This column is dedicated to featuring those bands that aren’t household names but, to my ears, should be.

Growing up in a small town in southern Michigan, the closest major city was Chicago. We were still a good two hours away, though, so it was with great inconsistency that my little bedside transistor radio picked up Chicago rock powerhouse WLS (home of legendary rock DJ Larry Lujack). During the fateful summer of ‘79, while Cheap Trick enjoyed their first taste of national and international success, another Chicago band was also ruling the Windy City airwaves.

That band was Off Broadway, and the song was “Stay in Time,” the first single from their Atlantic Records debut, On. Comprised of simple elements — as is the case with all great rock songs — there was something about “Stay in Time” that was nevertheless unlike anything else. (more…)

One of the great things about writing for a blog as world famous as Popdose is that the mere mention of my association with this collective of rock-blog superheroes gains me access to a world most people only dream about.

Okay, maybe it’s a world only I dream about.

Regardless, I’ve chosen to use my considerable clout not to bed French models and have all my drinks comped, but to ask some of my favorite artists for those albums that mean enough to them to be Desert Island Discs.

So, without further ado …

Peter Holsapple (dB’s founder, auxiliary member of R.E.M. and Hootie & the Blowfish):

Top five? Boy, make it hard on an old guy, would ya?

In no particular order:

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Foreigner - “Urgent,” circa ‘81

A friend of mine once observed that you know you’re getting older when most of your favorite bands are touring without their original singers. Thankfully, of course, my favorite band (Cheap Trick, for anyone who hasn’t figured that out yet) is one of the few bands from my youth with complete line-up intact. Even more reason to dig them!

This same friend is actually a writer for a Midwest newspaper and, this past summer, he found himself scheduled to interview members of two of his favorite bands from his teenage years: Foreigner and Styx. The only problem was that neither guy was actually a member of their respective band at the time. Thus, he approached the idea of interviewing Foreigner singer Kelly Hansen and Styx singer/keyboardist Lawrence Gowan with some trepidation.

What on earth would he ask mere hired guns whose job it was to help a couple original members hustle a revamped version of a once-great band on the nostalgia and casino circuit? (more…)

With Popdose having just rolled off the showroom floor all shiny and new, still full of that “new car smell,” I am chuffed to the ‘nads to be a part of such a venture. Never before has such an intimidating conglomeration of blog talent been gathered to unleash their musical musings upon the world. Truth be told, you, faithful Popdose readers, are some lucky sumbitches.

Seriously, think of Popdose as a real-life Justice League — except, instead of skin-tight spandex, snazzy masks, and flowing capes, the superheroes of the Popdose variety are adorned in ripped sweats, t-shirts with all manner of long-defunct band, record company, or dot.com logos, and mandatory bathrobes with loads of rear ventilation. Don’t let appearances fool you, though. We’re bad-ass. For example, I’ve been known to tag a misbehaving neighbor kid from thirty paces with a well-aimed slipper without spilling a drop of morning java.

Being that the odometer has rolled clean past 999999 on yet another year and we prepare to write “2008” on all checks from this point onward, I’m betting that some of you are filled with a sense of hope that this year will somehow be better than ol’ ’07.

How the fuck could it not be?

To put it simply, 2007 was to music what Pamela Anderson-Lee-Rock-Salomon is to the institution of marriage.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a new year without the barrage of year-end Best Of lists being proffered by every nitwit who has ever fancied themselves a rock critic. So many critics, yet every list seem comprised of the same ten albums. Arcade Fire, Spoon, Feist, Amy Winehouse, Of Montreal, yada yada yada.

How can that be? Were only ten albums released in ’07?

That adult life is no different from high school is never more obvious than when you see critics the world over name-check the same small reservoir of bands and albums, unafraid to admit that they never really got around to listening to the new Sigur Ros CD, but feel compelled to place it high upon their lists nonetheless.

