Lannie Flowers - New Songs Old Stories (2012, Aaron Ave) - A brief overview

In 2008 a staggering 36-song CD quietly crept it's way into the marketplace - and no, it wasn't a new Guided By Voices or Bad Religion album.  The honor went to none other than Lannie Flowers, a low profile power-pop troubadour from Texas who set out to commit three albums worth of ideas to tape for the ambitious Same Old Story, but as you might guess there was a significant catch.  Each of those three-dozen numbers clocked in at an average of just over a minute.  These weren't four-tracked, lo-fi throwaways mind you.  To the contrary, all were professionally recorded, rather Lannie approached it as a "science project" and merely opted to tease listeners with a verse here, a chorus there, etc.  All things considered, Same Old Story offered some semblance of continuity in spite of each song's striking brevity, but once it's fleeting hooks set in it left some folks hankering "unabridged" versions.  In the years to come, Lannie absorbed enough praise for certain selections, motivating him to "elaborate" on them, which was the genesis for New Songs Old Stories.

As with it's predecessor album, New Songs... came with yet another catch - only seven songs out of Same Old's... bountiful triple-dozen batch would graduate to the three minute plateau.  As luck would have it, the ones making the final cut were aces - "Give Me a Chance," "Tired of Being Alone," and "Another Weekend," among the remainder.  Lannie's traditionalist, Rickenbacker bent recalls everyone from Dwight Twilley to '90s cult figures like Dillion Fence and the Gladhands.  A tried and true formula that accords these songs with an almost timeless appeal, and needless to say, well worth investigating.  In addition to the songs that were introduced four years ago, New Songs... in fact does feature to brand new numbers, "I Didn't Know" and "Come on Girl," the latter of which you can check out below, along with "Tired of Being Alone."  New Songs...as well as Same Old Story, and Lannie's 2010 album Circles are all available from CD Baby and Aaron Ave Records.  Coincidentally, last year I featured a record by Mr. Flowers pre-solo outfit from the mid-80s, The Pengwins. 

Reviews you can use: Deadlights, Richard James Simpson, Lannie Flowers & Spygenius.

I always thought interventions led to a twelve-step program. That being said, don't take Deadlights' Eleven Step Intervention as a half measure.  Back with their second album in as many years, Deadlights is the brainchild of Jeff Shelton, whose more prolific outfit The Well Wishers was/is responsible for a steady volley of crunch-laden power pop albums with nary a bum tune in earshot. Deadlights, on the other hand, occupy a more insular space wherein Shelton indulges his jones for more austere Anglophile-informed rock, loosely resembling the likes of Catherine Wheel and the Chameleons UK - just don't expect anything derivative. Eleven Step... with it's chiming and negligibly echoing guitars is a nuanced and often subdued beast, flirting with post-punk, and perhaps less so, dream-pop textures. Not everything leaps off the page here, but when Deadlights bust-out in sonic full bloom on the "The Great Unknown" "Out of Step With the Modern World," and the uber-melodic "Just Let Go" Shelton strikes me as almost limitless in his capabilities. As for a surprise rendition of Pink Floyd's Meddle-era deep cut, "Fearless," the overarching construct of the song is left intact, but is gracefully filtered through Deadlights modus operandi, blending in seamlessly with this record's ten originals. And speaking of numbers, if you're looking for that proverbial twelfth-step, I'm pretty sure what that directive might entail, specifically buying this album on Bandcamp or Amazon.  

