When I was young, the prospect of listening to anything by a band that called itself as a “Bay Area supergroup” would have been an aural horror show in the making. Journey was “Bay Area music” back then. Emerson, Lake & Palmer was a supergroup. Heck, Journey consisted of former members of Santana and The Steve Miller Band. It was a “Bay Area supergroup” all by itself.
But time marches on. I’ve lived in the Bay Area for the past fifteen years.
Agony Aunts bills itself as a “Bay Area psych-pop supergroup.” It features members of The Corner Laughers and The Orange Peels, among others. The first two lines of The Corner Laughers‘ song, “Chicken Bingo” — “They asked us where we came from, we said San Francisco/They asked again, we said outer space” — is noted as my “favorite quotation” on Facebook. The circle becomes complete.
Agony Aunts‘ 2010 release, Greater Miranda, is a delectable concoction of sunshine pop, power pop, chamber pop and bubblegum pop, punctuated by occasional psychedelic flourishes and anchored by quizzical lyrics like “[h]e flaunts a billion fortunes and sleeps with frayed eyes split.” Whatever that means, it sure sounds great. The whole record is also beautifully sung and filled to the brim with glistening male-female harmonies. They get special props for constructing a one-minute plus piece of meringue, “RB & YM,” around five words (“Rob Black and your money”) and a bunch of “buh, buh, buhs.” Not taking things too seriously is a major virtue on this blog.
The band recently dropped three songs in advance of the November issuance of their next long player, Big Cinnamon. They’re just as good as anything on Greater Miranda.
The lead track, “Twenty-four Mergansers” is 100% hook until about the 1:38 mark. That’s when a synth that would have made Emerson, Lake & Palmer proud back in ’71 takes over, followed by a wall of cascading guitar sound. Calm is soon restored, however, to allow the hooks to lead the way home:
“Family Drugs” sticks a swaying, almost laid-back mid-70s arrangement around a song about bottling up “spaniel rage.” Its all sewn together by those perfect male-female harmonies.
“We Got The Jekyll” is a more straight ahead (at least for them) mid-tempo rocker about dealing with one’s demons, or so it seems because “the Lord will provide you with endless supplies of dirt.” It closes with some more 70’s-sounding synth work fighting with demonic laughter for center stage:
Based on these early teasers, Big Cinnamon promises to deliver big when it is released in full this fall. I have made my peace with “Bay Area music” and “supergroups.”
Time does have a tendency to fly away. Here are some short takes on some of the best albums of 2013 that have been recently spinning on my music device:
Eric Barao, EricBarao: Barao’s lushly produced debut album recalls Elvis Costello’sImperial Bedroom with its swirling melodies, complex arrangements, occasional instrumental flourishes and tales of broken hearts. The lead track, “On Holiday,” with its tension-release structure and Barao’s strong vocals, is a candidate for song of the year:
Nick Piunti, 13 In My Head: Piunti’s debut evokes one of my other all-time favorites, The Replacements. He employs a more basic approach. Bass, guitars and drums propel succinct bursts of timeless powerpop that could have been recorded at any time since 1972. Piunti’sPaul Westerberg-meets-Faces-era-Rod-Stewart vocals, and pitch-perfect backing harmonies, should make this a car stereo favorite for years to come. Selecting a “best” song is difficult — there is not a misfire among the ten tracks — but the mid-tempo “On the Way Out” is a good place to start:
The Dead Girls, Fade In/Fade Out:Think Big Star, but about a dozen pounds heavier. Fade In/Fade Out has all of the requisite melodic rock elements discussed throughout this site, but amped up with big riffs and occasionally even bigger percussion. “Find Your Way To Me (Oh My Soul)” is the best six-minute plus song Big Star never recorded. For good measure, the band closes the collection with a perfect, harmony-filled cover of Chris Bell’s enduringly beautiful “You And Your Sister”:
Scott Brookman, Smellicopter: Brookman has been quietly self-releasing sunny pop gems for quite some time. His 2000 release, For Those Who Like POP, has gotten quite a few spins on iPhone. Smellicopter, though, is his best excursion to date into BeachBoys/Bacharach territory. The second track, “Summer’s Two Weeks Notice” might be the best exemplar of Brookman’s basic style with its decidedly Pet Sounds vibe, but I’m kind of partial to more jaunty “Very Anne”:
Lisa Mychols, Above Beyond & In Between:I’ve written previously about Mychols as a member of the Masticators and Nushu. Her third solo album is a perfect distillation of everything that was once great about AM radio, transported to 2013. Its twelve tracks of non-stop hooks and melodies that would sound great on a long, sunny day at the beach. It proudly flashes its influences, but is no mere nostalgia project. A proper, well-produced video for the terrific ballad “Ferris Wheel” can be found here, but Mychols’ own homemade, low-fi clip for the upbeat “Foolin’ The World” is far more endearing:
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So, there’s five of my favorite albums of 2013. Each are worthy of extended play. Tell me what you think.
