Bands in the "powerpop" chapter of the 1980 new wave guide I just bought for $2 off a seemingly homeless guy set up on the sidewalk of St Marks

People are always trying to revive the Shoes, maybe I read something at the old Perfect Sound Forever. They were from Zion, Illinois, no? Allegedly got their name from something George Harrison said: "We didn't have to be called the Beatles- we could've been called The Shoes"

What about The Plimsouls?

Chuck already mentioned them on this thread.

And how 'bout the Shoes? Some guy took his Shoes Lps into Amoeba the other day. He was in front of me in the buyer/seller line. And they didn't want 'em!

And where are the Sidewinders and Piper? Or the Nervous Eaters? I saw a CD by them in Amoeba but it was way too high-priced, apparently only having been made for sale in Barcelona.

George, you passed up a Stackwaddy record?

Yeah, I know. I suffered a seizure, a moment of weakness. I was embarrassed the instant I put the Records CD in the car player back in the parking lot.

funnily enough, that's the exact lineup for the next international pop overthrow festival in LA.

are you talking about when this happened in the '80s? or when this happened, like, last year?

The Briefs. Kind of over before they had a chance to be briefly gotten over.

Sadly missing from list (and the entire book): Moon Martin, who had an even (much) better top 40 hit ("Rolene") than Ian Gomm in 1979.

I actually think the FIRST Shoes album (before Black Vinyl Shoes) was self-released, just to a few friends in Zion, wasn't it?

I saw Pezband play in the late 70s, their albums really didn't do justice. Look for the live EP 30 Seconds Over Shaumburg.

Same with the Romantics, basically, though I'd recommend their s/t debut to anybody who likes some bands on the above list. Of course "Talking In Your Sleep" is a deathless radio classic.

Someone--Josh Goldfein, maybe--told me recently he ran into the guy from the Records in NYC doing some kind of rock and roll act for his kid's schoolmate's birthday party, and I think the guy was dressed up like a clown for these kids. Anyway, Josh made me a CD that had this Coke ad the Records did, "Teenarama" of course, with the line about Co-co-ca-cola." That one and "Starry Eyes" and "All Messed Up and Ready" off the first album are decent enough, but they were basically ropey.

The Scruffs I had the first album by, and they could not sing, pure formalism, so I got rid of it, since I couldn't listen to the damned thing. But "Revenge" is sort of a good song. Never could understand why Christgau gave that one his A minus or whatever the grade was.

Ian Gomm wasn't terrible, but his "Gomm with the Wind" was such an uneasy mix of pop and bad production, always seemed almost deliberately lame, and if I recall he left out the *bridge* on his cover of the Beatles' " You Can't Do That." But I always liked Nick Lowe, who I guess is powerpop enough, before he turned into a roots-rocker. He always had a nice light touch, and "Cruel to Be Kind" is one of the few "powerpop" singles that really hit big.

A lot of those other bands are on the Rhino powerpop comps from around ten years ago, like 20/20, whose "Yellow Pills" is pretty good. I never quite saw the allure of the Paley Brothers. The Romantics were all right as a single(s) band. I like the genre partly because most of its practitioners seemed a bit confused as to what it was they were doing in the first place!

Apparently they recorded three full-length albums before BVS. Their website has a self-released double CD with most of this stuff. (I happen to be rediscovering the Shoes lately, but I'm not paying $45 for it.)

"Come On Let's Go" from the Rock 'n Roll HS soundtrack was great. I haven't heard anything else of theirs.

The Romantics were all right as a single(s) band. I like the genre partly because most of its practitioners seemed a bit confused as to what it was they were doing in the first place!

The Romantics' first album is actually quite good. "First In Line" and "Tell It To Carrie" in particular are fine songs. "What I Like About You" was great before it became the soundtrack to ten thousand Eighties Nights and frat parties.

Best Romantics album by far (way better than the debut, which is good nonetheless, and which thanks to not only "What I Like About You" but also their debut local indie hit "Tell it To Carrie" was a much bigger hit in Detroit and elsewhere) is *National Breakout*, where they do "21 And Over" and "Tomboy" and get their Unrelated Segments thang on.

Is this the Bay City Rollers' attempt to lose the teen idol status, a la "NKOTB" years later? Or someone else?

*National Breakout* (which of course was *not* their national breakout; that didn't happen to a couple years later) also had the great "Stone Pony". "Friday at the Hideout" was its U-Segments cover.

And yeah, I think Rollers = Bay City Rollers, I think.

Right about 30 Seconds... re Pezband. It doesn't even fit with things like Laughing in the Dark and the debut, being totally carnivorous by comparison. A listen to it and one asks if it's the same band.

so OTM. Like, what, 1/3 of these bands have played IPO?

Nope. Top 100, though, maybe.

I liked their "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" way better than the Ramones song of the same name. Don't remember much about them otherwise.

Jonathan's song "The New Teller" on that album is one of his greats. For some reason, I thought that was him backed by the Rubinoos, but the last time I listened to it it sounded like his band.