Well goddamn.  Back in the '90s this is what some folks would refer to as "wtf music," which believe it of not was a less belittling term-of-art than such lazy, generic nomenclatures as "experimental" or even "avant garde." Richard James Simpson has been hovering around intermittently all the way back in the '80s with the left-field indie venture Invisible Chains, and a bit later in the alterna-grungy Teardrain. Now up to his third solo record, Sugar the Pill, the gentleman in question has unfurled a concaved and occasionally unwieldy flag where sonic abstractions aren't tantamount to the journey so much as the outright destination. It's very hard to toss out generalizations here, but Sugar's oblique, alien and often downright unsettling vistas recall such artistes as Zoviet France and Negativland, minus the creative samples and sound-bytes of the latter. I'm not gonna lie, RJS' vibe is difficult if not impossible to convey in the written word. And despite a near-total lack of pop acumen on Sugar, there are at the very least some more structured pieces that invite a repeat listen or two. "Starry Hope" and "We're in the Wolf's Mouth" are dirty, power-chordish romps that could pass for Jack Endino productions circa 1989, "Love Becomes a Stranger" is a relatively straightforward piece where discernible guitars mesh with orchestral elements, and dare i say "Take it Back" could pass for a bona fide piano ballad. In the for-what-it's-worth department, The Germs Don Bolles contributes percussion on a few songs here. You can sample Sugar... on Soundcloud, or better yet obtain a physical or digital variation to have and hold via Amazon.

When is a new Lannie Flowers album not a new Lannie Flowers album?  Enter, Flavor of the Month - The Remixed March to Home Singles, the latest installment in his catalog which is actually a compilation of a a dozen or so digital tracks that made their way into the virtual slipstream between 2018-19. If you stick exclusively to music portals like Spotify, or if you opt for the paid download route having these songs on a physical medium may not be a priority, but as for myself, I tend to overlook digital releases, sometimes even by my favorite artists. 

I've dedicated no small amount of space to Mr. Flowers previous endeavors, all the way back to his earliest in rumblings in the Pengwins, a band that can claim their origins back to the '70s.  Lannie's plaintive, power pop delivery system has been informed by everyone from the Plimsouls to Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, not to mention many dots on the map in between. If you're new to the man in general it's not easy to determine where you should start exploring his ever-growing body of work, but Flavor of the Month could very well be the ideal jumping off point, especially for fans of classicist singer-songwriter guitar pop who crave not only hooks but a smidgen of bite to boot. A deluxe vinyl edition of Flavor is set to drop later this year, but CDs are available now from Spyderpop/Big Stir Records and Amazon.  

Going into a covers record where you're ignorant to many/most/all of the titles is akin to attending a foreign film without speaking the language. In both cases you might luck out and get something sweet out of the experience, but an awful lot is going to get lost in the translation. Occasionally, there are bands possessing enough refined taste and competence to transcend such a scenario, and to our benefit we have that in the guise of Spygenius' Blow Their Covers.   

Not only are most of the compositions here unknown quantities, Spygenius was equally so for yours truly. From what I've been able to glean their original material takes it's cues from the most hallowed of the hallowed (Beatles, Beach Boys, etc). Following up five proper albums, Spygenius' Blow My Covers doesn't consistently excavate material from under-the-radar types (though there is some of that going on - Kelly's Heels anyone?) but also relatively deep album cuts and singles from numerous renown names - Squeeze, The Monkees, Gene Clark, Traffic and Buffalo Springfield - just don't get your hopes up for reveling in renditions of any old familiar favorites from the aforementioned.  This album's slowly revealing cavalcade of surprises is the reason why it succeeds to the extent that it does - not to mention Spygenius' well honed capabilities, especially when they get around to taking on a tune very near and dear to my heart, the Soft Boys' Byrd-sian classic "Queen of Eyes."  BTW, The Beatles aren't represented here, but strangely enough Lennon and McCartney are, by virtue of "Step Inside Love," a tune they penned for the late Brit crooner Cilla Black. You can preview, and for that matter, preferably buy Blow Their Covers over at Bandcamp, and direct from Big Stir Records.

New music - Great Mutations, plus Lannie Flowers live.

I don't know what it is about 2014, but this year I only feel compelled to absorb music in the briefest of increments - ten, fifteen mins tops usually.  Piercing this threshold of self-diagnosed Adult ADHD comes Cheap Stuff, the debut from an upstart Albany, NY-area trio, who I found myself partaking in virtually in it's entirety more than once this week.  Great Mutations have somehow manged to capture and hold my attention, bereft of resorting to anything flashy, superficial or the least bit ostentatious on their part.  Cheap Stuff is akin to an Americana-laced Pavement sans the esoteric curveballs, or perhaps a better comparison can be drawn to indie aggregations like Grandaddy, and less obviously Rogue Wave.  G/M are lackadaisical without getting too slack, not to mention sweet and strummy, graciously sparing us any genteel malaise that's so ubiquitous these days.  Just three capable fellows with real songs you might say.  And you can hear those songs for yourself via Bandcamp, where Cheap Stuff can be had at a fittingly affordable price. 

