More (and More) New Sounds...

January 29, 2005
Purchased:
1. MOJO magazine with “Roots of the Sex Pistols” free CD
An especially worthwhile example of the freebie CD as educational disc. Good selection of songs – “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone,” “Cherry Bomb,” “Roadrunner”- that illustrated the theme and fill some fearsome gaps in my collection. Good show, MOJO!

Sent:
2. Pepper’s Ghost – Shake the Hand that Shook the World (Hybrid Recordings)
Philly-based band that I wrote about ages ago when they were playing a restaurant/bar in Arlington. It’s good news, bad news for these guys.
Good: They’ve scored an opening slot on a major American tour.
Bad: the tour is Ashlee Simpson’s!
Here’s a group that earned their deal the hard way, with night after night of playing funky bars for tough audiences, they’re releasing a new CD produced by a rock legend, Andy Johns (he’s worked with the Stones, Television and Led Zeppelin, for gawd’s sake) and they’re opening for Ashlee freakin; Simpson? Feels like career suicide to me. The group’s pretty pop sound – a mix of Beatlesque melodies, Hollies-style harmonies and Bowie-style vocal affectations – could sit well with the teen girl crowd,and the parents who accompany them, but these guys deserve more than the boy-band type-casting they’re setting themselves up, opening for the Lip Synch Princess.
Hey, the press release quotes the Washington Post: “The group’s straight-ahead hard pop style echoes that era (60’s/70’s) of solid song craft and tasty harmonies.” I wrote that!

Among other discs from the past two weeks that I’m still catching up with:
3. Matt Wertz – Twenty Three Places (label NA)
Wetz is coming to town later this month, opening on two nights fro Steve Kellogg, so I’m checking them both out.
Point One in the guy’s favor – he’s got a song called “Marianne” (spelled the right way!), so I’m with him so far. And the girl in the song isn’t a bitch, so that’s good, too.
Point Two in the guy’s favor: he’s got a John Mayer kinda voice (and he isn’t singing a song as lame as “Daughters.” Seriously, John, such vaguely sexist sentimentality is beneath you). On first listen, no single tune jumps out to grab me, but I’ll be happy to revisit, which is itself a compliment.
4. The Loved Ones – eponymous (I love that word!) (Jade Tree)
Jade Tree is a very cool almost-local (Wilmington, DE) label that releases music by truly alternative heroes like Pedro the Lion. But this one, a Philly band led by vocalist Dave Hause, former tour manager for Sick Of it All and Bouncing Souls (can you tell I’m cribbing from the bio sheet?), doesn’t offer any variation on the fast-rhythm, churning guitar, distressed vocal style that marks boatloads of releases from the contemporary punk scene. (The drummer’s name – Michael Sneeringer – is the most interesting thing here.) “Heartfelt hometown singalongs don’t get any better than this,” the bio says. But heartfelt hometown singalongs don’t offer much to the people who don’t live there, either.
5. L’altra – Different Days (Hefty Records)
For a small, newish band, L’altra has a fairly thick press kit, including blurbs from Time Out New York and Entertainment Weekly. The Chicago-based duo just released its third CD, but this my introduction to them. “Perfect soundtrack for a late Sunday night,” says URB and, since it’s 10:30 pm as I finish off this round of rounding up, I’ll vouch for that. Also good for yoga practice, which was the first time I played this CD. The electronica beds and light female vocals put me in mind of Low and Portishead. The bio says that this male/female team was together as a couple for 7 years and broke up during the recording of the first CD, That makes subsequent releases, including this one, testament to a melancholy acceptance of love’s twisted paths. Just in time for Valentine’s Day!
6. The Merediths – A Closed Universe (Debauchery Records)
Five guys from Louisville, courtesy of the kind folks at Team Clermont, a small but dedicated publicity team in Georgia that hooks me up with a constant array of quirky little bands (including those dear boys in Troubled Hubble) that I love to write about when I can, since they all seem to be working so hard. The Merediths create just the kind of sweet, light pop rock that I enjoy – I hear traces of ELO and the Cure, too. While I can’t yet tell if it’s gonna stick to my ribs, I wish them the best.
7. Johnny Mathis – Isn’t It Romantic: The Standards Album (Columbia)
Sure it’s corny and old-fashioned, and Johnny couldn’t emo from nu-metal at gunpoint, but I’ve always liked his voice and taking my mom to his Radio City Music Hall show many moons ago was a bonding experience (my third row seats showed her that this music writing job had its benefits). And I love the old classics, too, tho’ I’d be hard-pressed to make a case for “There’s a Kind of Hush” (yes, the Hermits hit) as a classic, and “The Rainbow Connection” (it will be played at my funeral, but not this version) has way too many strings. Mathis rarely had an arranger who didn’t try to bury him in syrup, but if you can find the “Rhythms and Ballads of Broadway” CD from back when the man was in his prime, you’d be surprised and delighted at how randily he could swing when allowed to. But this one’s strictly for the moms and – at a meager 10 tracks, one of which was already released on the Ray Charles duets album – Columbia’s probably hoping the older folk don’t realize they’re being played.