Cheap Trick : All Washed Up

I’m pretty sure that every young rock n roller coming up in the Midwest and beyond had a Cheap Trick phase. It was a rite of passage, really. You were already exposed to the At Budokan version of “I Want You To Want Me”, as well as hearing “Surrender” ad nauseum enough to grow to […]

Brian D’Addario : Till The Morning

New York’s The Lemon Twigs have made a career out of digging for gold in the past. Brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario make the kind of music that used to blast from transistor radios in the early 70s. AM pop like The Hollies, The Raspberries, Big Star, Beach Boys; as well as more modern purveyors […]

Video Age : Away From The Castle

New Orleans’ Video Age began in 2016 with their debut Living Alone. The band’s core of Ray Micarelli and Ross Farbe locked into a certain soft rock aesthetic over their previous releases, which besides Living Alone includes 2018s Pop Therapy and 2020’s Pleasure Line. Their songs lock into sweet harmonies, 80s-tinged synths, and an endearingly […]

The Lemon Twigs : Everything Harmony

Brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario, aka The Lemon Twigs, hail from New York and since their first album in 2016 have made a name for themselves as the preeminent purveyors of 60s/70s power pop. Combining elements of garage, psych, power pop, and 70s AM these brothers have built a discography that looks and sounds as […]

Jon Brion : Meaningless

Jon Brion has made a name for himself as a go-to producer and film score composer for over 20 years now. Producing albums for artists as diverse as Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, Kanye West, and Spoon. And his film score credits include directors like Paul Thomas Anderson, David O. Russell, Michel Gondry, and Charlie Kaufman. […]

Fir Cone Children Return With ‘Today There’s No Tomorrow’, out 9/30; Listen To “Pull It Out”

Alexander Donat is a man on a mission. The mission? To fill the world with great music, that’s the mission. Whether it’s in his post-punk/darkwave project Vlimmer or in his dream pop project Fir Cone Children; even releasing music from other like-minded artists via his record label Blackjack Illuminist Records, Donat is a true renaissance […]

Teenage Fanclub : Endless Arcade

Teenage Fanclub are an alternative rock institution. If you didn’t have at least two songs off Bandwagonesque on that mixtape you made to impress that brunette in Geometry class back in the early 90s your tastemaker creds were shot(plus, they’d a ditched you for the kid in the My Bloody Valentine t-shirt.) The Scottish power […]

Peach Pyramid Drops The Dreamy “Wear Sunscreen”

I’m a sucker for a great pop song. Growing up with parents that spun Beatles records all the time and hearing AM radio in the backseat as a little kid had an affect on me. Having songs from the Raspberries, Leo Sayer, the Bee Gees, Andrew Gold, and the Steve Miller Band played in a […]

Shy Boys : Bell House

There’s an overwhelming exuberance that comes from The Shy Boys’ newest long player called Bell House. Rough-around-the-edges four-part harmonies intermingle with sparse garage rock compositions, bringing to mind The Feelies and the dB’s with a touch of K Records illumination. Their music has a timeless feel that gives it the feeling of finding some lost […]

Andy’s Party

I came across Andy Shauf’s excellent The Party on one of those layabout Friday evenings where a couple stouts were enjoyed and a homemade pizza pie was built to perfection. It’s kind of a regular Friday evening thing around here. Anyways, I’d posted a review of the great new Beach Fossils record Somersault and my […]