Entirely unrelated, but just as worthy comes a brand new live album from Arlington, TX power pop troubadour Lannie Flowers.  For the past couple years I've been serving up reviews and samples of his most recent solo albums (and his unheralded '80s group, The Pengwins) on Wilfully Obscure, but for those of you who've yet delve in, Live in NYC is a sublime jumping off point.  The setting for the concert was Brooklyn's Trash Bar, where Lannie and his four compatriots served up a "Lannie's dozen" of fourteen numbers to a small but attentive audience.  Included are ace renditions from his New Songs Old Stories and Circles albums, as well as a special cover of Big Star's incendiary classic, "Back of a Car."  Live in NYC affirms his strengths with should-have-been chart toppers, "Turn Up Your Radio" and "Come on Girl," among nearly a dozen more cuts.  You can get a taste of Lannie's bite out of the Big Apple from CD Baby or iTunes at your leisure.  

Lannie Flowers - Kiss a Memory 7" (2017, Spyderpop) - A brief review.

Arlington, TX's finest son, Lannie Flowers can reliably be counted on for a perennial treat, be it a new full length, a tricked-out reissue of vintage Pengwins material, or in this case a new single.  2017's offering is on the brief side but I'll gladly take out.  Greg Kihn famously sang "They don't write 'em like that anymore," but I'll be damned if Lannie isn't a grand exception to said lyric.  Case in point, the A-side to this whirl o' pleasure, "Kiss a Memory," which doesn't resemble Kihn so much as late '70s Tom Petty, and Yellow Pills Records power pop mavens like Barely Pink (remember them, anyone?). The flip, "Everything A Man Could Want" is doubly fervent and punchy, a song that was admittedly crafted in the mold of The Faces.  Since there's just a couple cuts here I don't want to give any more away than I already have, so head on over to CD Baby or Spyderpop Records Facebook page for any and all pertinent details!

The Pengwins - Mad About the Band ep + 2 (1988, Circle)

Although the Mad About the Band ep was a product of the late '80s, The Pengwins run actually spanned 1976 to the early '90s.  Hailing from the environs of Fort Worth, Texas the five-piece Pengwins composed deftly honed power pop (or thereabouts) that could typically slot somewhere between the Plimsouls and Rubinoos, though not terribly derivative of either.  Mad About the Band was the group's lone ep, and luckily for them they nailed it perfectly, exuding the kind of acumen and moxie that most bands with ten times the back catalog are capable of.  Recently, frontman Lannie Flowers was gracious enough to personally furnish me with an album's worth of Pengwins outtakes and singles, of which I'm sharing two songs from along with the entire six song ep.  Included is the sumptuous single side "Life After High School," which deserves it's rightful place on any given Teenline compilation, or for that matter a homemade mix disk.  More Pengwins material may follow, but in the meantime, you might be interested in acquainting yourself with Lannie's solo albums Same Old Story, and last years Circles.

01. Same Sunglasses
02. Current Affairs
03. Please Give Me a Chance
04. You're Hooked
05. Daylight Reminds Us
06. Shameless

plus: I'm On Your Side
Life After High School

Hear

Notes on new music: Lannie Flowers, mercvrial, Stuyvesant.

If you've frequented this corner of cyberspace for the last five years or so the name Lannie Fowers is bound to be familiar.  From nicely padded archival releases of material from his '80s power pop cabal The Pengwins to a bouquet of riff-tacular solo LPs (Same Old Story, Circles, etc) in recent years, he's been ubiquitous, albeit in small circles like ours.  Not an experiment so much as a slight departure, his latest, Home is still a (mostly) plugged in affair with the emphasis on reflective, personal themes.  Wielding a mature singer/songwriter tact without succumbing to the more cliched trappings of such a venture, Home is as engaging as it is heartfelt recalling everything from 1970s soft pop (check out the masterclass ballad "Missed You Tonight") to more upbeat triapses that could rightfully take their place on the same shelf as Wilco's Summerteeth.  The vinyl incarnation of Home is set to ship in March of '20, but the CD version is ready to go, and is available digitally through Amazon and even Spotify. 