A friend posted recently on the scheduled closing later this month of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. This prompted memories of bands seen there in days gone by, particularly back in high school. The Jam, The Clash, XTC and even U2 played there back in the late-70s and early-80s. I commented that our parents had driven our 15 year-old selves to and from “The Civic” one night to see 999 and the Dickies.
999 and the Dickies!Now that’s really going back in time. I can’t even recall the last time I heard either of those two bands. The crowd at The Civic went nuts that night in March 1980 when 999 played their then-signature tune “Homicide.”
But that also got me thinking. Our parents took us to and from a whole lot of shows before either of us could drive. The Plimsouls in Hollywood and The Who at the Los Angeles Sports Arena came first to mind.
But I also recalled a parent-facilitated evening at either The Starwood, The Whisky or the Roxy to see The Naughty Sweeties back in ’79 or ’80. The Naughty Sweeties? They had a local “hit” back then that garnered a lot of air time on Rodney Bingenheimer’s Sunday night show on KROQ.
“Alice” was not necessarily a typical tune to grace the airwaves in the late-70s. It starts with an image of the aftermath of a friend’s drunken sex in a car with the singer’s girlfriend: “Pink panties on your rear view mirror/Beer cans in the back/I see that you’re going out with Alice/Won’t you give my girlfriend back,” it begins. Not exactly “I wish that I had Jessie’s girl.” More like “You had Jessie’s girl.”
The song also features great hooks, a driving melody, Ian Jack’s increasingly frantic vocals and a pounding chorus about the supposed friend taking advantage of the “hot blooded” Alice. “Why you want to make it when you know that she’s my girl?” Jack pleads as each chorus concludes before the tension begins again.
All of this kept “Alice” in my mind for more than 30 years even though I have no idea when I had last heard the 7-inch pictured at the top of the page. Luckily, someone out there ripped it from vinyl and stuck it up on You Tube:
The Naughty Sweeties called it quits around 1982, although the internet continues to memorialize the happening of a reunion show in 1987 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Madame Wong’s, another local Los Angeles independent music hot spot from the old days. Esther Wong recalled paying the band only $60 to play at her club in 1979. “They had a $300 bar tab,” Wong noted.
Drinking the profits. A venerable tradition in rock and roll.
The Sharp Things is a “a New York City-based chamber pop collective” led by Perry Serpa. By day, Serpa is a principal in Good Cop Public Relations, whose past clients include Sonic Youth and Evan Dando of Lemonheads fame. Green Is Good is the Serpa and company’s fourth long-player, and its one of the more intriguing releases in quite some time.
“Chamber pop” is an apt description for Green Is Good, which seamlessly stitches together dozens of different influences into a cohesive quilt of modern pop. No two songs on the collection sound quite the same. That’s a very good thing in hands as sure as Serpa’s which are equally comfortable with late-60s baroque pop, soul, modern rock, disco and country.
The opening track, “Blame The Bankers,” is catchy, horn-drenched soulful agitprop. “The Piper” is a quiet, contemplative tune that could have been done by The Kinks around 1970. “Here Comes The Maestro” would have gotten the entire house onto the dance floor in the mid-80s.
All of this is just warm-up for the transcendent sunshine pop of “Flowers For My Girl,” the best song in the collection. “She keeps on talking, but I’m not at home/My mind is reaching back to afternoon on Sunday/Kissing, laughing, running ’round your bed/So sorry, haven’t listened to a word you said,” it begins before building to a veritable street parade of pure joy by the time the chorus hits:
“Goodbye To Golders Green” takes the opposite tack over a decidedly minimal, minor chord arrangement.