Round up these same scribes and relocate them to the nearest deserted isle with only their year-end Top 10 selections and a solar-powered iPod to keep them company, you can bet your sweet music-loving ass that each one of them would be throwing themselves from the highest cliff or chiseling away at their own ears with a monkey skull and crayfish claw within the hour.

See, that’s what happens when you listen to an Arcade Fire CD minus the roomful of irony-drenched hipsters and kitschy ambience of a slumming socialite’s Lower East End loft.

Airdrop a few copies of my “Antidote For Those Forced To Listen To Their Own Year-End Top 10 List Selections” (see below), and watch just how quickly the last remaining survivors remove their necks from the noose and embrace the care packages with tears pouring from their bloodshot eyes.

If only they hadn’t lopped off their ears and tossed the bloody lumps into the sea that first day.

My irony-free wish for 2008 is that great music is made, embraced, and praised to the ends of the earth by those in a position to bring about change from the sickening sameness that has tainted the well these past umpteen years.

Various Artists/Antidote For Those Forced To Listen To Their Own Year-End Top 10 List Selections (Hey, You Kids! Records)

Beatles - Revolution (acoustic)
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Mary Jane’s Last Dance
Cheap Trick - On Top Of The World
Slow Runner - Usual Chords
Heavens - Dead End Girl
Romantics - What I Like About You
Tourists - Week Days
Guster - One Man Wrecking Machine
Replacements - Talent Show
R.E.M. - At My Most Beautiful

In 1975, music critic Jon Landau, having seen Springsteen’s performance at the Harvard Square Theater, wrote the immortal words, “I saw rock and roll’s future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen.”

(more…)

Detroit’s Romantics had gone from local club faves to national up-and-comers with the release of their debut self-titled album and follow-up effort, “National Breakout”; both albums featuring the edgy power pop sound that had originally caught the attention of Bomp! Records in 1979.

While their debut featured the semi-hit “What I Like About You”, “National Breakout” had been a commercial letdown. Even buoyed by such seminal Romantics favorites as “21 And Over”, “A Night Like This” and “Take Me out Of The Rain”, the album failed to live up to expectations.

For their third effort, the pressure was on to record a hit album. They enlisted producer Mike Stone, best known for producing hit albums by the likes of Journey and Queen. His production added a bombastic style ill-suited to the band and the end result was an album that could have been cool - there are actually some nice songs to be found here - if not for the completely over-the-top approach that intrudes upon the band’s natural energy.

As a fan of the first two albums, I distinctly remember dropping the needle and then my jaw as the album’s first song, “In The Nighttime“, exploded out of my speakers. Whereas the sound on the first two albums was one of shit-hot band rocking for all their worth in a sweaty club packed to the rafters, the shotgun snare and reverb-drenched vocals on this and most of the other tracks on “Strictly Personal” made the band sound as if they’re performing in an empty arena.

On tracks like “No One Like You” (sung by bassist Richie Cole, who would leave the band after the release of this album), one is hard-pressed to believe this is the same band that had given us “What I Like About You”.

“Spend A Little Love On Me” may not have sounded out of place on “The Romantics”, but, here, the Kinks-style vibe of the track gets lost in a production better suited for Rainbow or the Scorpions.

The album’s highpoint, where the production doesn’t intrude too heavily upon the band’s live energy, is “Why’d You Leave Me“, which has singer Wally Palmar pleading to an ex-lover. You can hear the desperation in his voice, which plays nicely against newest member Coz Canler’s razor-sharp guitars.

If you’ve got the impression that I wasn’t crazy about this album, don’t get me wrong. In truth, I played the crap out of “Strictly Personal” as a kid even though it was drastically different from the Romantics I’d come to know and love for their raw, updated British Invasion sound.

“Don’t You Put Me On Hold“, which closes out the album, seems the complete by-product of the sound Stone was going for. Take away the cannon-fire drums, the layers of Marshall-driven guitars, and the echo-repeat chorus and there isn’t much of a song left.