If nuanced, modern-day dream pop (i.e. "nu-gaze") is one of your proverbial wheelhouses, Mexico's mercvrial are your next go-to destination.  Helmed by an American expat, mercvrial are prodigiously adept conveyors of ethereal haze who opt for melodic songcraft over sheer white noise - and they have a new five song EP, the stars, like dust to show for it.  For a band bearing a self-described Anglophile bent this quintet ironically recall some excellent Yankee purveyors like For Against, Spirnghouse, and more recently the Daysleepers.  Drizzles of chiming guitars and heady sonic structures agilely waft their way around pensively themed originals "Otherworld" and "Carnival."  mercvrial know how to wrap their way around a cover as well, namely The Chills' Kiwi-pop chestnut "Pink Frost," and the considerably less renown but doubly rewarding "Girlwish (II) by Fudge, a bygone Richmond, VA combo I've given no shortage of exposure over the past couple of decades.  the stars... is available physically through CD Baby, and through digital liaisons Bandcamp on a song-by-song basis.

Last but not least, New Jersey punk-pop stalwarts Stuyvesant still make the rounds intermittently, and when they do they always make it count.  Their latest for Dromedary Records is a two song 45 with a brilliant picture sleeve that cops one of those animal file-card thingys that were all the rage among nerdy sixth graders in the '80s.  And oh yeah, the music too!  "Aardvark" is a sturdy, devastatingly melodi-core scorcher pointing to Stuyvesant's inspirational antecedents All, Samiam, and Porcelain Boys.  Would really love a whole new album of these.  The flip, "Gauntlet" rocks a considerably more dissonant stride that dare I says flirts with different time changes.  Just a heads up, the vinyl of this one is lathe-cut and strictly limited with most of it's 40 copies being sold out already, so head here pronto!  You can buy it digitally from that link as well, and of course, Amazon downloads is always there for you.

The Pengwins - Vol. 3 - Shake Some Action 7" box (2015, SpyderPop) - A brief overview

We roll into module three of what's becoming an incredibly rewarding, annual tradition.  The concept is pretty ingenious which I laid out in my review of the last Pengwins package (literally) for 2014s "If You Want 2" single:

Say you were in a commendable but unheralded power pop band from about 30 years ago.  You had the privilege of recording about a dozen and a half songs that were fit for public consumption, but only a few trickled out onto an EP that is now out of print.  The obvious thing to do would be to cram these songs onto a CD for reissue, and/or go the iTunes route and be done with it.  Or you could get considerably more creative with the idea and release each song as a separate 7" single, with a new song from a reconvened incarnation of said group to accompany the "oldie."  Not finished yet?  Ok, let's say you wanted to prolong the fun, and house each separate single in it's own corrugated cardboard box, with a bonus CD of the songs, plus stickers, photos, commentary, trinkets and other reproductions of ephemera contemporary to the era.

The Lannie Flowers fronted Pengwins have done it again, and this time the new recording is none other than the Flamin' Groovies proto-power pop masterpiece "Shake Some Action."  I know, I know this song has been "busted out at full speed" like a piece of Play-Doh for decades in the hands of countless bands of the Pengwins ilk, but as far as this set of ears is concerned it never gets old.  It's a faithful rendition at that.  The b-side "What You Gonna Do?" is a quintessential slice of 1978 power pop, bearing all the rich, reverb-laden moxie of it's era.  The CD that comes packaged with the rest of the bundle tacks on another vintage cut, "Suicide."  Delving a little deeper into all the lovely components of this box (click the pic above) you will find in addition to the music souvenirs including but not limited to a guitar-shaped bottle opener, trading card, 45 adapter, and sleeve notes.  The record itself is thick, 180 gram wax and is tinted light grey/blue.  You can buy the whole anchelada from SpyderPop Records or CD Baby, or if you're just down with hearing the tunes iTunes and Amazon are your ticket.

