strongly.
So, we started on that note and are finishing there as well. It was a good year for new music with some solid players, and there were the usual suspects that get played every year and are still loved and appreciated. Good art never grows old—happy listening in 2023.
The EP Win Fight Dream Lose is not the first time I have listened to music created by Tanzos. The first time was in 2020, the year the wheels fell off the wagon, via three singles which garnered good critical responses. I posted my thoughts on that here.
Win Fight Dream Lose is the first extended-time release from Tanzos, aka Mik Tanzos. The EP contains two previously released singles, Good Intentions and Mood Swings, and an unreleased piano version of his 2021 hit Nevermind. That covers three out of five tracks on the EP, which is why I don’t particularly appreciate doing singles. By the time the EP comes out, most of the songs on a short-form record, aka EP, have already been reviewed. Nevermind my rant. Nevermind, the song, has the feel of Nick Cave on the piano bits, but the similarity stops there. The original Nevermind and the reworked piano version are different but equally good.
Good music needs good lyrics, and there are a few shining examples. The title track states, “We learn to like the things we choose.” I can relate to this on several levels of understanding, but I’m unsure if they are the same as Tanzos’. Here is one example. In 1994 I received a gift certificate for my birthday and bought a CD with the money. The CD was from a band I was acquainted with, but when I played it, what came out of the speakers was not what I expected. The band had veered off the road into new territory and new sounds, and on first listen, I wouldn’t say I liked it. I couldn’t take it back because it was opened and used, so it got filed away. Sometime later, I listened to it again and started warming up to what was happening on this CD. And after many more trips around whatever goes on inside a CD player, I have learned to like this CD that I had chosen. “We learn to like the things we choose.”
“I’m trapped in my head” is a line from the track Mood Swings. Tanzos tells us, “The song tries to capture the difficult emotions of someone already used to internal conflict. But sometimes it’s just too much, you get overwhelmed and lose control “
“I’m trapped in my head” stirred a memory for me. In recovery groups, there is a saying, “My head is a dangerous place to visit alone.” It is even worse to comprehend when we are trapped there, bouncing off the walls and into thoughts we want to bury and never remember again.
Win Fight Dream Lose is driven in equal parts by crisp piano parts and undercurrents of guitar that shimmer when they rise to the surface. All in all, Tanzos has crafted a delightful EP.
I have started my end-of-year blog, and I think Crying Day Care Choir might sneak in as a late addition.
The time arc of me doing a blog goes something like this. I listen to the album to decide whether I like the sounds. If I don’t get a groove on, the blog never gets off the ground; it stops there. Occasionally all I need to hear is one song or a quick sample by skipping across all the songs. If I don’t get it, the email hits the trash bin.
However, I listen to the entire album if I like what I hear. After that first listen, I will see if the band or artist has previous material or a back story in music. I like to hear where they are coming from, and as I listen, I will start reading whatever I can find about the artist/s. And then, I go to the new material and listen to it again with a lyric sheet, if there is one, and follow the story arc or the ebb and flow of the album. Then I start copying and pasting bits and pieces from the source material, including lyrics when available. And then, I start writing my blog.
There is an exception to this method. Sometimes the music will grab my ears and pull me in without mercy. I can’t stop listening to the album, and after a half dozen or so trips through the entire album, I will start the “if I like what I hear” pattern as above. I frequently get highjacked by repeated listens to a previous album if one, or more, impacts me as much as the new one does.
The exception happened this week with the Swedish band Crying Day Care Choir’s album Give Me Something Vol. 1.
I listened to this album repeatedly and then skipped back to their previous album Wilting Rooting Blooming, which is a horse of a different colour. And then back to Give Me Something Vol. 1. I am listening to Give Me Something Vol. 1 again. It hasn’t grown old yet, and I’m unsure if it ever will. We will check in on December 31st to see if the shine has lost its lustre.
This album explodes in your face when it starts playing the opening powerhouse track, Make A New Fucking World. With a title like that, you know that something will happen. And it does happen. I listened to this song easily a half dozen times and then listened to their previous album, Wilting Rooting Blooming, with its opening track, Fuck It I’m A Flower. That album and that song have an indie folk-flavoured pop feel that is super easy listening. And then I go back to Make A New Fucking World, and it is a new f*****g album with a fresh f*****g sound. The mandolin and acoustic guitars are gone, replaced by synths opening the song and exploding with distorted guitars and a thumping bass drum/guitar. And then they have the audacity of segueing that into a classic piano interlude. Which then transitions back to heavy riffs and the driving beat. And it works. All these pieces sound like a bad idea when I try to explain them with words. You can trust me on this one. Crying Day Care Choir makes it happen. It all works together seamlessly.
