My first exposure to
The Posies? On an unsuspicious morning in late 1990 I was backing my Plymouth (not so) Reliant "K" car out of my driveway to attend a full day of high school. I was tuned into the predominant local hard/classic rock station. DJ announced he was playing a song by a new band dubbed The Posies. Upon hearing the name I conjured up an approximate image of this band being the stylistic heirs to the Mamas and Papas or something. That assumption quickly dissipated upon hearing the tune, quite possibly "Golden Blunders." In short, said DJ successfully led this horse to water, but I wasn't quite ready to imbibe another sip until roughly three years later, upon release of the band's third record,
Frosting on the Beater. 'Higher learning' would in fact have to wait a spell.
Essentially, I backtracked upon becoming enamored with
Frosting in 1993, with the previous album,
Dear 23 being something of a posthumous discovery for me. Both records (and '95s
Amazing Disgrace to follow later) are the subjects of a vastly overhauled reissues on
Omnivore Records, getting the full remaster and expansion treatments, featuring a bevy of unreleased demos, outtakes and alternate versions, a good half of which
weren't already covered on the
At Least At Last rarities box set on Not Lame in 2000.
The Posies glorified demo of a debut album, 1988's
Failure, was an often infectious exercise in witty folk pop. Gloriously lucid if not so much ambitious, that nascent formula of the band's two prime movers
Ken Stringfellow and
Jon Auer would be extrapolated, enhanced and exponentially magnified on
Dear 23, which found the duo fleshing themselves out as a four piece, aided and abetted by bassist
Rick Roberts and longtime drummer to-be
Mike Musburger. With
23's austere hues, startlingly
bold, and even ethereal sonic enhancements, you'd hardly guess this was the same entity that crafted
Failure. The ironing table and laundry basket motifs of yore were usurped by sobering universal themes wherein the band exuded grand,
post-teenage symphonies to the world at large, often by way of exhilarating harmonies. Almost thirty years on, "Golden Blunders" is still vividly poignant, outlining the consequences of romantic faux pas, with "Apology" mining a similar theme, more in line with a pleading ballad than the former's singalong rocker. Despite it's pristine facade,
Dear 23 boasts it's own brand of musculature, amidst "Help Yourself," "Mrs. Green," and the fully blossomed second half of, "Flood of Sunshine," the album's epic closer that loosely unfolds a la Led Zeppelin's "Thank You," of all things. Song for song,
Dear 23 may not be the Posies career defining moment but is the most impeccably manicured and graceful record they would ever attach their name to - not to mention one of their masterpieces. The two CD redux on Omnivore features a bountiful 27 bonus songs. Unnlike the extraneous filler on so many other deluxe releases, the twenty-plus demos (some full band, but many Ken and Jon solo tapes) are genuinely revelatory and will give you an even better appreciation of the finished versions. Also appended are the two sides of the Big Star/Chris Bell tribute single, initially released 1992 on Pop Llama.
Contemporary to
23 and
Frosting, there was abundant ballyhooing in reference to the Posies newfound appreciation for Big Star - that and their supposed assumption to the throne of "power pop." Both were exaggerations. Virtually nothing on these two albums were as organic or straightforward as anything occupying
#1 Record and
Radio City, and even on Big Star's more idiosyncratic
Sister Lovers, it can be a challenge to find direct parallels between the Posies and Alex Chilton (though both parties would later unite for a reconstituted Big Star). Secondly, the Posies weren't three chord simpletons. Catchy as-all-get-out, indeed, but far more sophisticated and brooding stacked up against a say, 20/20 or even a Matthew Sweet record. If anything, they inadvertently carved out a niche for themselves that by happy accident meshed well with more pedestrian power pop.