“I Know You’re Gonna Break My Heart” has the kind of sophisticated adult country pop feel of a Jimmy Webb tune sung by Glen Campbell in the late-60s, with Serpa and guest singer, Laura Cantrell, supplying perfectly weary, soulful vocals:
“Dogs of Bushwick” is an autobiographical look at the frustrations of a songwriter felt over many years. “Its a dangerous endeavor/And its much like a drug/Cos you think that your’re winning/But, its never enough/Till the money’s gone/Still the urge is twice as strong,” Serpa sings against a slow swirl anchored by a piano and strings:
Green Is Good is indeed very, very good. There is not a bum track out of ten. It is currently available as a “name your price” download on Bandcamp. That means you could have it for “free.” But, put a couple of dollars in the tip jar nevertheless. It is well worth it.
A piece I wrote last year on the digital download-only reissue of the expanded version Starbelly’s 1998 release, Lemonfresh, has evaporated into the digital ether. So I am updating it and re-publishing it, here.
Back in 1998, three guys put out a limited release, eleven track CD of Rubber Soul/Big Star-oriented chiming guitar pop on Not Lame Recordings called Lemonfresh to great acclaim. The CD sold out, and disappeared. Not Lame reissued the CD in 2009 with twelve bonus tracks and a CR-R of a live show. Not Lame went out-of-business in 2010. You can buy the CD re-issue of Lemonfresh used for about $60 — if you can find it.
But nothing really dies in the age of the internet. So enter Futureman Records. Futureman, though, does not merely issue “records.” It also re-issues lost Power Pop classics, exclusively by digital download, from its perch on Bandcamp. The twenty-three track reissue of Lemonfresh is available now for the princely sum of $10, in virtually any digital format you desire.
Lemonfresh is as fresh today as it was fourteen years ago. The “record” is seventy-plus minutes of non-stop hooks, melodies, chiming jangly guitars, occasional big beats and consistently clean production. It has all of the stuff to be a massive hit in a different world. But in our world, we can just drink down its poppy goodness.
The opening track, “This Time,” sets the tone for all that comes afterward. It’s a one-minute forty-three second look at romantic disentanglement — attempted, imagined or achieved — set amid perfect vocal harmonies, concise guitars and driving beat:
“She’s So Real” is the kind of song that will play in your head for hours after listening, with its direct statement of lyrical and musical purpose, and the tasty interplay between the lead vocals and background harmonies:
“What You Will” might very well have the blueprint for half of everything Wilco has done since 1999’s Summerteeth. It’s all about personal illusion, or delusion — “Look under your bed/it’s all in your head” — punctuated by strings and those pitch perfect harmonies, once again:
Indeed,Lemonfresh features just about the consistently best vocals you will hear on any rock record, well, this year — even though it was recorded in the late-1990s. Guitarist Cliff Hillis and bassist Dennis Schocket trade lead vocals over the course of the twenty-three tracks, lending the songs a distinct yin-and-yang feel that keeps the proceedings all the more interesting over the course of an hour-and-change. And, as is required in this genre, Lemonfresh features a song about a particular girl. “Letters To Mary” closed the original 1998 release, and would have felt at home on Abbey Road:
There truly is not a weak track on the expanded version of Lemonfresh. That’s quite an achievement over twenty-three songs. Play it in your car and it will keep your head bopping throughout that long, boring commute.
Although Hillis left the band after Lemonfresh was released, and the band hasn’t put out anything new since 2002, he has said that the original members of Starbelly, along with his replacement, are working on new songs for a future release. The band also in playing at one of the shows in the New York installment of this year’s International Pop Overthrow.
In the meantime, though, give Futureman 43 cents for each of the twenty-three songs on Lemonfresh. That’s a steal.
The last two posts have discussed the AM rock and roll radio experience of the late-60s and early-70s. That kind of music — un-pretentious, hook-and-melody-laden and devoid of big statements and philosophizing — can still be found if you know where to look.
One of those places is right here, in this post. Embedded below is a playlist that I uploaded to 8 Tracks containing full-length versions of songs from my personal collection. The playlist has fourteen tracks, clocking in at about 46 minutes. That’s a reasonable approximation of the quantity of music contained on the LPs from days gone by. The title –“Put The Needle On The Record”– was chosen with that in mind.
Several of the acts represented — The Shazam, The Grip Weeds, Starbelly, Eytan Mirsky, Lannie Flowers, Sun Sawed in 1/2 — have been discussed in recent posts on this site. Many of the songs have that “Raspberries quality” — ringing guitars, simple declarations of romantic yearning, and that trademark “bright and shiny” sound — discussed in last week’s post. The best examples are the songs by Myracle Brah, Starbelly and Love Nut — each of which feature the incomparable Andy Bopp as either the principal artist or producer — and the tracks by Chris Richards and the Subtractions and Blue Cartoon.