"Well, everybody in the bank line knows
That I've got a crush on the new teller"

xp

xp

(I'm probably not a huge "subtlety" fan in general, which may well be my loss, I freely admit.)

On the other hand, Scott is dead wrong if he thinks people don't remember what "Yellow Pills" by 20/20 sounds like. (I am humming it in my head right now.)

And Big Star never wrote a song as good as "Starry Eyes" (much less "Ballroom Blitz" or "Sugar Sugar".)

The Rubinoos were definitely wackier. The Shoes never would have written an "Arcade Queen" or "Ronnie." They were too busy pining (and wishing cosmic revenge) on unattainable women.

So the reason Nick Lowe doesn't belong is that he is a lot better than the rest?

He's a good songwriter.

There's a double-CD of *all* the early Jonathan stuff around, BTW, includes "New Teller" and "Gov't Center" and all that stuff that used to be lurking in obscure corners.

xpost

Honestly, I'm not sure where to start in explaining them off the top of my head. Suffice to say, though, that when you hear "Good Girls Don't" or "Too Late" or "Starry Eyes," you think "power pop" rather than "glam" or "bubblegum?"

All the Pezband studio LPs are in print via the Japanese, at rediculous prices. "Cover to Cover" anyone? Man, they couldn't really write great songs, either, which is why when they rocked out with their cocks out on 30 Seconds..., it was their best record.

And Big Star never wrote a song as good as "Starry Eyes"

Nor "Rock 'n' Roll Love Letter." But "That 70's Show" made one of their shitty songs a trademark. Always cracked me up. There's Hyde in his classic rock T-shirts every episode, the titles of the episodes taken from Led Zeppelin songs, everything supposed to be so so mainstream 70's, and the dope who created the series blows his cover by picking a Big Star song as a theme. Yeah, lemme tell ya they were rocking in the basement to "In the Street." No, more likely, "Get that shit off, man, and put on 'Dark Side of the Moon.'" And no way was Forman ever into any music. Simply not believable.

and yeah, nick lowe, his first couple of solo records i would consider some of the best music of the 70's, period. they are that good.

yeah, well, it was kind of the indie rock of its day.

I think the "unwilling or able to break its boundaries" is true of some of it, but there's a decent amount of power pop where it doesn't seem to me like the adherence to genre was stodgy or anything.

Power Pop is always sort of a guilty pleasure genre. I've investigated truckloads of the stuff, from the 70s/80s/90s, and very little of it sticks to the wall. You could get away with a good two cd set compiling the highlights of the genre.

Somehow, Badfinger, Cheap Trick and Teenage Fanclub transcend the genre for me. I know TF inspires boredom in most, but I've always liked the Byrdsian lilt they developed from Grand Prix on. Badfinger just slays me, especially the Warner Bros. material.

that says it pretty well.

And the Buzzcocks do trump all this skinny tie power pop stuff we've been talking about. Singles Going Steady is perfection from start to finish!

Fast Cars-The Kids Just Wanna Dance
Ignerents-Wrong Place Wrong Time
Protex-Just Want (Your Attention) and Don't Ring Me Up
Snips-9 o'clock

That's not quite true but, heh, I get the drift. Hey, I just unfiled "Now" by the Plimsouls a couple days ago. And The Beat's album that I do like does not seem to be in print, twas the first. And I'll admit to liking 20/20's appearance on Dick Clark. They did "Remember the Lightning" and "Yellow Pills." And where does Rick Springfield fit in here?

i do have a weird chris stamey solo album though.

And I listened to the Chris Stamey Experience last year and liked some of it. But the hard rock stuff he was trying to do as hard rock didn't quite make it. The guy had no business covering "Politician."

what does an entire katrina & the waves album sound like, anyway?

Kind of like an R&B combo that liked to play dance tunes for the dudes on US military bases in England. Which is what they were doing when they were still on the "oof" indie label prior to "Walking On Sunshine."

What I find interesting about this stuff, like Big Star, is really the rhythmic sense. Big Star records are like Stax records, except they sound better. Stax records mixed with Led Zeppelin; to me, a lot of the first Big Star album sounds like "Ramble On" or something, just not as dynamic or as good, and yeah, probably "Ramble On" isn't the greatest Led Zeppelin track to most ears.

I think a lot of powerpop operates in a no-man's land between rock and pop, and it mostly comes out of folk-rock anyway. When you listen to Chris Bell you're listening to someone who hasn't figured out how to use drums and bass all that well, where everything is sprung out and so you never get that thing to hold onto you get with rock music. And I think that's valid, but it's not populist. It's strange music. It's kind of neurotic, a lot of it, and Chris Bell for example is really pretty much joyless, like he's just stuck.

