Luckily you don’t read this music blog for timely updates or to get turned onto the newest records. Seattle’s Listen Lady released their debut single about six months ago. I think it’s been up on bandcamp even longer, but the trickle down effect of the internet has just brought it to my attention. Their five song 7″ is an all killer no filler indiepop get-down. If you dig Diet Cig and Sourpatch or remember Small Factory and Tiger Trap then this record is aching to be in your collection. Ater all, what’s six months in terms of classic sounding indiepop groups named for a Simpsons episode?
Diet Cig a duo from New Paltz, New York are roughly 20 years on and 200 miles away from where Small Factory first started. That’s enough time for a band to have kids who grow up to be in a band. Diet Cig have that same wide-eyed wonder, youthful enthusiasm and pop skills that Small Factory had in spades. The five songs on the duo’s debut EP are full hormones and adolescent angst and are often humorous as well. Pool Boyz boasts a huge chorus that would make Alex Kemp envious, and the stand out song on the EP, Harvard is a great kiss off to a certain former Ivy League boyfriend. Thank god they still make bands like this!
Go Violets come from Brisbane, Australia. They describe themselves as “bunny rock pool pop” and just plain old surf-rock. Their single Josie is perfect in all things bunny rock, pool pop, and surf rock. In fact, in the history of all three of those genres there has not been a song that has been more bunny, pool and surf at once. It’s got great glistening guitars that sparkle off the water and a chorus that that will make you bounce. I’m thinking of starting up an indiepop surf festival somewhere on the Washington coast this summer and my first invites are Go Violets and La Luz. Might invite some guy bands too, but why ruin it? They’re always so he-man-me-local about getting the best waves.
On my way into Black Lodge Saturday night I glanced at the newspaper box that displayed the latest issue of CityArts magazine and saw Calvin Johnson on the cover. The chances of seeing Calvin on the cover of a magazine 20 years ago are slim, but that cover photo of Beat Happening from 1992 definitley takes me back. I didn’t live in the northwest then, I was in Morgantown, West Virginia going to college and spending most of my free time hanging out at my college radio station. Back then the pacific northwest and K records were a continent away and things I only read about. I remember trying to imagine what it must be like out here in this remote outpost.
Walking into the Black Lodge Saturday night, it could have been Saturday night any-year. The DIY space was hot and the stagnant air was filled with the scent of sweaty kids. It reminded me of the Dry House, the all-ages venue in Morgantown that I spent many an underage night at when I first arrived at university. Probably not much different from what a DIY show looked and smelled like in Seattle two decades ago.
Sourpatch aren’t from Olympia or Seattle, but if this San Jose, California band existed in the early 90’s they could have easily put out a record on Olympia’s K Records (they also remind me a little of the Blake Babies and could have been on Mammoth records, but Boston doesn’t really fit into this narrative). Those of you up on your history already know that another northern California band with a similar sound, Tiger Trap were on K at the time. E = mc2 and all that, but just to make my time travel experience a little more palpable, as Sourpatch began their set, I glanced around the room and spotted Rose Melberg front and center. Sherman, set the WABAC machine for 1993.
It seems like I’m always bringing up the past when I write about Sourpatch. I don’t mean anything bad by it, in fact it’s a total compliment. Some bands try for an early 90’s indie sound and miss the mark. I think Sourpatch don’t even try, it just is what it is. They’re authentic and their sound is timeless at least to my ears. It jangles and rushes and couldn’t care less if it was 1992 or 2012. Their second album Stagger and Fade is stronger than their debut and shows more diversity in their sound. Its songs stand out from one another but retain fuzzy and jangly friendliness. It’s not a groundbreaking thing, but the smiles all around the room were an indication kids today don’t need groundbreaking, they need good songs and unbridled enthusiasm and Sourpatch delivered just that, switching instruments, harmonizing and generally having a good time. Today, just like back then, for a kid out there in this big wide world there is always the hope and escape of a pop song and Sourpatch delivered exactly that to the hot sweaty room.