Here is the track list:
1. “Talk To Me” — Myracle Brah
2. “Calling Sydney” — The Shazam
3. “Infinite Soul” — The Grip Weeds
4. “She’s So Real” — Starbelly
5. “Don’t Do Anything Tonight” — Chris Richards and the Subtractions
6. “Another Week Or Two” — Eytan Mirsky
7. “It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This” — Eugene Edwards
8. “Give Me A Chance” — Lannie Flowers
9. “You Should Have Known Better” — Blue Cartoon
10. “If You Go Away” — Love Nut
11. “I Love You Baby (But I Hate Your Friends)” — The Dahlmanns
The most recent post on this site discussed the AM rock experience of the late-60s and early-70s. By the early-70s, though, that experience would not have been complete without the frequent appearance of the K-Tel compilation extravaganzas.
The name “K-Tel” was obviously intended to evoke a radio station playing an assortment of “original hits” by the “original artists,” even if some of those “original hits” were severely edited so they could all fit on a single vinyl platter.But at $3.98 for at least 20 songs, you couldn’t really complain about clipped version of some of the tunes. “Radio edits” appeared frequently on 45’s back then, so the practice was hardly novel.
The 1973 release, Fantastic, is the one that most sticks out in my mind. Besides its groovy rainbow cover, the record managed to combine some great moments in pop history with sheer, unabashed garbage. One minute, you’ve got Elton John at the beginning of the peak or his powers doing “Crocodile Rock,” the next minute you’ve got Donny Osmond doing “The Twelfth Of Never.” One minute, you’ve got Bill Withers’ soulful, earnest “Lean On Me,” the next minute you’ve got Focus yodeling their way through “Hocus Pocus.”
The best thing on the disk, however, was “I Wanna Be With You” by The Raspberries. Along with Big Star and Badfinger, The Raspberries comprise the holy triumvirate of early-70s rock bands that influenced all of the Power Pop that came afterward.
“I Wanna Be With You” was not, however, the first song by The Raspberries to grace a K-Tel disk. Their three-minute ode to convincing a certain lady friend to have sex, “Go All The Way,” anchored a prior K-Tel release, Believe In Music. On that one, K-Tel quite nicely displayed its penchant for the yin and the yang and the good and the bad. Believe In Music also included the aforementioned Mr. Osmond doing “Go Away Little Girl” as a kind of counter-perspective to Eric Carmen’s relentless persistence in trying to get his sweetheart to “please, please go all the way.” K-Tel was not about to be accused of bias.
“I Wanna Be With You” is a perfect pop song, with its ringing guitars, pounding beat, simple call-and-response chorus repeated several times and Carmen’s spot-on, expressive vocals. Although treading the same thematic ground as “Go All The Way,” ‘I Wanna Be With You” is a tad less blatant in its declaration of romantic desire. But only a tad:
If we were older we wouldn’t have to be worried tonight
Baby, oh, I wanna be with you so bad
Oh baby I wanna be with you
Oh yeah … well tonight
Tonight we always knew it would feel so right
So come on baby, I just wanna be with you
Perhaps you could say that “I just wanna be with you” is not the same things as “please, please go all the way,” but that might be making a fine line distinction that Carmen probably did not intend. Both are great songs, among the best of the entire decade of the 1970s. Here’s an excellent live performance of “I Wanna Be With You” from 1978:
The Raspberries’ influence on the music discussed on this site was immense, as we shall see in a future post.
My profile on a now-defunct site said that one of my earliest memories of music involved sitting in the backseat of my parents’ avocado green late-60s Chevy Malibu listening endlessly to 93KHJ while stuck in traffic in Los Angeles. The Chevy Malibu, with its black top and black vinyl seats, looked like this:
KHJ ruled the roost in Los Angeles for many years. Its Boss Radio format was copied all over the country:
On May 3, 1965, KHJ was the site chosen for the birth of the new format designed by Bill Drake and Gene Chenault. Ron Jacobs was selected as the first Program Director. BOSS RADIO utilized a tight rotation, top drawer talent, and the elimination of almost all non-essential talk. The Johnny Mann Singers’ jingles didn’t hurt either. Within months, the format spread from coast to coast, and Boss Radio was the king in most markets.