The album, of course, failed to take the world by storm and the band would wisely return to working with original producer Pete Solley, who’d turned the knobs on their first two albums. The resulting album, “In Heat”, would bring them their biggest chart success in 1983 with the hits “Talking In Your Sleep” and “One In A Million”.

When I first heard Tom Petty sing the words “even the losers get lucky sometimes”, I couldn’t help feel that this was a guy who, no matter how rich and famous he got (for he was already both when he wrote the song), would always see himself as someone life has, to borrow his own term, “kicked around some”.

Then, of course, Paul Westerberg arrived out of nowhere, completely embodying the persona with songs sung from the perspective of a lovable ne’er-do-well, albeit one with a deliciously acerbic sense-of-humor and clever, yet heartbreaking honesty.

“Well, I laughed half the way to Tokyo , I dreamt I was Surfer Joe, what that means I don’t know.
A dream too tired to come true left a rebel without a clue and I’m searching for something to do.” – I’ll Be You

Petty obviously saw something in Westerberg that he liked. He would handpick the Replacements as his opening act for the Heartbreakers’ U.S. tour in 1989 and introduce Minneapolis ’ favorite sons to their largest concert audiences ever. Those who came to see Tom Petty showed little interest in the Minneapolis foursome and the “Mats did not exactly flourish in such an “arena rock” setting.

Was the tour a failure?

Depends on how you look at it and, in doing so, how you view the Replacements and Westerberg. From my viewpoint, the Replacements were a good band with enough talent to hint at greatness and, therefore, appeal to the critics. At the same time, Westerberg and Co. had just enough of a self-destructive streak to win the hearts of music fans like me who were tired of rock music polished to a high, formulaic sheen. How could we not fall in love with a band that had the capability of showing up on any given night and either blowing the roof off - or stinking up - the joint insanely refreshing?

The ‘Mats weren’t the only band in America – or even Minneapolis for that matter- that were playing it fast and loose, with a devil-may-care attitude. What ultimately set them apart from the rest were the songs. Around the time the band released their second full-length album, Hootenanny - which featured the gems Color Me Impressed and Within Your Reach - Westerberg was showing some rather unexpected maturity. Of course, then you’d see him onstage, drunk off his ass, and wonder how the two extremes could co-exist within the same body.

That, of course, was all part of the charm for me. See, I’ve always been the guy who was capable of sweeping a girl off her feet with sweet words and promises, then risk losing it all in a drunken display. The perverse thrill, of course, came when the girl in question, having seen both sides, chose to stick around. Likewise, fans of Westerberg have seen both sides and have decided to stick around. We don’t want to miss the next flash of brilliance.

“I’m the best thing that never happened, I’m the best thing you never had.” –Best Thing That Never Happened

The great thing is that Westerberg has carved out a lengthy career in an industry that has developed an insatiable appetite for destruction (obligatory GNR pun intended). Despite a lack of bona fide commercial success, there remains enough label interest to ensure that there is a worthy home for all present and future recordings and that our hero doesn’t find himself having to take a gig at Starbucks.

The other great thing is that he’s done so by not giving anything remotely resembling a shit about anything having to do with selling out or conforming to some record label’s ideals. He has always done what he wanted when he wanted, but not in that belligerent way you see others try to pull off (I’m looking at you Ryan Adams).

Instead, he’s always done so in almost apologetic fashion, with an endearing wink and a smile. The results, of course, have always been, and continue to be at least twice as interesting as anything with the name “Timberlake” on it (seriously, it sounds like a brand of hiking boots…with pink shoelaces and fake rhinestones that keep falling off, but I digress).

“I’ve been achin’ for a while now, friend, I’ve been achin’ hard for years.”-Achin’ To Be

Westerberg rules because he does what he does with no regard for fashion, little concern for the charts, but a strict devotion to that inner child that just wants to keep rocking, all the while allowing the grown man on the outside to express the doubts, worries and experiences of a life lived very much like the rest of us who don’t get called “winners” all that often.