VA - Radio Ready - Texas Vol. 1, Lost Power Pop Hits 1978-83 (Cheap Rewards, 2013) - A brief overview

For what seems like an eternity, I’ve been trying to decipher why a specific era of music (say, the years between 1978-83 that this compilation conveniently happens to encompass) is so much more rewarding and robust than the present one?   Just what is it that feeds into the genuine and uncontrived pallor of power-pop and punk from this epoch in American underground rock?   The humbler four-track recording apparatus employed by much of Radio Ready, Texas Vol. One's roster is certainly a contributing factor…but what else?   No heavy handed intrusion from corporate monoliths like Columbia, Arista and Atlantic, or even mondo indies like Stiff, might have silently played a hand in the organic essence of these recordings.  Or maybe it was the nascent, yet inspired takes from this Lone Star bakers dozen, untainted by the studio trickery of ProTools, or for that matter, minute-by-minute progress reports dispatched to their respective fanbases via the Twittersphere.  In a nutshell, I may never be able to precisely pin down what makes music from this stretch of time so affecting - but at the very least, I know it when I hear it.  

Radio Ready's strict emphasis on Texas acts is surprising, if only for the fact that few (if any) of it's thirteen obscuro participants exude any twangy or western characteristics.  Throw a dart at just about anyone in the lineup, and you might guess they hail from New York, Boston, or L.A.  

Another primary point of emphasis here is sheer quality control, and this whole affair couldn't get off to a grander start than with the Pengwins resonant, romantically jaded "What You Gonna Do."  Fronted by one Lannie Flowers (and previously featured on Wilfully Obscure) the Pengwins were power pop traditionalists that could have held their own with contemporaries like Paul Collins and early Cheap Trick.  The Haskells and The Take also do wonders with that similar, straight-up formula.  If it's a retrofitted Brit Invasion angle you're craving, The Fad's "Think" will set your noodle's wheels in motion.  The Rattlecats' "Those Are the Breaks" operates in garagey environs, taking inspiration from the Heartbreakers among others, while Jemmy Legg's "Houston" is a par excellence punk-pop salvo.   

Radio Ready contains thirteen gold nuggets in the space of a little over a half hour, and bears the same consistency of the priceless Teenline and Rhino Records's DIY power pop compilations.  It's available digitally on Bandcamp and physically as a handsome gatefold LP in a limited edition of 500 copies.  Immensely and highly recommended!

The Pengwins - If U Want 2 7" box, and Nixon's Head/Donuts !Pow/Mod! - A brief overview

So here's the concept.  Say you were in a commendable but unheralded power pop band from about 30 years ago.  You had the privilege of recording about a dozen and a half songs that were fit for public consumption, but only a few trickled out onto an EP that is now out of print, and largely speaking your following was local.  To make this music available again (some of it for the first time) the obvious thing to do would be to cram these songs onto a CD for reissue, and/or go the iTunes route and be done with it.  Or you could get considerably more creative with the idea and release each song as a separate 7" single, with a new song from a reconvened incarnation of said group to accompany the "oldie."  Not finished yet?  Ok, let's say you wanted to prolong the fun, and house each separate single in it's own corrugated cardboard box, with a bonus CD of the songs, plus stickers, photos, commentary, trinkets and other reproductions of ephemera contemporary to the era.

Unless you're Led Zeppelin, not many artists would entertain the thought of such an undertaking, but for the Lannie Flowers fronted Pengwins are already up to the second chapter in this exhaustive and unique saga.  As was the case with the first box in this sixteen part series (Naive/Life After High School), which dropped in late 2013, the packaging and ingredients were nothing short of dazzling, and even more swag is being offered this time around, but I shan't give away any more details that what's depicted above (click on the pic for a closer peek).  Oh yeah, and there's music here too.  The A-side, "If U Want 2" is the newbie, while the alternate side of the coin, the 4-tracked "Look Around" dates back to 1977.  Astonishingly, "Look Around" sounds nearly as current as it's far more recent flip.  The Abbey Road recorded (no joke) "If U Want 2" bears glints of Cheap Trick and Velvet Crush, without getting quite as decadent as either.  In the sampler linked below I'm offering an alternate version of the track, a bonus on the enclosed CD version of the single.  The whole shebang is available from CD Baby or by emailing Spyder Pop Records directly.

