Pop That Goes Crunch!

Seven Decades Of Melodic Rock & Roll

Archive for the tag “The Jam”

24 Aug 2014

The Big Show #8: Good Rockin’ Today

The Big Show #8

This edition of The Big Show continues in the theme-less vein. It begins with three recently released tracks. “Haunted” by Sugar Stems sprinkles its Power Pop with a slight garage rock stomp. “(I’m) Telescoping” by The Hazey Janes has an irresistible swingin’ mid-60’s groove. “Call Me Out” by Chris Richards & The Subtractions will ring around in your ears for hours on end, and features some gorgeous harmonizing. “New” music is also represented by “Try Girl” by The Click Beetles and “The King Of The Sixties” by The Cleaners From Venus.

Tracks from a couple of long-players reviewed on these pages in recent months get a spin. “Warm Sun” by Gen Pop is about hope rising above the gloom. “Change The World” by Toxic Melons is a swirling piece of almost-orchestral pop featuring a great vocal by Linus of Hollywood.

The Clash did not do a whole lot of songs that fit the format of Pop That Goes Crunch radio, but “Stay Free,” from their much-maligned second record, Give ‘Em Enough Rope, is as close to Power Pop that they ever ventured. Its featured in a set with a couple of its contemporary songs from back in the early days of Punk Rock and New Wave: “To Be Someone” by The Jam and “Everywhere That I’m Not” by Translator.

So, why not give it a spin, and check out the main mix at Pop That Goes Crunch radio, streaming 24/7.

The complete track list appears after the embed.

 

Track List

1.  Sugar Stems, “Haunted”

2.  The Hazey Janes, “(I’m) Telescoping”

3.  Chris Richards & The Subtractions, “Call Me Out”

4.  Gen Pop, “Warm Sun”

5.  Toxic Melons, “Change The World”

6.  Tiny Volcano, “Loaded Gun”

7.  The Beach Boys, “Girl Don’t Tell Me”

8.  Greater California, “Five Senses”

9.  The Clientele, “Winter On Victoria Street”

10. The Clash, “Stay Free”

11. The Jam, “To Be Someone”

12. Translator, “Everywhere That I’m Not”

13. The Late Show, “Hey Sue”

14. The Click Beetles, “Try Girl”

15. Phenomenal Cat, “Letters Home From Nazi-Occupied France”

16. The Windbreakers, “Time Machine”

17. Daniel Wylie, “Make Love To The World”

18. Cliff Hillis, “Just One More”

19. Cotton Mather, “Camp Hill Rail Operator (Acoustic)

20. The Cleaners From Venus, “The King of The Sixties”

 

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22 Jun 2014

The Big Show #1: Cover Me

Deep Fried FanclunLast week, I premiered at Pop That Goes Crunch radio, a weekly show hosted by me called “The Big Show.” Each show will be approximately a hour-long. They usually will be themed.

The first show consisted entirely of “covers.” The focus, however, was on covers of well-known songs by well-known artists, but which themselves are not particularly well-known.

Included within “Cover Me” is:

  • Teenage Fanclub covering The Beatles’ “The Ballad Of John & Yoko,” from their odds and sods compilation, Deep Fried Fanclub, pictured above.
  • The Jam covering The Beatles’ “Rain”.
  • Jellyfish covering The Move’s “I Can Hear The Grass Grow.”
  • Wondermints covering Elvis Costello’s “I Hope You’re Happy Now.”
  • Old 97’s covering R.E.M.’s “Driver 8.”

“Cover Me” is posted on Mixcloud, but you can hear it directly in this post by clicking on the picture below. The complete track list appears below that.

