What if Weezer were from New Zealand? The obvious answer is that probably nobody would have ever heard of them. Well, you people would have, because you guys are erudite pop aficionados. The Eversons are from New Zealand, so they’re working with one hand tied behind their back, but they’re taking the bull by the horns and moving to Melbourne, Australia. Not really, though they allude to it in their song Heading Overseas.

I’ll admit it, I was never much of a Weezer fan, so I’m going on hearing only a handful of their songs and the fact that the Eversons themselves tagged their bandcamp page with that band. The Eversons excel in writing songs containing call and response lyrics with a mean sense of humor. Comedians often talk about their jokes being rooted in sadness, depression and truth and if that is to be believed, then the Eversons seem to mining their own discontent. These songs on the surface seem to be off the cuff funny, but on closer listen the songs give way to vitriol. That’s what makes their debut album Summer Feeling sustain, the humor kind of gets your attention, but the underlying malcontent and frustration keep you coming back. That and the fact that these guys can write a pop song.

Yeah, there’s the afore mentioned Buddy Holly worshippers, but the Eversons also look to the Kinks and Blur in the way they architect their songs around the ordinary guy. They’re lucky to have two songwriters, which provides some diversity to the music. Some songs have an off-kilter weirdness of the Moles and others are more direct with their big clean riffs bringing to mind the Wannadies. The Eversons’ EP  from last year was promising, and the New Zealand band fully deliver on that promise with this LP. Maybe they’ll move to Melbourne and make it big.

mp3: The Eversons – Heading Overseas (from Summer Feeling available from Lil’ Chief)

Stream the entire record: Bandcamp

Depression Is the New Gay. What was the old gay? The Lasters new single (four songs) Minumum Viable Product is just out. It’s single number three from the Los Angeles band for those of you keeping score at home.  The afore mentioned Depression Is the New Gay is song number one. Song number two is called Ivory Tower of Beer…’nuff said. The B-side starts with The Lasters Lose the Power of Speech which appropriately contains an incoherent chorus which makes no sense and total sense. Last song Let’s Get Along doesn’t let up the adrenaline rush, though it seems a little less crazy and more coherent than the other three. Three out of four ain’t bad.

Every once in a while a punk record like this comes along and kicks me out of a rut (Spray Paint did the same thing a few months ago). This single is a total blast, and for this I give thanks.

mp3: The Lasters – Depression Is the New Gay (from the Minimum Viable Product 7″ available from In the Red)

Crushed Stars‘ album In the Bright Rain has been haunting me for past two months. Based on the music and the photo on the inner sleeve Todd Gautreau is a dour fellow, but he does dour with class.  Gautreau who is 90% of Crushed Stars has created a low-key masterpiece that combines the melancholy bookishness of Lloyd Cole, the cascading guitars of Felt and the refined elegance of the Blue Nile.

He writes, sings and plays most everything except for drums where he employs the help Jeff Ryan of War on Drug and St. Vincent. Using Ryan as the drummer makes this album sound less of a bedroom sad- fest and more like a wind swept, rain in your face travail. Every song is a slow gauzy veil that drapes itself over you as you listen. You try to doff each one  but, they stay with you, their sadness and their delicate beauty.

Crushed Stars have been around for over 10 years (this is their 5th album) and Gautreau also records as Sonogram. In the Bright Rain is the acme of Gautreau’s career thus far. I have a few favorite songs on the record, but they change depending on my mood. Rays of them pass through and they glisten a little differently on every listen. It’s a record who’s stunning melancholy weaves its way into your conscious resulting in a sublime pleasure.

mp3: Crushed Stars – Brighter Now (from In the Bright Rain on Simulacra)

A big thanks to the fine folks at Austin Town Hall for writing about Crushed Stars a few months ago.

I remember my first job out of college, I worked with guy who met his wife on the internet. It kinda freaked me out, but that was years ago and now if you didn’t meet your significant other on line you might be in the minority. The new Terry Malts single is a direct commentary on today’s downward spiral of social networking. It’s as good as anything on their album, which says to me that these guys are for real.  They also do a cover of the Durutti Column‘s Don’t Think You’re Funny. A  punk band that plays hard to get! I think I might be in love with the Terry Malts even though I met them on line.