Here’s a handful of cuts from a 1981 Replacements show:

I Hate Music/Stuck In The Middle
Slow Down
Johnny’s Gonna Die
Kids Don’t Follow
Maybelline
Kick Your Door Down

And a couple Paul Westerberg solo live cuts:

Skyway
Unsatisfied

Anyone who was paying attention in 2006 surely caught wind of a great album by the Indiana-based band, The Elms. Based in John Cougar Mellencamp’s hometown of Seymour, Indiana and brandishing a heartland-flavored mix of super-charged country and rock, the band released the stellar Chess Hotel on Universal South. David Bianco’s production brought each song to life and then some, paying careful attention to the subtle nuances of songs such as “Come To Me” without sacrificing any of the band’s live energy.

He’s A Whore caught up with Owen during sessions for the band’s anxiously-awaited new album and asked him for a list of his Top 5 Desert Island Discs (along with his comments about each):

-Bruce Springsteen, “Nebraska” (1982): I know this is a typical pick among Boss fans, but the songs make me see cinema in my head.

-The Honeydogs, “Here’s Luck” (2001): A truly wonderful album from a sadly overlooked Minneapolis band.

-Mindy Smith, “One Moment More” (2004): All new country female singers should have to take vocal courses taught by Mindy. She massages every tune perfectly, and channels heartbreak like nobody I’ve ever heard.

-The Rolling Stones, “Beggar’s Banquet” (1968): I’m sure most people would choose “Exile On Main Street”, but this is my favorite Stones record. I can’t imagine not having “Salt Of The Earth” to listen to. It’s the Stones at their most southern-fried.

-The Jayhawks, “Rainy Day Music” (2003): This is The Jayhawks most gentle record, and every song is gorgeous.

Here are a couple recent live tracks from The Elms. Enjoy!

Jammin’ Me (Tom Petty cover)
Promises

With the release of Bruce Springsteen’s new single, “Radio Nowhere”, which sounds to me like a tune straight out of 1981 (that’s a good thing), I was suddenly filled with thoughts about the year in question. The 80’s decade is perhaps best known for two things; new wave and hair metal, and, thus, perhaps the best year of the decade is so often overlooked in the process.

So, this week, as far as this blog is concerned, is 1981.

(click images to enlarge)

Tom Petty challenges his label, MCA, when they attempt to unveil their new higher pricing with the release of his new album, Hard Promises. The label eventually balks and the album is released at the lower price.
Stone article

Tom Petty video interview with Tom Snyder (1981)

Tom Petty-Kings Road (Live on Tom Snyder)
Tom Petty-A Woman In Love (Live On Tom Snyder)

1981 was the year Cheap Trick entered into a transitional period. Original bassist Tom Petersson had left the band - replaced by Pete Comita, a veteran of the Chicago rock scene - and the group’s last album, All Shook Up, had failed to live up to expectations. Their appearance at Chicagofest (basically a hometown gig for the Rockford-based band) was televised and, thus, I (along with all my pals) was glued to the boob tube watching my heroes, including new bassist Comita, put on what has come to be regarded as one of their most legendary shows.

(click to enlarge)

Behind the scenes, though, the band was in a tug of war with their record label. They had recorded two songs for the wildly successful soundtrack to the Heavy Metal movie, and it was reported that the Elektra Records (home of the Cars and the label that had issued the Heavy Metal soundtrack) were eager to lure the band away from CBS.

Regardless, the band’s Chicagofest performance was a portrait of a band at the top of their game.