 

Track List:

1.  Teenage Fanclub, “The Ballad Of John & Yoko”

2.  Redd Kross, “It Won’t Be Long.”

3.  The Jam, “Rain”

4.  Cheap Trick, “California Man”

5.  Jellyfish, “I Can Hear The Grass Grow.”

6.  Andy Reed, “The Glutton Of Sympathy”

7.  Hippodrome, “Foggy Notion”

8.  Big Star, “Femme Fatale”

9.  The Dead Girls, “You And Your Sister”

10. The Posies, “I Am The Cosmos”

11. Wondermints, “I Hope You’re Happy Now”

12. Elvis Costello, “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down”

13. Grant Lindberg, “On A Plain”

14. Nirvana, “The Man Who Sold The World”

15. R.E.M., “Crazy”

16. Old 97’s, “Driver 8”

17. Kurt Baker, “Hangin’ On The Telephone”

18. The Muffs, “Rock & Roll Girl.”

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13 Feb 2014

We Will All Be Screaming For Joy: The Ice Cream Man Brings Sweet Treats To Pop That Goes Crunch Radio

Ice Cream Man Power Pop And More!

The blogroll to the right has long-included a link to the Ice Cream Man Power Pop And More blog.

For the past several months, the Ice Cream Man has been rocking the world with a weekly radio show spinning the finest in Power Pop, Mod, 60s, New Wave and Northern Soul tunes for discerning ladies and gentlemen from his perch out in Sweeden.

Now, The Ice Cream Man is coming to the US.

Pop That Goes Crunch radio is happy to announce that it will be airing The Ice Cream Man’s weekly show twice a week for your listening pleasure beginning on February 14. You can catch it every Friday night at 7 PM Pacific Standard Time (10 PM on the East Coast), and every Saturday morning at 8 AM Pacific Standard Time (11 AM on the East Coast).

What will you hear on this week’s broadcast?

Tracks from The Cry! (about whom I wrote recently, right here), The Jam (a favorite of mine for more than three decades), Owsley, and The Surf School Dropouts, not to mention a bevy of Northern Soul, the “brutal garage R’n’B” of The Beatpack, the “Aggressive Pop Supreme” of Trees and Timber, the Missouri punk-surf-pop of Popular Mechanics and the “bubblegum Fowley worship garage pop rock” of The Ketamines. And much, much more!

You can’t go wrong with that kind of eclectic line-up. So take an hour out of your week and check out The Ice Cream Man on Pop That Goes Crunch Radio, right here, every Friday night and/or Saturday morning. You will be glad you did.

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14 Oct 2013

The Effection: Lost Power Pop Resurrected

The EffectionThe Effection released its sole long-player, Soundtrack To A Moment, in 2003. Although they hailed from the region in which I live, I can’t say that I paid any attention to them. Neither did too many people, apparently, and Soundtrack To A Moment went out-of-print.

In the digital age, however, what’s old can become new again, and that great resuscitator of given-up-for-dead Power Pop, Futureman Records, recently made Soundtrack To A Moment available for digital download for the ridiculously low price of $7. Go get this one right now, and bask in the glow of its punk rock/new wave Power Pop ripped from the glory days of 1979.

This is apparent from the first line of the opening track, “The Sound Effection,” where the words “this is the sound effection” announces the driving guitar rock that follows, just like The Jam opened its second long-player with the call to arms of “this is the modern world”:

The title track covers similar sonic ground in the mold of The Jam, but spins it with a decidedly American take on the proceedings in a song about “nothing to do around here”:

But Soundtrack To A Moment is not all loud and thrashing punk rock. Its best track, “Somewhere Souvenir,” takes the mid-tempo approach and adds breezy guitars and gorgeous 60s-styled vocal harmonies:

The band even slows it down completely on “Agony,” while throwing in some slightly jangling guitars to go with those great harmonies that fill the entire album:

To say that Soundtrack To A Moment is a “find” out of nowhere is an understatement. Like the best bands of the early days of punk rock and new wave, The Effection move seamlessly from full-fledged high energy rockers to more “sophisticated” and contemplative stuff. It takes you back in time, moves to 2003 and yet sounds entirely fresh a decade later. My only regret is not getting hip to this sooner.

Better late than never, of course.

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22 Jun 2013
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Great Lost Pop Band: The Naughty Sweeties

Naughty Sweeties -- Alice

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.”999 and the Dickies

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.

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