stream: Terry Malts – Disconnect

The single is out on Log Lady records and is a split with Dead Angle who are ex-Tartans. The Tartans put out a couple excellent singles for Yay! and one for Cloudberry. Their new incarnation, Dead Angle are less overtly twee and employ a similar buzz-saw guitar approach. When I was in Brooklyn recently for the Chickfactor shows, I was record shopping and found myself wrangling over 7-inch records with them. We nearly came to blows over a Heavenly single. Kidding, they were very polite, and we ended up doing rock paper scissor for it (though I still think they cheated).  While you’re over at Log Lady, be sure to check out the Grandma’s Boyfriend and Moonbell records. You can’t go wrong with those either.

stream: Dead Angle – Why Don’t You

It’s no secret around here that the Intelligence are one of my favorite bands, period. I’ve been looking forward to their upcoming album Everybody’s Got It Easy But Me all year. The Intelligence use to be based in Seattle and they would play every few months and I could easily get my fix. Well, things changed late last year when main brain Lars Finberg upped and moved down to Los Angeles.  I’ve been in withdrawal ever since, so it’s with great relief to hear the first song (They found me in the back of) The Galaxy from their upcoming seventh album . This very song immediately implanted itself in my brain when I first heard it last year at the Crocodile when they played with Kid Kongo. Lars nonchalantly introduced it as an old song. Smart-ass, like he’d been sitting on one of the best songs he’d ever written his entire career. Hell, maybe he did pull it from old cassette and resuscitated it. The guy probably has shoe boxes full of ‘em.

mp3: The Intelligence - (They found me in the back of) The Galaxy (from the album Everybody’s Got It Easy But Me due in June on In the Red)

The song is also available on a split 7-inch with Kelley Stoltz. Now if there was ever a record made specifically for me this has gotta be it. The single is limited to 600 copies with 200 of them being yellow colored vinyl. Have at it.

We haven’t had a basementcast since September of last year. What the heck? What’s with the delay? If you must know the basementcast has been in cryogenic purgatory for these past few months. To make a long story longer, there was a leak in the basement, the water froze and it’s just now thawing out. No damage done, in fact the basementcast says that it’s feeling rejuvenated. I guess all that time spent in the deep freeze with Walt Disney and Orson Welles has done a little something for the creative juices. Maybe it was just waiting until the medical know-how existed to make it bigger stronger faster and tastier. Apparently that time is now, and to paraphrase those infamous Paul Masson commercials from the 70′s, the basementcast is now more mature, complex and contains  much nicer wood.
download: basementcast #18 (~155Mb)

Batitda – Tirei o Chapéu from Batida
Vex Ruffin – Secret Weapon from Eulogy EP
Lower Dens – Brains from Nootropics

Sugar Stems – Greatest Pretender from Certified PR 7″
Detective Agency – Daggers from Daggers EP
Wendy Rene – Gone For Good from After Laughter Comes Tears: Complete Stax & Volt Singles

Ex Cops – You Are a Lion, I Am a Lamb (Original Dram Session) from Other Music 7″
Hollows – Golden Chain from Vulture
Jimmy Ruffin & David Ruffin - When My Love Hand Comes Down  from I Am My Brother’s Keeper

Channel 3 – Manzanar from The Skinhead Years
7 Seconds – In Your Face from Walk Together, Rock Together
Wimps – Stop Having Fun from demo
Terry Malts – Not A Christian from Killing Time
Descendents – I Like Food – from the Fat EP

Deep Time – Clouds from Deep Time
The Zoltars – You Can Take It If You Want from Should I Try Once More?
Guy Harvey – The Rope from Mayo Factory 7″

The Vickers – Baby G from Fine For Now
Sleuth – We’re Not Friends Yet from Brave Knew Nothing
Young Prisms – Gone from In Between
Aggi Doom – Cakewalk from Soft Abuse 7″

King Tuff – Wild Desire from Suicide Squeeze 7″
Tronics – T.V. On In Bed from Love Backed By Force
Outfit – Drakes from Another Night’s Dreams Reach Earth Again

Del Shannon – Gemini from The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover
Cardinal – Rosemary Livingstone from Hymns
Kaleidoscope – Jenny Artichoke from Tangerine Dream
The Minders – Almost Arms from Cul-de-Sacs & Dead Ends

“Caroline, Well you’ve been sung about so many times,” Stoltz deadpans. Yes Caroline has been the muse to many songwriters, but Stoltz’ contribution to the Caroline cannon is easily up there with the best of them. It’s an undeniable rocker with so many hooks in it that when Kelley tried to throw it out it got stuck in the doorjamb. Marcy hasn’t had as many song written about her, probably because it doesn’t roll from the tongue the way Caroline does, but Stoltz makes her name sound pretty in a strange way with his Marcy refrain. This sadder acoustic beauty is B-side in name only.  Only 300 of these records were pressed up, so head on over to Les Disques Steak to get a copy.

