Jim Cushinery, Marty Ross, and Bobby Tews have finally arrived. The story of The Wigs is a bit of an west coast legend. Formed in Milwaukee and after building a local fanbase in 1982, they piqued the interest of CBS Records and recorded a shining gem of an album, but ended up with infamous manager Stanley Polley (Badfinger fans take note). As the paperwork was being drawn up to commence recording of The Wigs’ major label debut, CBS became embroiled in a hostile takeover attempt and the album was allowed to die on the vine with a limited release. Now, on the 25th anniversary of “File Under: Pop Vocal’s” release, Marty and Jim have undertaken a remix of the original tapes, for a first-time ever release on CD.
And if you loved the eighties and that era’s skinny tie power pop sound, The Wigs are a gift from the music gods to you. They traded in melodies that could be extremely sweet, yet delivered with too much muscle to be simply lumped in with other more saccharine power pop outfits of the time. Opening with “I Can See It Now” it has the sharp rhythms and fast drumbeats that fit in with the classic sounds of The Records, The Beat and Pezband. The following “180 degrees” has a great looping melody and a great slow middle eight that brings to mind The Raspberries or The Toms. Next “Susie’s Got A Problem” with it’s Costello-like vocal approach and references to “Elvis, Beatles ,DC-5” it even has guitar breaks that recall Buddy Love. The album is relentless with the style and quality of it’s songwriting. It even takes a Rockabilly detour with “First Time” that would give Brian Setzer a run for his money. The songs continue with a near perfect energy booster in “Tijuana” and then takes a breath with the ballad “Popular Girl” complete with wonderful harmonies in the chorus. Then a rousing cover of “Mony, Mony” that made me forget that Billy what’s-his-name. The tune “It’s Over” gets the Rick Springfield meets The Knack sound down as well. The guitar work on each song is some of the best I’ve heard in a long time, and no filler either. That’s 14 tracks of greatness here, and it makes my top ten list of 2009. The quality of music has been so good recently, I may need to expand the top ten this year, as Roy Scheider mentioned in Jaws, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat. “
The Tattle Tales specialize in fun modern pop-punk that follows in the footsteps of Green Day and Weezer, and Bowling for Soup. You can hear all the youthful exuberance in the opening track “Lucky Girl.” The track speeds along on a traditional pop structure with buzzsaw guitars and a nice twist ending in the lyrics. The combo of guitar and synths on the following “Unconditionally” recall both The Posies and Velvet Crush, where tight melodies hover above the sonic landscape. “Austin Boys” starts softly with a ballad and after a minute explodes in harmonies and guitar textures for the chorus. Next to Rooney, this is the best you’ll get to “modern-styled” power pop I can think of. The sweet meter goes off the charts with “One Lawn Away” where alternating male and female vocals tell an modern version of that old chestnut “dreaming about the girl/boy next door.” Lest things get too sweet, heavy punk riffs come in next with “Oh, God” and “So Wanna Kiss You” lead by Anya. “Sweater” and “Evelyn” stick to the Weezer formula a bit closer, and aren’t as compelling, and “September Girls” drags on way too long. But that is easily made up by the wonderful “When I Get To Heaven,” with a hook that will stick to your brain like a cotton candy and Jellyfish-worthy chord changes. “Her New Company” pumps up the layered textures, much like Superdrag. Way better than most new pop for teens, or young adults with all the right influences that old fogies like me appreciate. This is a great album that pop fans should support.