Joyride who played right before Sourpatch are from San Francisco and obviously kindred spirits with Sourpatch. Sounding a-like, but coming from a slightly more power pop angle, but decidedly cute power pop. stream: Joyride – Person Place or Thing
Looking at the lists from the indie cognoscenti this year my eyes tend to get heavy and it becomes hard to stay awake. I’m beginning to see why my grandfather wasn’t able to stay awake when he watched the Dukes of Hazzard with me when I was a kid. I’m not quite to that point yet, as I was able to keep myself lucid long enough to compile my top 25 albums of the year. Have at it.
1. Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Rush To Relax (Goner)
Some long-time fans have quipped that Rush To Relax isn’t as good as its predecessor Primary Colors, but for me this was the year of Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Finding Rush to Relax in the used bin for 99 cents was the start. Next Anxiety whacked me on the head with its brute force, then their longer jams like Turning Out and Second Guessing bowled me over, and if that wasn’t enough they beguiled with the heartfelt politeness of I Can Be a Jerk and Gentleman. Finally their status was cemented by their live show at Vera Project. In a dry house following two hardcore punk bands, the band put on a clinic on how to rock out with their solid rhythm section, slicing guitars and unique gloved front man. Nobody came close to Eddy Current Suppression Ring this year.
2. Intelligence – Males (In The Red)
Well, the Intelligence came kinda close. Lars and company pumped up the fidelity on record number six and came out all the better for it. For the first time ever this was a full band and the claustrophobic weirdness that permeates all previous Intelligence records was stretched, torn and punctured to create new sounds. Fidelity aside, this batch of songs with the likes of Tuned to Puke, Like Like Like…, The Beetles and Estate Sales may be the strongest yet.
3. Edwyn Collins – Losing Sleep (Heavenly)
After suffering a stroke, Edwyn Collins may not have his guitar playing skills back yet, but his songwriting and singing skills are have returned fully intact. Losing Sleep sees Collins enlisting the help of friends like Johnny Marr, The Cribs, Franz Ferdinand, Roddy Frame, Drums to name a few. At first it was kind of a surprise to hear Collins duet with so many of his guests, but the album’s sound is so cohesive it doesn’t distract because you can tell that Ryan Jarmin, Alex Kapranos, Romeo Stodart and Jonathon Pierce are such Collins fans.
4. Les Cox Sportifs – Scheiss Mit Reis (Sea)
Les Cox Sportifs caught my imagination, and no it wasn’t their name that did it. Their sparsly played rhythmic songs and odd lyrics put them defiantly in the weird corner and that’s a corner I gravitate to. Their combining of Bo Diddly, the Fall, Modern Lovers, Yummy Fur and Country Dick Montana was a soup that I kept lapping up all year long.
5. Kellies – Kellies (Rastrillo/Crang)
The self-titled third album from this Argentinian all girl band was part post punk, part art school, and should have come with a warning label because every song contains a deadly hook. Why have you not heard of these ladies you may ask. That’s a damn good question, and if you’ve been around these parts much, you probably have.
6. Eternal Summers – Silver (Kanine)
Roanoak, Virginia’s Eternal Summers are the simple combination of guitar and drums, but are most certainly more than the sum of their parts and a good reason for that is Nicole Yun’s big confident voice. First single Pogo was big and catchy and the immediacy of Disciplinarian and the moodiness and beauty of songs like Salty and Bully In Disguise keep you firmly planted.
7. Race Horses – Goodbye Falkenburg (FantasticPlastic)
Formerly known as Radio Luxembourg, Race Horses broke out of the gate this year with their first album Goodbye Faulkenberg. Being from Wales you might guess they have a psychedelic leaning the same as Super Furry Animals and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and you would be right but they carve out their own niche of strange beguiling pop too. Actually it’s more like a wide swath that ranges from Love, Dexy’s, Can, Mahler, Gilber & Sullivan, Scott Walker and Os Mutantes to name a few of the records they list on the inner sleeve as influences on this album.