stream: Kelley Stoltz – Two Imaginary Girls 7″

Many of the reviews of Frankie Rose‘s second album Interstellar have  been about how it was a huge leap from her lo-fi roots. Previously when I saw Frankie Rose a few years ago at SXSW just prior to her releasing her debut album Frankie Rose and the Outs, she was mostly still feedback and distortion. Live she may still have been reveling in reverb, but on record she had already begun to shed a lot of her Shit Storm-Vivian Girls-Crystal Stilts past. On Interstellar she continues on that same trajectory, employing the services of dance producer Le Chev to push her even further into new realms. Interstellar is steeped in 80′s Cure records and current day Swedish pop which itself is heavily influenced by those same Cure records.

Wednesday night at Neumo’s Frankie appeared wearing a black puffy pirate shirt that could have been borrowed from one of Prince‘s  Purple Rain entourage. She brought with her a solid band who had no problem recreating the icy sounding pop from Interstellar and slightly transforming the songs from her first album into shimmering celestial bodies similar to their Interstellar brethren. She seemed much more at ease as the frontperson compared to when I saw her a few years ago, talking about inane things like the rain and threatening a Sister of Mercy cover between songs, but doing it in a very likeable way. She’s an expressive singer, you can tell that she believes in her songs and delivers them with an excitement and intensity that is engaging to watch. She had  a bunch of reverb on her vocals, but I don’t think it was there to hide anything, just to make her voice sound bigger which it did quite well. Her encore of Pair of Wings may have been my favorite song of the night. Songs like Know Me  and Had We Had It are the ones that grabbed my attention from listening to the record at home, but Pair of Wings which was written by her former Shit Storm band mate  Wu Li Leung, transcended  those 80′s Cure records and delved into Abba-esque stratospheres and left me with an entirely new perspective on her already stellar Interstellar.

stream: Frankie Rose - Pair of Wings (from Interstellar on Slumberland Records)

Dive who are fronted by Beach Fossils guitarist, Kurt Cobain doppleganger and oversized sweater wearing Cole Smith are on tour with Frankie Rose serving as designated openers. On record so far, Dive sound very similar to Beach Fossils, but live they veer more towards instrumental guitar jams that remind me a little of Mogwai. Smith sings, but it wasn’t the focus. Live, Dive are all about the guitars. The twin attack was good for a few songs, but it seemed like every song went for the same trick which after a few songs, wasn’t so much of surprise. They’ve got something good to build on and I’ve liked their  singles to date. It will be interesting to see if their album due in June on Captured Tracks can sustain the excitement generated from their initial singles.

Stream: Dive – Geist
(from upcoming 7-inch on Captured Tracks)

Every year I become less a fan of Record Store Day. Every year the lines get longer and they seem to start earlier. As I walked out of the coffee shop on my way to get to Easy Street Records in West Seattle I noticed that the front page of the Seattle Times was dedicated to Record Store Day. Has Record Store Day hit the mainstream? Are record stores making a comeback? According to this article and most others I’ve read: hardly, but there are still a fair number of die hard patrons and apparently some fair weather ones. Easy Street opened at 7:00 am yesterday, and I heard that there were people in line to get in as early as 5:00 am.  This day has become like black Friday at Walmart. The doors open, there’s the mad rush to the one or two bins of Record Store Day records and the jockeying to get the records that are on your list.

Not one to wait hours in line, I arrived at the store just as the doors were opening. All of the RSD stuff was on the upper floor in two bins. I waited in line about 10 minutes to get upstairs and then pretty much just gave up when I saw that it was about five people deep to get the loot.  This brings up my first issue. I realize that record stores these days aren’t use to huge crowds (RSD excepted), but they could strategically place the the RSD stuff throughout the store so that more than just a handful of people at a time can get to them.  Why not put them in five or six places around the store so that it gives more people a chance at getting at least one or two of the records they want? While in Easy Street during the mad rush, a woman became visibly upset when she couldn’t get a copy of the Jamiroquai record (to each her own). She said that she had driven up all the way from Olympia for the record, which brings me to another issue I have with RSD. If you live somewhere without a bricks and mortar record store, you are left to Ebay price gougers for getting any of the releases. I saw that Norman Records in the UK, a mail order only record store was not allowed to participate in RSD because they are an online-only store and don’t have a physical store front. They’re a record store, they sell records, and probably to many people who don’t have access to bricks and mortar record store. Aren’t stores like these as vital and important as the ones (if you’re lucky enough to live near one) that you can walk into?