The blogsite 93 KHJ/Boss Radio collects an abundant amount of old Boss Radio material, including images of the station’s weekly Top 30 “Records In Southern California.” These weekly Top 30 lists were available for years “wherever records are sold.” Back then, that included department stores. I remember picking them up at the May Company on Pico Boulevard.
The top songs were, of course, played several times a day. Spending a lot of time in the car, or listening to KHJ at home with the flu, would sear those songs forever into your memory.
It wasn’t just repetition that glued those songs to your mind. It was also the nature of the two-and-a-half minute pop song of the-late 60s and early-70s. They were hooks and melody, hooks and melody, hooks and melody. They were intended to stay in your mind for hours, days and weeks.
Here is the Top 30 from February 22, 1967, as it appears on the Boss Radio site.
“Happy Together” by TheTurtles was No. 1.
“Ruby Tuesday” by The Rolling Stones was No. 3.
“There’s A Kind Of Hush/No Milk Today” by Herman’s Hermits was No. 7 (although “No Milk Today” is the vastly superior track).
“I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)” by The Electric Prunes was No. 10.
“Gimme Some Lovin'” by The Spencer Davis Group was No. 17.
“(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet” by The Blues Magoos was No. 23.
The greatest double-sided single of all-time, “Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever,” debuted on the chart that week at No. 13.
The following week saw the debut on the chart of “Live” by The Merry-Go-Round, one of the greatest pieces of Southern California “sunshine pop” ever put to wax.
Just reading that list, and looking at other late-60s, early-70s lists on the Boss Radio site, will cause an endless number of songs to run through your mind for a very long time.
This all changed by the mid-70s. Melodic rock on the AM dial was replaced by Bloat Rock (Boston, Kansas, Supertramp), Cock Rock (Foreigner) and Plain Old Boring Rock (Bad Company). Kiss and Queen are certifiable geniuses in comparison. Punk and New Wave were cultural imperatives. They just had to happen.
Fast-forward to today. A company called Zikera has created a wonderful application for iOS and Windows 8 devices called “Groove.” Among other things, it sans your devices to create “Groovy Mixes” of songs that work well together based, in part, on data supplied by Last.fm users. It has become my most used “app” since it automatically creates an endless array of playlists.
I was driving to work the other day and a particular “Groovy Mix” played three consecutive songs that, combined, perfectly capture the essence of the melodic rock that comprised the Boss Radio of the late-60s and early-70s.
The aptly named “Pop Sound” by The Masticators came up first. The Masticators were a late-90s Los Angelers-based Power Pop band made up, in part, by Lisa Mychols, about whom I wrote recently. Futureman Records has issued a 33-track compendium of the band’s entire recorded output. Its worth checking out in its entirety for some of the tightest, most head-bopping-est Power Pop around. “Pop Sound” is just that — a joyous, three-chord celebration of rhythm and melody anchored by Mychols’ confident, sexy vocals and a driving, basic beat:
Next up was “Pete Ham” by Crash Into June, a tribute to the late Badfinger singer/songwriter/guitarist. It begins with this bit of resonance: “What’s that song it sounds like heaven/I heard it once when I was seven/You could say it reminds me of summer days/Summer days.” True that, true that. It continues shortly later: “It’s got the 60’s British feeling/Hooks that keep me on the ceiling/I hear it now, its got that pure infectious sound/It keeps my head all spinning around/Spinning around.”
“Pete Ham” is three-and-a-half minutes of pure jangle pop perfection:
The final song in my commuting trilogy was “She Dreams,” from Michael Carpenter’s 1999 debut Baby. “She Dreams” is perfect, joyful “sunshine pop” that gives “Live” a run for its money:
So, there you have it. The old AM rock radio groove hasn’t disappeared in these days of overly processed, mechanical dance pop. You just have to know where to find it. When you do, you will be transported to another place
The Windbreakers were a Mississippi-based band, comprised primarily of Bobby Sutliff and Tim Lee, that released a half-dozen records in the 80s and 90s in the kind of Byrds/Big Star jangle pop/psychedelic amalgam that R.E.M. rode to great success. Although similar success eluded The Windbreakers, Sutliff and Lee are gifted composers and superb guitar players. One of the best examples of their craft is the simply gorgeous, then-new song they recorded as the title track to the band’s 2002 compilation, Time Machine:
Outside of The Windbreakers, Sutliff and Lee have both done about a half-dozen other records each, and have appeared on various compilations and tribute records as performers, songwriters and producers. In June 2012, however, Sutliff was involved in a serious automobile accident near his home in Powell, Ohio. Lee wrote:
At the time, the prognosis was guarded, albeit not particularly promising. But Bobby survived his multiple injuries, and after a month or so of sedation, he slowly began making progress. Eventually, the pace picked up, and his condition continued to improve at an amazing speed. Before long, he was back home and closing in on 100 percent recovery.