8. Kelley Stoltz – To Dreamers (Sub Pop)
Seems like every year Kelley Stoltz puts out a record it ends up as one of my favorites. I write something about how he conjours the past with songs that evoke the likes of the Kinks, Harry Nilson and Fred Neil. With To Dreamers Stoltz does it again with seeming ease, but he incorporates more lush orchestration this time, does a little krautrock, and includes a cover of Big Boy Pete’s 1965 lost classic Baby I Got News for You even doing some sleuthing to pull in Pete Miller to play on it. I keep expecting the well to run dry for Stoltz, but it looks like he’s in no danger of that.
9. Sourpatch – Crushin’ (Happy Happy Birthday To Me)
San Jose’s Sourpatch probably at some point have made a pilgrimage to Sacramento to pay tribute to Tiger Trap and Rocketship. After doing so they came back home and made this record. Their ability to conjure that sound from that time might be called nostalgic by some but these kids are way too young to hold any nostalgia for the 90’s. Crushin’ is just some kids from San Jose making beautiful twee racket.
10. Weekend – Sports (Slumberland)
Sports begins with an unassuming jangle. Soon an eerie howl is heard in the distance and then it becomes more prominent. At about a minute and a half in, the jangle turns into a buzz-saw and the howl to piercing growl. Weekend don’t lift their collective boot from your neck over the next 45 minutes. Sports pummels but like someone that doesn’t know what’s good for them I keep coming back for more.
11. Wounded Lion – Wounded Lion (In the Red)
Wounded Lion are probably a little too weird to ever go mainstream, that’s why they’re on this list. Jokes aside, Wounded Lion killer modern day Modern Lovers fueled rock brings it. No filler here: The one-two punch of Hungry? and Creatures In the Cave is hard to resist. Degobah System must have been unjustly cut from Star Wars Episode IV and Pony People (having been on a now out of print S-S seven inch) Those are only a few reasons I love this record.
12. Young Sinclairs – Chimeys (Chimney Sweep)
The Young Sinclairs are the vehicle of Sam Lunsford who over the last four years has self-released loads of cd-r’s and tapes. Last year Kindercore put out an LP that cherry picked the best tracks from those releases giving them a little larger audience. Finally the band endeavored to release and album on the Chimney Sweep label on vinyl this year. Chimey’s is psychedelia done so well it will make you think of so many bands like them that have gone before. It will also have you searching through your closet for those paisley shirts you hope you never threw out.
13. Frankie Rose & the Outs – Frankie Rose And The Outs (Slumberland)
I must say that after seeing Frankie Rose and the Outs at SXSW this year I wasn’t really looking forward to her album. Everything was drenched in reverb to the point of barely being able to make out the songs. There is no such problem with this album. It is a sublime record that eschews the ramshackle garage sound of her former band and goes for a more classic sound and totally succeeds.
14. Boston Spaceships – Our Cubehouse Still Rocks (GBVI)
Funny how my interest in Robert Pollard ebbs and flows. There was a high point in the 90’s and then it dipped in 00’s. Now that we’re in the 10’s Pollard is back in my good graces and Our Cubehouse Still Rocks is a prime example as to why. While everyone was running around talking about the Guided By Voices reunion, this album was released and criminally ignored. It rivals and surpasses the last five GBV albums.
15. Cinema Red & Blue – Cinema Red & Blue (What’s Your Rupture)
I hesitate to call this a supergroup, but it’s a pretty damn good one. David Feck of Comet Gain, comes over to New York and gets some Crystal Stilts, Ladybug Transistors and one Amy Linton to help out on this album. Apparently it was recorded in a week, but it has warmth and familiarity like these old friends have been playing together for years.