I left Easy Street in West Seattle without buying anything, annoyed by the crowd and bummed I couldn’t even get close to the records. I went home to get some more coffee and get my kid ready for his early baseball game. I dropped him off at the field and headed over to Sonic Boom in Ballard. It was 8:45 am. There was already a line around the block and the store didn’t open for another hour. I wasn’t in the mood to wait for over an hour in line, so I drove up to the Silver Platters in Northgate which opened at 9:00, figuring it was a much more spacious store and a little bit removed from the city so that there may be fewer people. My hunch was kind of right, there were quite a few  people there, but I was able to sneak in and grab the Lee Hazlewood record and the Trouble In Mind  and the Field Music 7-inch’s. I even inadvertently lucked out and got one of the 50 copies of the Hazelwood records that came with a  patch. Not sure what to do with the patch, but it’s cool I guess. Again though, all of the RSD records were in a single bin with people packed in like sardines to get a look at them.

By this time there were still a few records that I wanted to get, but I was resigned to give up. I went back to watch my kid’s baseball game (they lost). After the game I dropped my kid home and went over to Sonic Boom. They had been open for about an hour and a half, so I wasn’t expecting to find much. I guess liking marginally popular music has its benefits sometimes, because there were quite a few things left of interest. I picked up a second Trouble In Mind 7-inch for my friend Bill in NY who couldn’t find it there and got the Blouse/Craft Spells 7-inch, and the Cleaners From Venus box set. It wasn’t crowded by the time I got there, but Sonic Boom had the RSD releases more spread out around the store, so it was easier to browse around without looking over someone’s shoulder.

Truly, one of my favorite things in the world is walking into a record store and having a leisurely flip through their records. Record Store Day is anything but that. It is pressure packed competition, especially if there is something that is a limited edition that you really want.  I know they’re only records and so what if I didn’t get a copy of the Flaming Lips record, or the Domino Records/Ribbon Music FlexiZine. C’est la vie. I also realize that RSD has become the single biggest income day for most if not all record stores, so I’m totally stoked that it’s helping them to stay in business, but I hope that it would serve as an entry point to potential record geeks and get them into the habit of frequently visiting their local record store more than once or twice a year.  Cool limited edition marble colored vinyl is obviously enough to get people into the store, but if it’s only enough to get them there once a year, is it really going to sustain the brick and mortar record store for the long term? As it is, the other 51 Saturdays during the year, I walk into one of Seattle’s many record stores and have a leisurely browse in the company of only a few other customers. Even though I complain about the RSD crowds, I will continue to participate. I only hope that everyone else that goes to a record store on RSD, will start to participate the rest of the year.

Do any pop bands write political songs anymore? One might think that in this day and age there would be at least one or two new Billy Braggs with the ability to mix pop and politics. Is everyone afraid to take a trip down the Che Guevara Highway for fear of not selling records in red states? Surely there are a few singers still out there that have an opinion and enough conviction to sing about it.   Well, there’s at least one. Finland’s Cats on Fire return with their third album and on it is one of the best political songs I have heard since the Great Leap Forward. 1914 and Beyond chronicles Europe beginning with World War I to the continent’s current state and the European Union’s present-day near collapse. It is set to sad waltzing piano with clear lyrics set to just enough  melody to get your attention in case you weren’t paying attention. Once you are, it gets dark, very dark, but it’s totally appropriate for theses tough financial times when old prejudices and hatreds come to a boil after the good times come to an end and money runs out.

All black Shirts to me is not all political, but its title indicates singer Mathias Björkas dour outlook. He’s often been compared to Morrissey, and he still has a delivery that recalls the Moz, but he also has a melancholy  that brings to mind Terry Hall  and some of the spite in his voice that  reminds me of the Auteurs‘ Luke Haines.  He certainly knows his way around a melody like those fellows. Songs like It’s Clear Your Former Lover, A Different Light and first single A Few Empty Waves are seemingly delicate things, but show their strength on repeated listening.

Björkas is the focal point of the band, but this album also sees the band expanding its sound. They’ve added a fifth member Iris Viiljanen on Keyboards and have a new drummer in Yrjö Ylijoki. The keyboards add a subtle new dimension and while there really aren’t any upbeat songs as on previous albums, the arrangements are much more lush sounding and interesting which makes All Black Shirts To Me a real winner and possibly Cats On Fire’s finest record yet.

mp3: Cats On Fire – A Few Empy Waves

stream: Cats On Fire – 1914 and Beyond

Order up a copy of Cats On Fire’s All Black Shirts To Me from Matinée Recordings.