Bad Lucy, Bad Lucy EP

By Cait Brennan

The Internet is a magical place. A few nights back, I muted Bob “Olympus Interruptus” Costas and took a random gander at the live web feed of one of my favorite watering holes—Tempe, Arizona’s historic Tempe Tavern. A suitably vibrant crowd was on hand to revel in the music of some fine local bands. It was all good stuff, but one band stood out so much that I had to track them down. The band is called Bad Lucy, and their gorgeous, melodic songs and energetic live show blasted right through the off-kilter webcam and livestream hiccups—and into my heart. Shut up, I’m serious.

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Shoes, Ignition

By Cait Brennan

Zion, Illinois hardly seems like the kind of place to jumpstart a music revolution. But in the dark days of 1974, this tasty bit of spicy mustard in the middle of a Waukegan/Kenosha sandwich found itself with not one but two seemingly endless power sources. Say what you will about nuclear fission, but the Zion Nuclear Power Plant had nothing on the thousand-megawatt power pop of brothers John and Jeff Murphy and their high school pal Gary Klebe—the creative soul of Shoes. Pioneers of both power pop and DIY home recording, the band made their mark with 1977’s self-released Black Vinyl Shoes, released three gorgeous albums on Elektra from ’79-82, and over the next 30-plus years, blazed a fiercely independent trail with a series of critically-acclaimed albums (1984’s Silhouette, 1990’s Stolen Wishes, ‘94’s Propeller, and a ton of rarities and reissues).

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The Tubes, Young And Rich and Now

By Cait Brennan

One of the most adventurous, imaginative, and irreverent bands of the 1970s and ’80s, The Tubes made a career—a whole new art form, really—out of being much too much.

The band existed in an alternate reality, almost inconceivable from our point of view, when bands could attack all different kinds of music, from every angle and attitude, in every genre now known or yet to be invented. In their time they were avant-garde madmen, merry pranksters, X-rated performance artists, art school punks, agents provocateurs, AOR gods, and—in a fitting twist of irony—actual Top 40 pop stars, becoming for a brief moment the very thing they were always sending up. Whether it was high concept or low pop, innovative composition and brilliant musicianship was the order of the day.

Now Real Gone Records has reissued two of the group’s essential yet long out-of-print early albums, Young And Rich and Now, the latter of which has never been issued on CD in the US, ever. It’s a welcome and wonderful addition to the Tubes’ catalog.

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All You Got To Do Is Swing: Joe Jackson’s The Duke

By Cait Brennan

From the very beginning of his professional career, Joe Jackson has been one of the most driven, creative, and eclectic artists in popular music. His debut album, Look Sharp, was one of the New Wave’s first smash hits, and over his first three albums Jackson and his band ruled the airwaves with catchy, intelligent pop with strong punk, reggae and pub-rock influences. (more…)

Return Of The Phantom 45: Robyn Hitchcock and KT Tunstall, “There Goes The Ice”

By Cait Brennan

The delightful Robyn Hitchcock is back with two new (and free) songs, “There Goes The Ice” and “Twitch 4 Sam Surfer”—the latest in Hitchcock’s series of “Phantom 45” offerings, and a harbinger of good things to come.

A spare, melancholy duet with Hitchcock and KT Tunstall, “There Goes The Ice” turns George Harrison’s Beatles classic “Here Comes The Sun” on its head, written by Hitchcock as the Arctic ice sheet literally went to pieces around him.

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Assemblog: June 15, 2012

Peter Paul Rubens and Frans Snyders,
Prometheus Bound

New on Popshifter this week: musings on Rock Of Ages; reviews of Dent May’s Do Things and Unsane’s Wreck; mixtapes and compilations; and Prometheus: A Call For Positivity.

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Rick Springfield’s Beginnings: Younger Than Tomorrow, Wise As Yesterday

By Cait Brennan

I can’t prove this, but I suspect Rick Springfield‘s career began with the discovery of a magic lamp. A magic lamp with a particularly devious Jinn contained therein. Since he was a teenager, Springfield has been on the receiving end of some of the luckiest breaks a young rocker could’ve wished for in his wildest dreams. Yet too many of them went inexplicably off the rails despite his formidable talents. Such was his major-label debut, the indispensable, shoulda-been-a-smash Beginnings, released in 1972 on Capitol and recently reissued by a great new label called Real Gone Music. It’s one of 1972’s best albums, and one of the best you’ll hear in 2012, too.
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The Explorers Club, Grand Hotel

By Cait Brennan

You’ve got to admire Jason Brewer, the founder of Charleston, South Carolina’s The Explorers Club. Barely 30, Brewer has mastered the language of 1960s pop songwriting with the kind of heart, skill, and creative ambition that would be the envy of any musician, especially those who were old enough to have been there in the first place. His band’s well-reviewed 2008 debut, Freedom Wind, echoed some of the Beach Boys’ most gorgeous moments; it was such a grand love letter to Brian Wilson that Brian Wilson’s own 2008 album That Lucky Old Sun was probably only the second-best Brian Wilson album that year.
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Your Pretty Face Is Going To Sell: Iggy Pop’s Marketing K.O.

By Cait Brennan

In the twenty-first century, commercial endorsements are everywhere. For the right price, for the right product, every indie band would wrestle an angry bear for the chance to front an ad campaign, disregarding what was once the cardinal rule of rock and roll: Doing commercials isn’t cool. Even Hollywood stars know it, which is why in the pre-YouTube era, big shot showbiz weasels would don “Fargo North, Decoder” trench coats, phony accents, and Archie McPhee mustaches and skulk off to Thailand to bank a cool million for appearing in a 30-second carbonated hemorrhoid cream ad, knowing it would never see the light of day on American TV.
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Jimmy Carter and The Rabbit Incident

Even at the best of times, it’s no picnic being the President of the United States. Being President in the 1970s was practically impossible.

Nixon inherited the bloody Vietnam conflict and struggled to govern a deeply divided nation through the oil crisis, economic stagnation, and that little Watergate thing. Athletic, competent Gerald Ford started out his brief presidency by pardoning Nixon for his crimes, heroically sparing the country an even more divisive trial; for his trouble, he got not one but two assassination attempts, and Chevy Chase turned him into a bumbling national joke. But nothing compares to the travails of our Thirty-ninth President, James Earl Carter. Double digit inflation. A bloated and unresponsive federal government. The collapse of Iran, the rise of radical Islam, and the intractable hostage crisis.

And the rabbits. The relentless, murderous rabbits.

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