I feel this four-track EP is shorter than it could have been. All the tracks give me the feeling that they are good songs to jam on. I’m Looking At You and Don’t Waste Your Time are strong pieces in the middle, and then we get to my second favourite song on this EP, The Dreams Of Alice. A great closing track.
CDCC is Jack, Sara and Bill Elz. Hailing from Malmö in southern Sweden. Sweden is a hot spot for great new music, and this album and band add to that. Crying Day Care Choir is a family trio of the married couple, Jack and Sara, with Jack’s brother, Bill. They are all talented multi-instrumentalists that they use to great advantage, moving effortlessly from indie folk to grunge.
I encourage you to listen to Wilting Rooting Blooming first. And then turn the volume up a notch and play Give Me Something Vol. 1. From my point of view, these albums complement each other and Give Me Something Vol. 1 builds on the foundation of Wilting Rooting Blooming. A good example that I hope most people would be familiar with is Pink Floyd. I recommend listening to Meddle and Obscured by Clouds to better appreciate The Dark Side of the Moon. It gives the listener an expanded understanding and appreciation of the new music if we know where the band is coming from.
Enough of me ranting on about this music. Go now and listen to Crying Day Care Choir. In any order that you like, it is all good music.
The cover art is a story in itself.
After a successful summer performing at festivals such Sziget Festival, Malmöfestivalen, Be Alternative and many more, Swedish alt-follk trio Crying Day Care Choir recently formed their own label ELZ Productions, with their first release an internationally groundbreaking EP with cover art by Damien Hirst and the art itself as source of inspiration.
CDCC’s new EP ‘Give Me Something Vol.1’, the first of three new collections released in the coming months, explores the relationship between art and music and challenges the idea of how music is created. The full album acts as a continuation of Damien Hirst‘s project ‘The Currency’, where he explores the concept of value through art and money. The Currency contains 10.000 unique pieces, with different titles produced by an AI generator that’s been fed with some of the artist’s favourite music. The buyers of these different art pieces were left with the decision during the summer of 2022, to either keep their physical piece or to keep the NFT version of it and let the physical painting burn.
This project led to new artistic ideas for the musicians in CDCC, and the concept for the record ‘Give Me Something’ took shape. The idea is to take the titles from the burnt artworks and put them together as lyrics, thus giving them new life in a new art form -“Reborn, as songs”.
With Damien Hirst’s permission the work began in September. Damien Hirst’s artwork ‘Give Me Something’ will act as album cover for the release. The world famous artist however is no stranger to the concept of making album art with his latest involvement being in Drake’s ‘Certified Loverboy’ from 2021.
Big Stir Records have released a collection of twenty-two songs from twenty-two artists who had a new release this year on their label. Twenty-Two, the album, harkens me back to the good old days of K-Tel. I still like compilations, and this is the fourteenth compilation that I have listened to this year. Some dodgy ones would make good frisbees. But not this one; it is a keeper.
One of the critical factors to consider when listening to compilations is the flow. Does one song bleed into the next one, or does it jar and clash? I will not run through this compilation song by song, but I will give a few highlights.
Highlight number one is the opening track conveniently. We’re Going Downtown by Chris Church blasted out of my speakers, and I immediately focused on the playlist. Chris Church rocks us into a transition that smoothly moves to Summer Blue by Lannie Flowers. I have previously listened to and blogged about some of these artists. I wrote about Lannie Flowers and his album Flavor of the Month in September of this year.
However, some have flown in under my radar. One of those new songs is track four, Stop the World, by The Incururables. It is very reminiscent of the New Wave of the late 70s and early 80s. This song brings to mind Brinsley Schwarz, Elvis Costello and that British New Wave scene.
Another song I like and is new to me is the song Choker by Walker Brigade. I am positive I have heard them before but not this song. It’s a bit different in the sea of rock and roll that it is floating in. Not quite hard rock and not quite folk, I think I’ll default and call it good music.
Maple Mars is another tight band. I remember them because they gave me an earworm with their song Useless Information.
Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White is a great topical song that talks about colour coding people and putting them into boxes based on the shade of colour of their skin.
Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) is a song that I have on a compilation album, 60’s Summer of Love (Collector’s Edition). I think The Test Pressings, a good band name, have made a good cover of this song and moved it from pure pop to light rock.
The next track is another cover; Mama Told Me Not To Come. I am familiar with the Three Dog Night version, probably the rendition that most people associate with this track. However, there is some fascinating history behind the song. It was written in 1966 by Randy Newman for Eric Burdon‘s first solo recording, Eric Is Here, released in 1967. Although credited to Eric Burdon and the Animals, there are no Animals on the album.
Randy Newman‘s turn at recording Mama Told Me Not To Come was released on his 1970 album 12 Songs. Newman’s piano and Ry Cooder‘s slide guitar gave a more bluesy feel to the song.
From Wikipedia:
Also in 1970, Three Dog Night released a longer, rock ‘n roll and funk-inspired version (titled “Mama Told Me (Not to Come)”) on their album, It Ain’t Easy. The album hadCory Wells singing lead in an almost humorous vocal style, Jimmy Greenspoon played a Wurlitzer, Michael Allsup played guitar, and Donna Summer sang backing vocals, though uncredited.
Billboard ranked the record as the No. 11 song of 1970. The single was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on July 14, 1970, the same day that It Ain’t Easy was certified gold. It was also the number-one song on the premiere broadcast of American Top 40 with Casey Kasem on July 4, 1970. Pardon my rabbit trail; we will now return to the 22.
Lanny Flowers shows up again on track 19 with a Beatlesque tune called Lost in a Daydream. It is very Sgt. Pepper and an enjoyable listen.
The other songs on this album are consistently good, and they all avoid jarring transitions from song to song. Overall this is a good sample of the quality music that comes out of Big Stir Records. I look forward to what they bring us in 2023.
I’ve had a few artistic doldrums, aka writer’s block. I won’t bore you with why and wherefore; I have had trouble writing anything this year. There are only ten blogs to my credit this year; that’s less than one per month. So I got a PR request from the always-pleasant Shauna McLarnon at Shameless Promotion PR, to give a listen to the song Temple of Sleep from the Zen Ghost album by Frenchy and the Punk, which I praised on October 30. Despite my struggles to write anything, this album rose above others and prodded me to write. That’s how much I appreciated the album. Out of the dozens of press requests that I have received, Zen Ghost was able to push through and rise above the pack.
Anyhoo, I got the request today to give a little boost to the song Temple of Sleep. I don’t usually blog about singles, what with me being an album guy. I have very few 45s and lots of 12-inch slabs of vinyl. That’s just me. I don’t judge; I like the 33 1/3 better.
Well, that gets thrown out the window today, and I will wax eloquently about a single. I listened to the song Temple of Sleep and then pulled the virtual needle back to the start, back to the album’s lead track. It seems that I am not good at sticking to singles. I listened to the entire album again, there is an ebb and flow to an album, and single tracks sometimes lose their context when they try to stand alone. Temple of Sleep is only the second track on the Zen Ghost album, but I feel it is a bridge song. Track one, Mon Souvenir, is all about feelings. It is affirming that the singer can feel. That’s a good thing, being able to feel.
Track two, our focus song, is a bit darker. “Life is feeling very doubtful,” and the singer tells us, “I wanna turn off my feelings.” The song ends more optimistically, with the singer telling us they want to “Make peace with my feelings, Just so I can breathe.” When I first heard this track, I couldn’t help but think of George Floyd.
The song Temple of Sleep then flows into track three, If The World Doesn’t End First, which is full of love that goes on forever and ever.
“I’ve loved you, I’ve loved you, since the dawn of time
The vines of our love galactically entwined
Up to the sky through the cosmos so high
The world may end, but we’ll never die
Our love feels so secure
We don’t care anymore
The words spill over like waterfalls
Like Somewhere in Time
I’m yours, and you are mine…Never-ending… just beginning.”
There we go, “our love feels so secure.” and “The words spill over like waterfalls.” That’s the words of Frenchy and the Punk, vocalist, percussionist and lyricist Samantha Stephenson and guitarist-composer Scott Helland. My words are not that pretty and eloquent, but words did come together and broke through the creative doldrums. A big thank you to Shauna for sliding this song in my direction, and an equally effervescent thank you to Frenchy and the Punk for creating this music. A bonus sidebar, I was pleased to see Scott Helland playing a Godin. They are not seen that often. I have an SDxt.