In unrelated news, I recently posted a record by Philly's Nixon's Head, Traps, Buckshot and Pelt from 1987.  It turns out that not only is Nixon's Head still present and accounted for, they also have something to show for it, namely a split release with the Donuts.  Each band is allotted their own separate full length CD.  The album title alternates depending on how the sleeve is held.  The Nixon's disk, MOD! showcases a quite different sounding group than their days of yore, going straight for the pleasure center here, deviating between saucy riff-pop, a la recent Sloan, and the refined psychedelic inclinations of the Grip Weeds.  Tracks one through five are proper length tunes, with the remaining 14 clocking in at ninety seconds on average, making for a somewhat intriguing comeback.    MOD/POW! is available from CD Baby and Nixon's Head's merch page.

The Pengwins - Vol. 1 7" - Naive/Life After High School (2013, SpyderPop)

This isn't my first entry regarding the should-have-been huge Pengwins, an Arlington, TX power pop troupe comandeered by one Lannie Flowers, who set up shop in 1976 and kept the flame burning until the early '90s.  In fact, last year I wrote up his latest solo endeavor, New Songs, Old Stories.  It was the Pengwins 1988 Mad About the Band ep that put the Pengwins on my radar, albeit posthumously. 

As I mentioned in my 2011 post, that ep was essentially where the band's discography began and ended.  That's about the change, starting with the first volume in a staggering sixteen part series of 7" singles, that come housed in a handsome flip-top cardboard box, complete with beautiful packaging.  Each single will feature one new song from the reunited Pengwins, and one vintage Pengwins song, remixed/remastered for the twenty-first century.  Housed in the box along with the 45 will be a CD of the tracks, a download card, and an assortment of band memorabilia - buttons, pics, stickers, and in the case of Volume 1, some thoughtful liner notes.  

The vintage rarity for the premiere 45 is none other than the Pengwins 1977 signature-song "Life After the High School," a primo four-minute salvo that could go toe to toe with anything the Shoes and Dwight Twilley were responsible for during the same era.  "Naive" is the new selection, and ironically, it's a sobering reflection on, well...life after high school. 

The single/box is available from CD Baby and by emailing SpyderPop through their website.  A digital version of the tracks (as well as 30 second previews) are also available via CD Baby and Amazon downloads, but seriously, you'll want the physical version and all it's accompanying trimmings.  The Mad About the Band ep is still available for the taking here. 

Notes on new music: The Pengwins and Trip Wire

Just about every year (or two) a rather unique musical package comes down that pike that few people in the world are aware of.  Luckily a decent chunk us are Pengwins fans, and we're fully down with the program.  As a means of archiving (and now disseminating) the recordings of his locally vaunted power pop act, Lannie Flowers has done something unique with his Pengwins catalog, by reissuing one vintage song from their original late '70s incarnation and placing it on a 7" disk, pairing it with a considerably more recent recording.  But merely releasing a "single" won't suffice...so how about decking that 45 out in a full color box containing photos, a CD of the single with extra audio goodies, a download card, liner notes, and some appropriately associated paraphernalia?  They've done it again with Volume 4 of this incredibly rewarding series, and if the swag isn't enticing alone how 'bout the tunes?  The a-side, the 2007 recorded the Danny Wilkerson penned "Go Away" is as fine as anything they've committed to tape, sounding like something Cheap Trick would have been proud to put their stamp on back in their '70s/early '80s heyday.  And speaking of the '70s, the ballad-esque "oldie" on the flip, "Just a Dream" circulates back to 1977.  The CD also tacks on an alternate mix of "Go Away" and "Ladybug," an early iteration of "Just a Dream."  The whole enchilada is available from Spyderpop Records.  For more details on the Pengwins reissues series, check out one of our earlier entries here.