16. Allow Darlin’ – Allo Darlin’ (Fortuna Pop)
Allo Darlin’ sealed the deal with their rousing show at the Jewelbox Theatre in Seattle this fall. Their slightly twee, slightly country ukulele driven songs have a sweet niavty to them that makes you want them to take them under your wing and give them a good home. My copy has found one on my stereo and it’s even muscled out a few lesser records from the cd player.
17. Standard Fare – Noyelle Beat (Melodic/Bar None)
This and Allo Darlin were like sister records for me this year. I couldn’t think about one without the other popping into my head. Standard Fare packed a little more muscle, but it was coming from the same place. Well maybe not the exact same place when you consider their song 15 is about falling for a teenager. Not your typical indiepop.
18. Art Museums – Rough Frame (Woodsist)
This record was a pleasant surprise, evoking the Television Personalities and early Creation records. It’s short at only nine songs, but it left a lasting impression on me. The songs are done in low key, lo-fi way. The steely guitars and programmed drums provide a synthetic psychedelic feel. The vocals strain to reach the high notes, but the songs are warm, fuzzy and earnest which makes these part-time punks’ debut hard not to like.
19. Fresh & Onlys – Play It Strange (In the Red)
The Fresh & Onlys are still way too prolific for their own good. I feel like we’ve seen them grow up before our eyes. Where some bands hold back releasing songs, choosing to keep a stash in case of writer’s block, the Fresh & Onlys lay it all on the line putting everything out for better of for worse. After two diluted albums last year, the band chose to only release one album this year and are the better for it. Every song is autumnal intoxication and their secret weapon guitarist Wymond Miles astounds throughout with his leads.
20. The Lights – Failed Graves (Wantage)
The Lights have been trolling around the seedy side Seattle for quite a while. Ten years on and Failed Graves is only the band’s third album but my favorite so far. There were more than a couple times this year when I was standing either in the Funhouse or the Sunset watching them storm through a set thinking that they were the best live band going in Seattle right now. Craig Chambers in a suit looking like a huckster that plays a mean guitar, Jeff Albertson firecly clutching his well worn bass while PJ Rogalski wailed on the drums. The intensity on Failed Graves nearly replicates their live show. Dissonant guitars, pummeling rhythm section come at you through the speakers and the needle threatens to fly from the record.
21. Gigi – Maintenant (Tomlab)
After this album I am convinced that Nick Krgovich of No Kids is a pop maestro. How else could he write and orchestrate an album like this. The songs have a 60’s Phil Spector feel crossed with Cole Porter, putting him in a league with Stephen Merrit’s Sixths albums. There are too many highlights to list here, but the Rose Melberg sung Alone At the Pier, Karl Blau doing The Old Graveyard and Zac Pennington’s Dreams of Romance are already classics in my house.
22. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest (4AD)
4AD does not carry the cache that it once did, but Earthquake the first song on Halcyon Digest totally evokes that label’s heyday, sounding like Dif Juz, Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil all at once. Bradford Cox is up to his old shoegaze tricks on Halcyon digest, but it’s Locket Pundt’s songs that lifted this album to the top of the stack this time. Desire Lines and Fountain Stairs offer hazy bursts of sunshine to Cox’s Halcyon gauze.
23. The Limiñanas – The Limiñanas (Trouble In Mind)
Je Ne Puis Pas Trés Drogué. Well I am after this record. The Limiñanas is full of hallucinogens, twelve doses to be precise. I hope their record label doesn’t get arrested for sending these things via the US Postal Service. It could be a real scandal. I can see the headlines now: American Label implicated in French drug trafficking. Giant hits of acid found in the form of 33 rpm records. I ordered 10 copies.
24. Super Wild Horses – Fifteen (Hozac)
At first glance you might say Australia’s Super Wild Horses take their cue from the riot grrrl movement of the early 90’s, but their sound and style goes a little further harking back to that movement’s predecessors like the Breeders and Scrawl. The grrrl duo switch off between minimal drums and minimal guitar to deliver short sharp shocks trading off vocals and harmonizing on songs that transcend their primal beginnings. Not sure how much Mikey Young of Eddy Current Suppression Ring who twiddled the knobs on this record had to do with the magic that Fifteen conjures, but if I were a betting man I would say not very much.