But Sutliff’s un-paid medical bills were enormous. Lee thus organized ab bunch of friends to make a tribute record of Sutliff’s songs, an perform a concert in Atlanta, to raise money to defray the expenses. The resulting record, Skrang — a term coined by Sutliff to describe “the sound of an open chord on an electric guitar” — is likely one of the best things you will hear this year. It features performances by long-time purveyors of melodic rock and Power Pop, and not a single bum performance over 18 tracks.
Velvet Crush and Matthew Sweet get the set off to a rollicking start with the ringing “Second Choice.” John Stirrat, best known for his work as Wilco’s bass player, gives “Girl From Washington” a particularly tender feel in front of Lee’s stellar 6 & 12 sting guitar work. Matt Piucci, an original member of Rain Parade who later recorded with Lee in Gone Fishin’, enlists some of his old bandmates for a fuzzy, psychedelic take on “That Stupid Idea.” The Anderson Council play down their more typical Syd Barretisms on “Griffin Bay,” and turn out one of the best, most rocking tracks on the set. Its much more Grip Weeds than “See Emily Play.” Bill Lloyd goes it alone and gives “Same Way Tomorrow,” a slightly updated, smoother take on the Sutliff solo track from 1987. Michael Carpenter, one of my current favorites, lends his typically terrific vocals to “Long Red Bottle Of Wine,” widens the sound and manages to improve on the original:
I could probably write something effusive about each of the 18 tracks on this set. Its just that good. The first-rate quality of Sutliff’s compositions shine through on each of the tracks. Even though some of the performances purposefully veer into territory that is somewhat different than the original version of the songs, the collection has an overall cohesive quality to it that makes listening from start-to-finish a joy. It’s available for $12 from Paisley Pop, and well worth every dime. All proceeds, of course, benefit Sutliff.
The soundtrack of my summer of 1984 was comprised largely of two double-records that helped stretch the boundaries of “punk rock” and combined cost less than $5,000 to record. They were Double Nickels On The Dime by The Minutemen, and Zen Arcade by Hüsker Dü.
All told, these two five-star records packed nearly 70 songs into 143 minutes of sonic wonderment, ranging from punk to funk to jazz to psychedelia to noise to folk to something approaching pop. The two records were relentless and occasionally “in your face.” They were sometimes indulgent. They were sometimes silly. They were “all over the place” in the best way. And they were always brilliant; two of the best of the entire decade.
Less than a year later, HüskerDü dropped an even better record onto the world — and arguably their best — New Day Rising, clocking in at a mere 40 minutes and change. New Day Rising was direct and focused where Zen Arcade was purposefully sprawling and meandering. Combined with numerous instantly hummable melodies, New Day Rising upped the ante even higher on the band’s overall approach to sonically assaulting the ears and the mind.
The best song on the collection is the third track, “I Apologize,” perhaps the single most ferocious piece of Power Pop ever committed to wax. Hüsker Dü, of course, was not the first band to combine a sharp pop melody with the power of punk rock. The Ramones and The Buzzcocks, in particular, did this with great results in the mid and late-70s. The Buzzcocks‘ “Ever Fallen In Love” is a great example of pure pop masquerading as punk rock.
“I Apologize,” however, combined punk and pop even louder and even faster than anything either The Ramones or The Buzzcocks. It did it by matching buzz saw guitars and pounding percussion and bass with a perfect hook and a classic pop plea of frustration and self-righteousness: “I apologize/I apologize/I apologize/Said I’m sorry (Said I’m sorry)/Now it’s your turn/Can you look me in the eyes and apologize?” go the key lyrics. “I Apologize” is as raw, as powerful and as likely to bounce around in your mind for hours or days as it was when it was released nearly thirty years ago:
The band recently dropped three songs in advance of the November issuance of their next long player, Big Cinnamon. They’re just as good as anything on Greater Miranda.
Pop That Goes Crunch! 