It’s not the core TripWire lineup of Marty Schneider and Bill Hunt that garnered my attention , so much as the new buck that’s been welcomed into the fold, none other than Jeff Shelton of Well Wishers and Spinning Jennies renown.   To my understanding, the San Fran-based Trip Wire had already carved out a power pop reputation for themselves, and with Shelton on deck that proposition has been further cemented on the band’s sophomore long-player, Cold Gas Giants.   In fact, the selections here the man in question belly’s up to the mic for, “I’m Not the Enemy” and “Growing Old” bear a discernibly crunchy, riff-rock penchant.  To a certain extent, Shelton’s contributions stand in contrast to much of the remainder of CGG, an album that finds this combo finagling with various accoutrements from horns to a string section.   Schneider is the one who predominantly wields the Trip Wire songwriting quill, and he’s wont to operate in a traditional singer/songwriter context.   The band gets by capably, and even exudes some diversity, but I have to wonder how much more of a treat Cold Gas Giants would have amounted to if they opted to color outside the lines every now and then.  You can hear and purchase it for yourself through Bandcamp, Kool Kat Music, and Amazon. 

Sorrows - Love Too Late...The Real Album & Big Stir Singles - The Ninth & Tenth Wave's

It was inevitable, but in the most rewarding way possible.  At some point I knew I was going to be bitten by the Big Stir Records bug.  The power pop-centric label established around 2017 first staked their claim by releasing dozens of digital singles from up and coming acts with a few "vintage" names on their roster as well (Jim Basnight of the Moberlys and Lannie Flowers of The Pengwins renown come to mind).  It wasn't until a couple of years later that Big Stir began to release full lengths, this time physically on CD.  CD compilations of the imprint's digital singles have proven to be extremely popular and the label is up to their thirteenth volume already (which I'll address along with the ninth and tenth installments below). Moreover, Big Stir Records has been a boon a for fans of traditional power-pop, the kind championed by sadly bygone labels like Not Lame and Big Deal. 

So what Big Stir release in particular made me take that one giant leap for ear-kind, so to speak?  A rebooted version of the Sorrows second LP, Love Too Late, originally released in 1981, and more flawed and compromised at the time than I could have ever imagined. The NYC based four-piece sprouted in 1977, at the height of punk and were a fixture at all the usual spaces like CBGS's and Max's Kansas City.  Though the Sorrows weren't punk by definition they certainly fooled a lot of their followers, who by the time of their 1980 album Teenage Heartbreak, issued by an affiliate label of CBS (Pavillion) had tamed their sound to a savvy but loose amalgamation of the Heartbreakers and the Romantics. Although they weren't necessarily dangling on the cutting edge of the power-pop/wave movement, Teenage Heartbreak was a phenomenally great debut and an undeniable hit with the cult that adopted the Sorrows. The record garnered them a small but respectable national fanbase, but the bean-counters at CBS expected a bigger return on their investment...and would go to enormous and craven lengths to ensure the band's '81 follow-up, Love Too Late, would yield the kind of revenue they insisted on.

Per the liner notes of Love Too Late...The Real Album, by late 1980 the band was prepping their second record.  Evidently, things were going well for the Sorrows before they strapped in for a flight to London to work with their high-pedigree dream producer Shel Talmy, who had made a name for himself working with everyone from the Who to the Kinks.  Unfortunately, Talmy and the band's management at CBS were steering the ship, and the Sorrows soon became unwitting and reluctant passengers.  On Teenage Heartbreak the vocals were a group effort between guitarists Arthur Alexander and Joey Cola, plus bassist Ricky Street, but for Love Too Late it was decided to whittle the mic responsibilities to just one member (presumably Alexander)... and a host of random session vocalists, apparently brought aboard to compensate for the rawer angularities of the quartet proper.  Although details are scant, original drummer Jett Harris' parts were substituted with those of yet another rando studio hack, against the Sorrow's blessing.  By and large the idea for LTL was to de-emphasize the band's vigorous guitar attack and play up synthesizers, that to my knowledge the band had no desire to bring to the table. The Sorrows exited the British isles with a record they were not merely dissatisfied with, but one which they felt was completely unrepresentative of them - literally and metaphorically. Love Too Late arrived in the marketplace in 1981, but given sluggish sales and the soul-crushing scenario presented above, it ultimately led to the band's premature dissolution. A full four decades later the erroneous album was finally rerecorded to the band's satisfaction by a majority of the original lineup in the guise of the aptly titled Love Too Late...The Real Album. 