The Posies were about to make yet another quantum leap, one that would inextricably define them for the remainder of their tenure in the '90s. Enter
Frosting on the Beater, their 1993 watershed that stripped off the ornate prettiness and ethereal gestures of
Dear 23 in favor of a palate that was markedly rawer, denser and gleefully amped-out. It may have stopped well short of blaring and obnoxious, yet
Frosting undeniably signaled an exciting departure for Jon, Ken, Mike, and newly recruited bassist
Dave Fox. In fact, Fox's fuzz-laden bass played a discernible role in filling out the band's distortion addled aptitude on buzzy pop salvos like "Solar Sister," and "Flavor of the Month," and equally within the confines of the slow-boiling "Burn and Shine" and the brooding comedown finale, "Coming Right Along." The Posies hook-meter registered an all time high on
Frosting, so much so that even if "Flavor" or "Definite Door" graced your ears just one day in any given year, those tunes would stay etched in your cranium for the remaining 364. And I can't depart any discussion of this album without observing that yet another of the band's watershed moments, the more bitter than sweet "Dream All Day," has personally served as a sister song of sorts to the Smithereens similarly vigorous but reflective "Behind the Wall of Sleep." In keeping with the penchant of the expanded Dear 23,
Frosting on the Beater is bonus-ized with a solid
thirty extras - demos for most LP tracks and about an album's worth of outtakes (in rough-hewn 4-track incarnations) with previews of songs to appear on subsequent Posies and Ken Stringfellow solo records. Hot damn.
Dear 23 is available as we speak from
Omnivore and
Amazon.
Frosting on the Beater is slated for an August 24 release date.
From 1994. Their first (or third) album, depending on how you're counting.
“You asked me what I like to do for fun in East Columbus, and I told you I wrote poetry to music in my mind” intones St. Lenox’s Andy Choi on “First Date.” However, my friends, Choi is not your run of the mill poet cutting third rate material, rather a singular force of nature who’s back with his third spellbinding collection. Possessed with a bellowing vocal range and a knack for stitching together verbose, cathartic diatribes that eschews mundane metrical composing (i.e. “rhyming”) entirely, the bard in question goes straight for the jugular. Adopting a discernibly more stream-of-consciousness tact on this go-around, Ten Fables of Young Ambition and Passionate Love isn’t always as soaringly melodic as St Lenox 2015 debut, ...Memory and Hope. Yet despite the fact that the hooks aren’t consistently frontloaded, you won’t mind chilling a few seconds longer as Choi waxes on a bouquet of romantic quandaries, and throws down a fever dreams's worth of cathartic, rapid-fire truisms throughout. And pay close attention to the presumably semi-autobiographical “Gold Star,” which loosely analyzes why he isn’t keen on relinquishing his day job for the full time music career that St. Lenox fans (to our tortured chagrin) wish he would just finally embrace. Ten Fables is available September 28 from Anyway Records or Amazon.
But what, there's more. Dot Dash have just dropped LP #6. The D.C. area denizens whose antecedents lie in such esteemed indie rock conglomerations as Swervedriver, Tree Fort Angst, and Strange Boutique among others have been pumping out a deluge of strident, clangy power pop, with lite post-punk affectations (not to mention a solid dollop of wit) for almost a decade now, and Proto Retro is another sturdy link in the chain. Dot Dash aren't ones to alter their recipe, as what they started with was downright effective. One borderline anomaly on Proto I'd be remiss if I failed to mention is "TV/Radio," a fun, briskly paced cut with Anglo-punk leanings, briefly name-checking some rather recognizable public figures. A video for "Unfair Weather" recently dropped here, and the album is available as we speak from The Beautiful Music and Amazon among other sources.
Last but not least, Portage, MI's finest son Jeremy Morris is back with a new collection of plaintively, pleasant guitar pop, in the guise of Joy Comes in the Morning. Credited to his most recent ensemble, The Jeremy Band, the album is a continuation of his jangle-inflected, chin-up aesthetic that's as reliable as a rooster's morning croon. Call it twelve, middle-aged symphonies to God (and otherwise) if you will. And being it's a Jeremy record, the ageless hippie in him doles out his usual allotment of psych guitar treatments as well. Joy Comes... is available now straight from Jam Records. 
Debut from 1981. Falls a few notches short of landmark status, but still a hell of a way to kick off a career that's still in progress. Two bonus tracks on this one, the latter of which is an extremely scarce b-side.
I was in for a bit of a shock when I first heard this one, expecting the same Absolute Grey who dazzled me (albeit posthumously) with their '84 debut, Green House. The Rochester, NY co-eds' initial proposition was that of a neo-psych band, with ample nods to their west coast contemporaries the Dream Syndicate. For the predominantly acoustic Painted Post, the quartet was paired down to Mitch Rasor on guitar and bass, and Beth Brown on the mic. It's such a departure that I'm inclined to regard PP as less of an Absolute Grey record, and more of a solo vehicle for Brown. Those observations aside, the record by and large succeeds on it's own premise of contemplative, unencumbered ballads that are virtually impossible not to appreciate...just don't expect much in the way of mystique or guitar feedback. 