It is most satisfying when you hear an artist who sounds like he’s lived through this music. And lead singer/songwriter Jeff Davis set up shop with Fergus Griffin (guitar) and Also Silver (bass) to write a big fat love letter to all the girls he’s loved before. The group settled together in San Francisco involved producer Bond Bergland, and producer Jeff Saltzman (Green Day, Two Gallants, The Killers) and included drummer Michael Urbano (Sheryl Crow, Cake, John Hiatt). “Your Star Was Shining” is a gloriously tuneful collection of rock-songs with an emphasis on songwriting and melody. It seems equal influence between Bryan Ferry, T-Rex and Elvis Costello and the opening track “Swandive” is a great opening here, as the rock star Lothario picks up the girl. The next track “Pretend You Don’t See Me” is a slick slice of Britpop with sophisticated arrangements and the delicate “Rocket Girl” is a sweet sister track to Paul Simon’s “Judy’s Comet.” This showcases the brilliant acoustic balladry and it’s one of the best tracks here. Since almost all the songs are about girls, it’s fitting that each one has it’s own unique flavor and most are great pop. “Miss Yugoslavia” is a bouncy mid-tempo number that recalls both McCartney and The Honeydogs, and Davis really sounds Costello-like here. The strutting guitar riffs in “Black Venus” make it another gem, recalling The Stones “Brown Sugar” (in both subject and style). “Queen Of The Forest” is full of sophisticated pop charm and stands as another winning track. I was more enamored by the slower songs on the album, as you can really appreciate the well written lyrics throughout. No fillers here, and the ending track is “Here’s To Absent Friends” melts The Beatles with Oasis-like swagger “We fanned the bonfire/ And we got guitars/ I’ll see you in the ethers, baby” in a richly orchestrated finale.
Overall, a real winner of a debut here and no doubt it makes my top 10 for 2009. Highly recommended and even better… we highly suggest you visit L’Avventura’s Website before March 1st.
After our interview, Roger Manning has continued to tour the interview circuit promoting “Catnip Dynamite” and if you wanted to hear even more from him, Phil Andrews got some more in depth from Roger in his interview from Palo Alto Pop Overthrow. There us also an interview with Ricky Free from Blue Sky Secret, a great new pop talent.
Brandon Schott is an LA-based singer-songwriter who has beaten long odds and my friend at Too Poppy blog is very excited about a new series of FREE demo downloads that Brandon is making available on to the public. The first offering is a cover version of Bjork’s “All is full of love.” He’s also got a video too.
Read about it on the Too Poppy blog. You will want to visit the site on the 10th of every month to get a new song. Or you can just download “All is full of love” now.
Reviewed by Mike Z. Let me get this out of the way right now: This is a Ryan Adams album and the Cardinals are studio musicians with instructions to stay nondescript.
Ryan Adams demonstrates the requisite confidence of a lead man in “Take It Easy”, as he sings with a coolness all artists aspire to and few realize. The coda borders on the anthemic, but one of Adams’ talents is that he has the utmost taste in knowing when a song is over and not fishing it dry. Lyrically this faith in what he sings is underscored by a cursory review of his lyrics. He doesn’t ask many questions, he makes declarations almost exclusively. Some border on the heavy handed, but the sparseness of the music lets you know that this is heartfelt and not preachy. I wish I could say otherwise, but “Magick” starts off with a Bryan Adams riff, and the song remains about on par with anything Bryan did. That is, it doesn’t demand too much attention, but it moves just enough to earn respect as a decent power pop song. “Cobwebs” is almost a love letter to U2. The familiar tom tom rhythm and new wave chords work in concert complete with faux grandiloquent vocals, and the next track (“Let Us Down Easy”) bolsters this assertion, sounding like a lost track from All That You Can’t Leave Behind.
Add half a point to this disc if you are impressed (as is this reviewer) with artists of the singer/songwriter ilk who do not indulge in egregiously long songs and three and four syllable lyrics that ruin any sense of directness or the effect of getting lost in the sentiment of the song. The simplicity of the arrangements gives this effort back much of its credibility. “Stop” is also guilty of not being the first song of its kind, but it definitely reaches through to another degree of emotion and immediacy. This is a lilting, melancholy song, yet it is the one you should seek out. It underscores Adams’ particular talent of letting the spaces between the notes and words do some of the most resounding work. I could see leaving this in my MP3 player and saving it for a night of friends, wine and cheese, background music, and the obligatory Dockers commercial (“What the hell happened to us?”) reference. Cardinology is good enough, however, that I could also envision some furtively asking who is the artist playing.