For those who've heard it, surface level, there isn't anything necessarily wrong with the original '81 incarnation of LTL.  In fact, it's a thoroughly presentable and often enjoyable album with plenty of spicy guitar parts, but the band's power and panache is diminished for a far slicker m.o., to the point where they could pass for an updated Raspberries. You could certainly do worse, but again this wasn't the intention of the Sorrows.  For example, comparing the original/recently revised takes of Love Too Late's reved-up opening salvo "Christabelle" the backing vocals sound almost "canned" compared to the considerably more natural sounding accompaniment on this years "corrected" version.  Furthermore, purely from a sonic standpoint, the Real Album revision is discernibly more organic, and packs more of a bite. Similarly, the Beatles-indebted "Rita" is comparatively subtle and ineffectual in it's ho-hum 1981 state, whereas this year's model (literally, you could say) is crisp and catchy, with virtually every single component of the arrangement more prominent in the mix. Ditto for many if not all of the tunes when compared head-to-head.  In essence, The Real Album strikes me as the ultimate remix/remaster job, but these are in fact entirely rerecorded takes (with the great Robbie Rist enlisted as co-engineer I might add).  From the get go, Love Too Late was never going to be a desert island disc, and neither iteration of the record surpasses the energy and grit of the band's debut, Teenage Heartbreak.  Instead, the point of The Real Album was to finally scratch a forty-year itch, and right what was seen as an egregious wrong from the vantage of the record's four architects - and that's precisely what the Sorrows have accomplished here.   

Perhaps the only thing surpassing the popularity of Big Stir's copious deluge of digital singles is their quickly accumulating CD compilations of them. Before I give you a quick rundown of the Ninth and Tenth volumes, I should mention I'm already behind the eight-ball, as Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth installments exist as I type this!   Anyway, onto the Ninth Wave depicted to your left. The Persian Leaps don't appear until four songs in ("PRN") but I'd be more than content to move these folks to the head of the class given their crunchy and assertive aplomb.  Rossie Abbott arouses some well-placed yacht rock maneuvers via "Hold On," David Brooking's "Livin' Through the Plague" is as clever and spot on as current events get, and The Brothers Steve shake my proverbial bottle of ketchup as well. Irene Peña turns in a pair of Fountains of Wayne renditions, with her reading of "The Summer Place" being especially appealing, and Nick Frater's splendid "Alone Again (Naturally)" emanates Paul McCartney more than Arthur Lee and Love.

And speaking of Macca,  yet another wellspring of silly love songs abound on Big Stir's Tenth Wave singles collection.  What sweet a surprise to meet my eyes/ears than the inclusion of two songs by Melbourne, Australia's Icecream Hands, a band I assumed went the way of the buffalo almost two decades back. Sounding right and tight as ever I'm happy to say. Nick Frater's "California Waits" strikes me as the should-have-been feel-good anthem of this summer, while Anton Barbeau and Allyson Seconds' "Octagon" shapes up as a perfect example of twenty-first century power pop. More notably, this batch of 22 tunes features a bouquet of striking covers. NPFO Stratagem take two very different songs to task - Ringo Starr's "Back Off Boogaloo" and more surprisingly a lounge-induced rendering of The Dead Kennedys' "Nazi Punks Fuck Off." October Surprise tackle John Cale's "Paris 1919," The Popdudes take on "O-o-h Child," and The Incurables transform "Muskrat Love" into something fairly raucous. 

All of the aforementioned titles are available now through Big Stir's homepage, Bandcamp and Amazon. Be on the look out for an exceedingly limited red-vinyl pressing of the Sorrows Love Too Late...The Real Album!