I can't believe I've neglected Zipgun this whole time, considering I've been listening to them waaaaay longer than I've been doing this site. Anyway, even if they've evaded you're proverbial radar altogether you can be forgiven. Every sweepstakes garners only a handful of winners, and this Seattle foursome finished well behind in the Emerald City's grunge/punk contest. Not that they were deliberately pursuing the grunge angle (so far as I could tell) but they were plenty vigorous for the punk circuit. And damn competent at it too, falling squarely in league with such contemporaries as Swallow, the Supersuckers, The Derelicts (of which Zip guitarist Neil Rogers was a member of) and even beloved Denver cousins the Fluid. Zipgun's lifespan was accordingly brief as their catalog, which consisted of two full lengths and a clutch of singles.
The second 45 (bearing a strikingly like-minded cover motif) showcased some exclusive songs to the record. And some pretty exciting ones at that including the uber vindictive "Shiner." Hagfish had something immensely special on their hands...but success was not in the cards, and they parted ways around 2001. Of the four members from the final lineup, guitarist Zach Blair made the most of his post-Hag tenure, hooking up with Rise Against a little later in the '00s. A full bio can be accessed on Wikipedia. 
Remember when I took to task Sorry's '86 platter The Way it Is and blabbed something about their earlier "rough and tumble" hardcore years? Well, you're about to hear what Sorry's nascent era was all about it, by way of Imaginary Friend. In the form of eighteen cuts to be exact, many of which clock in at under ninety seconds, but if you're expecting fearsome, symmetrical slammers all cut from the same cloth think again. Boston born and bred, this quartet weren't really along the lines of their hometown's more renown SS Decontrol or Gang Green. Even back in '84, Sorry were picking up on the vibes of relative newcomers Mission of Burma, Volcano Suns, and early Husker Du - albeit not as effective, and definitely not as consistent. They had a penchant for sloppiness and spouted an array of dissonant affectations that were a hell of lot more chaotic than calculated. Most of IF's more notable moments reside on side one, entailing "Misanthrope," "One More Step," and "Doomed From the Start," the latter of which features none other than Burma's very own Roger Miller on keyboards, of all things.
From 1990. Believe it or not these guys once had integrity...and songs to die for. 
The little spoken of Adrian's Childhood were from said to hail from Seattle, but amazingly don't emanate a shred o' grunge. More like turn of the decade alt-rock with nods to the likes of the Connells, Ocean Blue, and for better or worse Live (the band). There's some tastefully executed jangle sprouting now and again, really benefiting some of AC's most potent offerings like "Ellensberg" and the deliciously sprite and spry "POP." 
Likely my favorite album from 2002. Hope it becomes yours as well.
The above lyric swiped from an acoustic ballad on Soul Asylum's Made to be Broken LP, incorporated "1993" as a simple rhyming device, yet it proved to be ironically prophetic as that happened to be the year Dave Pirner, Karl Mueller, and Dan Murphy (the band's core triumvirate) broke bad and nationwide with "Runaway Train." Situated in this era were two of their contemporaries that hurtled on a parallel trajectory as well, Urge Overkill and the Meat Puppets. All three boasted fairly prestigious indie rock pedigrees, and relatively rich back catalogs...that their newfound mainstream converts were sadly content to ignore. Indeed, there was life before Grave Dancers Union, and a spirited and often uneven one at that, but Soul Asylum's finer mid '80s volleys sometimes bordered on astonishing. Omnivore has reissued their first two Twin/Tone Records platters, Say What You Will...Everything Can Happen and 1986's aforementioned ...Broken with a bevy of bonus material and a crisp remastering job worth the price of admission alone.
A short but sublimely sweet one from '92.
Though not as appealing as their more effective later albums (like 2000's Somehow You Just Don't Get It) I thought it wouldn't hurt to throw this one out there for historical perspective, especially since it's utterly impossible to find. This indie rock to-the-core foursome seemed to be skewing in the vicinity of some of their contemporaries including, but certainly not limited to, J Church, Small 23 and even the almighty Archers of Loaf. There's occasional glints of promise on "Call in Blue" and "Slowing Down," but Static... illustrated Sometimes Seven had miles to venture before really honing their craft.