Stop This Game
Hello There
I Want You To Want Me
On Top Of The World
Reach Out
Baby Loves To Rock
Gonna Raise Hell
Nielsen Guitar Solo
Dream Police
Ain’t That A Shame
Surrender
Just Got Back
Day Tripper
Goodnight Now

The Police release their fourth studio album, “Ghost In The Machine”, which shows them breaking away from the formula they’d used to great success on their previous efforts. The album features one of the year’s best-selling singles, “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” (#3 US/#1 UK).

Here are four demos recorded by Sting prior to the sessions:

Don’t You Believe Me
Spirits In The Material World
Don’t You Look At Me
It’s Never Too Late

If there was any good thing to come out of Tower Records going under last year, it was a chance for music geeks like myself to take a chance on CD’s by bands we may not have even heard of before. There’s nothing like a good 70% off sale to get me in a spending mood and, while Tower still couldn’t give away those stacks of Poison’s Greatest Hits at any price, I dropped four bucks on a band called Slow Runner and walked out into the Vegas heat. The album was called “No Disassemble” and, in addition to being the last CD I’d ever buy at Tower Records, it ended up being the best four bucks I’d spent in a long time.

For the next several weeks that followed, anyone who was lucky enough to be a passenger in my car was subjected to a heavy dose of “No Disassemble” and, if the fingernail-shaped indentations on the dashboard are any indication, Slow Runner is great music to play while fending off crazy-ass L.A. drivers (of which I am one). “No Disassemble” grabbed me with its literate, self-effacing lyrics and twisting musical arrangements that succeeded quite effortlessly in constructing an elaborate world all its own where days just seem fly by a little more slowly.

Moving forward a couple years, the band that recorded “No Disassemble” for J Records is now a member of the indie set (but not for long, I surmise). Their new CD, “Shiv!”, is the first of two albums that hope to showcase the band’s irreverently esoteric pop skills.

I had a chance to interview the band’s singer/songwriter Michael Flynn, who, with multi-instrumentalist Josh Kaler, makes up the band Slow Runner.

The first version of “No Disassemble” I bought has the name “Michael Flynn” on it. What’s up with that?

The problem with band names is that when the band breaks up, you kind of lose all the work you did building up your name brand. this had happened to me a few times, so we (Josh Kaler and myself) decided to start playing under my name so that no matter who we were playing with, I’d get to keep the name brand momentum going.

By the time we self-released “No Disassemble” and toured, we realized that it didn’t make sense to do it that way, because when you see a name-name guy, you think “Michael Flynn = white singer/songwriter singing bland acoustic songs about girls = John Mayer wanna-be”, or something, and the music we were making was definitely more adventurous than that. Plus I never really enjoyed it being my name. I’m too introverted to be that guy. So we changed it before we re-released “No Disassemble”.

For the music nerds, would you explain the progression of Slow Runner from birth to major label deal, to no major label deal?

I went to music school in Boston, met Josh Kaler and started playing with him, made some noise within school and left with a headhunter deal with this really nice producer who swore he could get me a record deal. we did lots of cheesy demos that didn’t excite anybody, i was dejected and broke, so Kaler and I moved back to my native South Carolina to start a new band. We recorded a bunch of songs that felt like a rebellion against the previous demos and that became “No Disassemble.” We put that out and toured regionally, started getting label interest, did a bunch of showcases, and signed a small deal with J Records. They re-released our record and got us some nice licensing spots, but otherwise shat the bed. We did a bunch of demos for the next record that were too weird for them, and they dropped us. So now we’re self-releasing again and trying to figure out where we fit in in this new world where the new model for success for bands like us is still unclear.

With the songs taking on a more personal, harder edge, has the dynamic within Slow Runner changed at all from “No Disassemble” to “Shiv!”?