25. Ty Segall – Melted (Goner)
Like the Fresh & Onlys, Ty Segall came of age in 2010, albeit at a much younger age. Melted is where Segall got off the garage bus and tripped onto the magic buss. Don’t get me wrong, he still rocks out, but it’s in full technicolor instead of the previous black and white. Songs like Bees are meaty beaty big and bouncy and Sad Fuzz rains down on you like he’s finally gotten to the point of being able to incorporate those top shelf influences into his songs. Listening to Melted you can see that Segall freed his mind and the possibilities are endless.
Honorable Mentions: Magic Bullets – Magic Bullets (Mon Amie) / Lawrence Arabia – Chant Darling (Bella Union) / Wild Nothing – Gemini (Captured Tracks) / Rose Elinor Dougall – Whithout Why (Scarlett) / Idle Times – Idle Times (Hozac) / Radio Dept. – Clinging To a Scheme (Labrador) / Seinking Ships – Museum Quality Capture (S-curve) / Dum Dum Girls – I Will Be (Sub Pop) / Splinters – Kick (Double Negative) / Math and Physics Club – I Shouldn’t Look As Good As I Do (Matinee) / Katerine – Phillippe Katerine (Barclay) / The Fall – Your Future Our Clutter (Domino) / White Wires – WWII (Dirtnap) / Dead Ghosts – Dead Ghosts (Florida’s Dying) / Harlem – Hippies (Matador) / Vic Godard – & Subway Sect – We Come As Aliens (Overground)
I bought way too many seven inch singles this year. I’m not trying to brag. It’s a problem really. The seven inch is like crack to the record geek, a fleeting moment of pop perfection and then it’s off to either flip the record or put on another one. This was a daunting task this year and I feel like I left out a lot of stuff, but a top 60 would have been too much and limiting it to 40 makes you have to really decide, what were your favorite singles of the year. Here are numbers 40-31.
I admit that I hadn’t paid much attention to Mirah in recent years, but I do pay quite a lot of attention to Mississippi Records, so that led me to buying this record. The song Don’t appeared on the compilation The Old Days Feeling in a different version, but that version didn’t prepare me for this Patsy Cline inspired beauty. It has a warmth that you might not have thought that records could have any more and the b-side The Tears That Fall with its strings and horns is no slouch either. This record makes me pray that she’s planning a whole album in this style.
San Jose’s Sourpatch owned my record player for a good part of the year and just as I had properly killed their album Crushin’ they go and release this single to take over my record player again. They called the sides to the single This side and Other side, but I call them Tiger Trap side and Small Factory Side. In my little corner of the basement where the record player sits that is as close to perfection as it gets.
Every band should have a self-titled theme song and Barcelona’s Aias do just that with their horn laden song Aias. These ladies put a twist on the girl group, C-86 phenomenon by singing in Catalan. Note to old people who always say it’s a lovely tune but I can’t understand what their saying: Uh, yeah.
More 90’s sounds in this year’s countdown, you will quickly figure out that this is a recurring theme. Georgia first appeared on the split record Yuck did with Cleveland’s Herzog on the Transparent label. Fat Possum new a good thing when they heard it and smartly released it as an A-side themselves. The guitars remind me of Teenage Fanclub from their Bandwagonesque heyday, but Teenage Fanclub never had the secret weapon of girl harmonies.
This Orlando, Florida band lay down a slab of white noise in Coffin. A melody carefully buried underneath six feet of squalling guitars that does their namesakes proud. I wonder if the Magic Kingdom has a Black Tambourine ride yet?