I rarely blog about singles, preferring to listen to whole albums. However, there is no rule that says I can’t write about a single song. So, today for your listening pleasure, I present Tinyhawk & Bizzarro with their single Yorokobi. Yeah, I had to look it up in Google Translate. Yorokobi means joy in Japanese, which seems to be a popular word for Japanese restaurants. The Joy of Cooking, I suppose.
Yorokobi will also be the first instrumental that I have blogged, so today is a day of firsts. I don’t know what exactly draws me to this piece of music. It has a sound vaguely similar to the music in old cowboy movies. I’m an old cowboy, so maybe that is why I like it. If Ennio Morricone were to write the music for a modern western film, I would imagine it to sound something like Yorokobi. The music is bright and glittering with lively sounds. Guitar and synth are front and centre but I was impressed with the bass lines just as much. This song could be on endless loop and it would take a tonne of listens before I got tired of it. Good stuff. Hyvää musiikkia.
Experimental instrumental rock group Tinyhawk & Bizzarro consists of Markus Väisänen (guitar), Teemu Aho (bass) and Jaakko Pöyhönen(drums). The band’s material is written by Jenni Kinnunen, who is also behind the alias Tinyhawk. Kinnunen is known as the guitarist of the Finnish band Rosita Luu. I took the time to listen to the debut album from Bizzarro, Luxardo, self-released in 2019. It is a decent album, and I can hear how the band has matured and come into their own musically.
Bizzarro has been signed to Humu Records, and their debut album will be released in the spring of 2023. The first single, Yorokobi, will be released to download and streaming services on Friday, December 16th. Humu Records will release the full album on vinyl and digital in the spring of 2023. Right on, I love my vinyl platters.
Today is New Release Day. Every Friday is New Release Day. For our musical pleasure, this particular Friday is the debut album of Swedish artist Manuela Iwansson, Dark Tracks. I didn’t find the overall scope of the album dark other than its lamentations of lost love. And those lost loves are not always dark; some feel more like being set free, having a weight lifted from our shoulders.
The first track from Dark Tracks is titled Strangers on a Train, giving the first glimpse of the dark side of the tracks.
“A steady pace along dark tracks
I’m letting go while looking back.”
Dark Tracks may be an ode to lost loves, be it platonic or intimate, but the music propels those words forward with a frantic energy that feels like we can’t get away fast enough. Or, we may have to blast away from The Boys of Summer so we don’t remain maudlin and rooted in our emotional pain.
The song Dead Weight has a great line in it,
“Dead Weight
That’s getting lighter
It’s too heavy carrying you around
When you’re already gone.”
That, my friends, is one of the best examples of clinging to things in our past that weigh us down. Dead Weight that adds nothing to our lives. Dead Weight that holds us down and keeps us from being set free.
Dark Tracks has brilliant music that delivers those lyrics to us without detracting from their meaning. Manuela Iwansson is fond of the 70s & 80s female artists like Pat Benatar, Laura Branigan, and Suzi Quatro. She cites early new wave and punk like The Go-Go’s, X,Gun Club and Grace Jones as influences on her and her music.
When asked, “What genre does your music fall into?” Manuela answered “Rock/post-punk/new wave/punk.” I can irrevocably endorse Dark Tracks because Manuela’s musical influencers also heavily influenced my listening patterns. I easily picture myself in 1978 at the roller skating rink with Leather, the last cut on Dark Tracks, blasting out of the speakers as I did laps around the rink. I would also add a few more of my favourite roller derby songs to the playlist at the rink, Psycho Killer and Rock Lobster.
Dark Tracks is good music from start to finish. Not Finnish, Manuela Iwansson is Swedish, and this album will rock the winter away. The album features duets with Bria Salmena (Orville Peck, FRIGS, Bria) and Jack Ladder (Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders), as well as a stellar lineup of some of Sweden’s finest musicians: Henrik Palm (Henrik Palm, In Solitude, etc.), Elias Jungqvist (Viagra Boys, etc.), and Erik Klinga (Simian Ghost, etc.), among others.
The album ‘Dark Tracks’ is available on all streaming platformsthrough Lack of Sleep Records.
Weathered Music 