Well, “Shiv!” is actually just the first of two discs we’re releasing (the 2nd should come out around January). We kind of divided up all of these songs into the loud stuff and the quiet stuff. “Shiv!” is the loud one, but, really, it’s the same dynamic as on “No Disassemble” where the rockers and ballads coexist. By making two records we were able to go farther in both directions, so “Shiv!” rocks harder than anything we’ve ever done and record #2 is way more singer-songwriter-y. Both are chock-full of songs about my life, songs about relationships, and songs about the music business disguised as songs about relationships. it’s definitely more personal and I think a little more emotionally brave than the older stuff. I’m less insecure about what I’m saying and whether it’s cool or not.

What are your current Top 5 Desert Island Discs?

difficult to narrow it down cause it changes every day, so here are 6 just to spite you:

Badly Drawn Boy “Hour of Bewilderbeast”
The Notwist, “Neon Golden”
Joseph Arthur “come to where i’m from”
Beatles “Revolver”
Ray Charles & Betty Carter, “Dedicated to You”
Jellyfish, “Spilt Milk”

What (or who) was the inspiration for your head-first dive into the shark-infested waters of rockerdom and what inspires you today to keep on keeping on?

I was sort of coerced into playing music by my lack of skill at anything else. Every job I’ve ever had, I’m like Hong Kong Phooey in mild-mannered janitor mode. I’m an oaf. Songwriting is the only thing I’ve ever done with any semblance of grace.

In a recent Slow Runner promo pic, you were wearing sandals. Was that a conscious decision meant to challenge current societal stereotypes akin to Bowie shaving his eyebrows back in the day, the by-product of an exclusive endorsement deal with Timberland footwear, or is that just how you roll?

First of all, they’re flip flops, not sandals, Darren. That’s an important distinction. guys who wear sandals cry a lot and eat a healthy diet. Guys who wear flip flops don’t give a fuck about their feet because they have better shit to concern themselves with. Kenny Loggins probably has a walk-in closet full of sandals. Pete Doherty has one pair of flip flops that he keeps taking off at parties and losing (Loggins is infinitely more talented than Doherty, of course, but that’s irrelevant for the purposes of this comparison). If you live in a hot beach town like Charleston, flip flops are a necessity. On the particular day those pictures were taken, I was told my feet wouldn’t be in the picture, so I kept my default footwear on because, yes, that’s how I roll. So I wasn’t trying to make a statement, but if I did it would be this: flip flops make the world a better place. If Israeli and Palestinian leaders met poolside wearing flip flops, how could they not work shit out? Flip flops are so informal that they suck all the pressure and bullshit right out of the room. Sandals can’t do that. They’ve been wearing sandals for thousands of years and look where it’s gotten us. That’s why your generalization of all open-toed footwear as sandals is mildly offensive. I await your apology.

(the picture -and flip-flops - in question. Michael Flynn center, Josh Kaler far right)

Sorry, my bad. I do appreciate the clarification, though. So, is Slow Runner an “album band” in that each album is constructed in such a way as to be heard and enjoyed best in its entirety, or is it just about writing good songs and you’ll know you have an album when you have enough good songs?

I’d like to think we’re an album band, but to me that’s something that either happens on it’s own after all the songs are written and you stand back and say ‘hey, these are kind of connected’, or you try to make a more cohesive statement through song selection and track order. But, really, for us if that happens it’s a happy accident. I write postcards, I don’t write novels. I’m not thinking of other songs when I’m writing a new song. I admire the Radioheads of the world, just like I admire novelists, but ultimately I’m just a song guy, and I can’t pretend that the way we choose songs to be presented as a group was ever part of a master plan.

So, what’s next for Slow Runner?

Touring for “Shiv!”, finishing the next record, clinging to the frayed edges of the music business, continuing my community outreach work with dangerous zoo animals, pushing gateway drugs on little kids to bolster my street-cred resume, doing my sudoku, avoiding detection by ubiquitous government satellites, and trying to be a little more ‘Darren’ (Ed: aw shucks…I think) in all aspects of life.

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I’m happy to showcase a couple tracks from the new CD. Check them out and, if you dig what you hear, buy “Shiv!”.

Long Division
Usual Chords