Kip Boardman “The Long Weight”
Raised in the northeast on a healthy diet of Jimmy Webb and Rolling Stones, Kip Boardman is a longtime guitar player with style similar to Harry Nillson or Paul Simon. Starting with “All Fall Down” it’s all a low key affair, with sparse guitar arrangements.

The horns and female choral accents on “Runnin’ Right” is like discovering a lost Stevie Wonder-Steely Dan collaboration. “How Could We Guess” is another standout here, along with piano ballads like “Wonderin'” and “This Too Shall Pass.” The songs have a fine Randy Newman styled narrative, but it’s all a bit too laid back for me. Like a gentle summers day, it may be perfectly relaxing or put you to sleep. Definitely worth exploring though.

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Alan Bernhoft “Beatlesque Three”
As a Beatles tribute band, Alan Bernhoft has become quite a cottage industry amongst the fans of the Liverpool legends. After the first two volumes concentrate on the Beatles career before 1966, we move on in time with ‘Beatlesque 3’.

It gingerly starts with “Sunny Sky,” a Rubber Soul styled number and the choruses here are a bit more challenging. This works better on “Everybody Smiles” where Alan does his best Ringo vocal imitation. “Civilization” has a Lennon styled vocal that mimics “Mind Games” and we then move into the Mystery Tour era with a string of verbs that describe how “Bored” our singer is. Alan hits his stride here, and other standouts include “Miss Vonnie” and the Pepperish “Colliding Circles.”

Ari Shine has racked up plenty of miles on the road, opening for artists like Rhett Miller, John Doe, Hugh Cornwell of the Stranglers, Redd Kross, Silversun Pickups, the Donnas, Liam Finn and many others. Ari’s new album is  a product of this experience. “All I’ve Got Is Love” is polished single that incorporates a a strong melody line with power chords aplenty. “Against The Night” and “It’s A Go” are also well produced and slick, but don’t resonate as well as the opener. It gets better with the slow building “Here With Me” as he clearly states “…Everything I need is here with me.” Another standout here is the thrilling “One Silver Morning” with it’s energetic beat akin to Golden Earring’s “Radar Love.” But here it’s updated with Shine’s earthy vocals and swirling guitar riffs.

Little touches on “Better Any day” and “Refuge In You” pull it above standard material here, however the remaining songs fail to approach the intensity of “One Silver Morning.” Overall a good album, but you get the sense that Ari maybe tries too hard on some of the more commercial sounding tracks. Where he shines is on openly melodic stuff like the bonus track “Ship In A Bottle.”

In honor of the 4th annual Record Store Day, Steven Wilson (of Plasticsoul) and Brandon Schott perform a cover version of the Big Star classic “THANK YOU FRIENDS.” This download is limited to 200 units only, so get it quick!