For a second I thought BOAT picked up and moved back to Chicago. No, it seems that Heavy Times just mine the same vein of sloppy, but friendly sounding pop. Like BOAT, Heavy Times’ sound is steeped in the 90’s and these two songs will make you nostalgic for Hale Bopp, Boris Yeltsin, the Wonderbra and umm, Grunge.
Guided By Voices with Beach Boys Ooohh’s is probably all that needs to be said about this former Black and Whites front man who became a dad and turned down the volume and intensity. What he left out in those two areas, he more than made up for in pop hooks. This single contains four songs all under the two minute mark. It’s like a cliffs notes for pop songs. Who said taking the shortcut never paid off?
Math & Physics Club don’t get out much but when they do they make the most of it. Jimmy Had a Polaroid was the first single from the band’s second album and not a huge departure from their previous output, but when you’ve got a timeless sound and the ability to evoke bygone nostalgia that makes you ache for those days of really awful photos that faded to nothing a week later, then why mess with a good thing.
Sometimes it’s not the A-side of a single that grabs you, hell the Smiths’ How Soon Is Now? was a b-side. Doldrums tucked away on the flip side of Turquoise Hotel has this great little riff that gets stuck in your head like glue. These youngsters from Cleburne, Texas have quickly learned the art of seduction and Doldrums is prime evidence. Looking forward to full swoon when album number two comes sometime next year.
Named after a Free Design song, the Proper Ornaments make warm, plaintive and fuzzy psychedelia. The Ornaments are two dudes who are no strangers to the seven inch single having been in the Sexy Kids and currently also in Veronica Falls. This is quiet and seductive music that is like a warm blanket on a cold night.
Emmett Brown did it using a Dolorean, a flux capacitor and 1.21 gigawatts of electricity. I read in this month’s CityArts magazine that University of Washington professor John Cramer is trying to do it using photon lasers and crystals. Einstein even had a theory about it. No question about it, physicists, Sci-Fi nuts and the general public are kind of obsessed with time travel. So, it’s pretty amazing that no attention has been paid to a little band from San Jose, California who have figured out how to do it with a record.
If you put on Sourpatch‘s record Crushin’ you will immediately be swept back in a whirlwind of fuzzy guitars, smile inducing choruses, and the general bliss of those heady days of the early 90’s when SpinArt, Slumberland, K, Pop Narcotic, Simple Machines, et al. ruled your stereo. For those of you too young to have memories of that time, or not born yet, give it a try, it’s guaranteed to work for even you. Who would have thought time travel would be so simple and cheap. For the price of a record you can have a go.
Sourpatch are currently on tour and bringing their spring-time charm to the Pacific Northwest this week, they play Seattle on Thursday at 20-20 Cycles. Check the dates below for a venue near you where the band will send you back in time:
Apr 5 Blast-O-Mat House (2935 w.7th ave.) – Denver, CO
Apr 6 Salt Lake City House Party! (1963 Evergreen avenue) – Salt Lake City, UT
Apr 7 The Office (5320 emerald) – Boise, ID
Apr 8 20/20 CYCLE (2020 East Union) – Seattle, WA
Apr 9 Vajay street house (1602 Vajay Street) – Bellingham, WA
Apr 10 Punk All – Olympia, WA
Apr 11 Portland – Portland, OR
Sometimes it takes me a while to get the message, but I like to think that after a while I smart enough to figure it out, with a littlehelp of course. It’s 2009, but Sourpatch sound so much like 1992 SpinArt/Slumberland that it’s kind of freaky. Think I’m kidding? Take a listen and tell me you don’t hear parts Lorelei, Velocity Girl, the Swirlies and a little bit of Small Factory and Tiger Trap for good measure from this San Jose, California band. To date they have a self-released demo, a free EP courtesy of WIAIWYA’s virtual singles series and an awesomely fun video which you can see below. This flying below the radar thing is all about to change because Athens, Georgia’s Happy Happy Birthday To Me will be releasing the band’s first album early next year. If you take a look at you calendar, that’s not too far off.
the finest kiss 