Cheap Trick I don't think transcend the genre, they don't have a genre really. But I like them now far more than I did when they were popular, I got those first three albums and they're pretty great. Badfinger were about half-great but mainly on their singles; I love the song "Perfection" but that's just as calibrated and semi-lifeless as some of Big Star's stuff. I'm just not sure if they weren't going for calibrated and lifeless, somehow, as a statement of alienation from prevailing trends, looking back always to the Beatles and the Byrds and the Zombies. It's a bit perplexing. It's like George says above about that last Stamey album--when he tries to rock, he's so far from it that you start to wonder if that's what he's actually trying to do. Chris Stamey doing Cream or "Compared to What" is just so fucking wimpy that it makes you wonder what's really going on there.

Anyway. The two songs I have of hers are "All Girls Lie" and "Hello I Am Your Heart", which are both a mixture of ska and pop ("Hello I Am Your Heart" being more reggae-ish than "All Girls Lie"). I think I prefer "All Girls Lie" because the last part of that song is a nonstop hookfest, but that doesn't mean I don't like "Hello I Am Your Heart", because I do. Anyway, it's interesting that she alone would be listed in a guide from 1980, because her lone solo album wasn't even released until 1981! Did they list her with a redirect to Deaf School, i.e. the band she had been prior to her short-lived solo career?

the Matthew Sweet I really like is "Girlfriend," 'cause it has Robert Quine and Richard Lloyd, and the songs there are his best songs. There are also a couple good Sweet things on comps--"Supermodified" and his "Revolver" cover "She Said" are nice. But yeah, "Altered Beast" is good. "Living Things" from last year is weird, it seems to feature steel drums on every song, but it's OK, just doesn't rock like "Girlfriend" or "Beast."

Ha ha, but Matthew Sweet is one of the most perfect examples ever of what you're complaining about, Scott...

Interesting discussion. A few thoughts:

* A lot of the bands, as previously mentioned, were taking cues directly from the Beatles/Byrds/British Invasion et al. At this point I'd just as soon go back to the source(s). I mean, Gene Clark was a much better songwriter than 99% percent of these other people were and are. Maybe I've just come to dislike how doctrinaire some people are about it. I make an exception for TFC b/c I really dig their songwriting. Some good stuff on that new record.

* Never was a Matthew Sweet fan so much. Sorry.

* Big Star is an interesting case. Used to love those records, but can't bring myself to listen so much now - partly b/c I played them to death, partly b/c I've seen Chilton good, bad and indifferent. I can tell you that here in Memphis, there are not too many people who care one way or the other.

* Nice to see someone mention Artful Dodger above. That first record is great.

* Yes, "Shake Some Action" is fantastic but I actually prefer Ron-Loney era FGs and the "Slow Death"-period right when Chris Wilson joined. The Norton disc with those demos is probably my platonic ideal.

* Barracudas yes! "Grammar of Misery" is a killer.

But nothing by the dBs.

But nothing by the dBs.

-- xhuxk (xedd...), September 21st, 2005.

This seems to just about sum it up for me. (Though I only ever had the one Big Star album that had "September Gurls" on it and I like the the song "September Gurls" more than OK because it is actually awesome!)

Also: Rubinoos >>> dBs

"Girlfriend" the song is such a catchy pop song. By matthew Sweet. It's very bubblegummy.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the first Big Star album, okay? I LOVE IT TO DEATH. Everything about it. Got that? (and i like the 2nd one okay and i am a fan of sister lovers too. great songs on there. but then i am pretty goth and i first heard some of those songs via 4AD.)

THAT'S MY JAM!!!!

and it is true that in Memphis no one much cares, when I lived there no one ever cared about any of the powerpop stuff, they have their own prog cover bands and stuff there in Memphis, so it was always a real minority taste. just like no one cares there about Stax or Charlie Feathers or wants to think about Gus Cannon.

and I do get wistful as I get over "Gimme Another Chance," that is pretty.

Clive Langer produced Madness too??? Whoa. I guess I know how Bette Bright met Suggs -- Langer produced Bette Bright's solo album and was in fact a member of Deaf School along with Bright. But I haven't heard anything about Clive Langer and Bette Bright having been married before. Maybe it's just that you're remembering them being in the same group... ? Anyway. Thanks for giving me another heads up on someone to look out for -- I will *so* be investigating Langer's material now.

Nice to see Matthew Sweet make an appearance in this post. Girlfriend is a fantastic record. A guitar player's wet dream, so to speak. Quine in one speaker and Lloyd in the other. Jesus christ that's tuff.

Scott is big on the #1 Record, but I've always thrown my love behind Radio City. I like the shambolic nature of it. And the misogyny. Chilton plays the creepy teen who just wants to get laid SO WELL!

anyway, to get back to the list, what about these people who I've never even heard of:

bette bright
the jags
loaded dice
the innocents
the barracudas--what does "Grammar of Misery" sound like?
the clones
the pleasers
starjets

??

Had a great 12-inch single with three cuts on it. The subsequent album was a let down. High energy pub/bar rock toward the New Wave side of things more than punk.

>>the barracudas--what does "Grammar of Misery" sound like?

No idea. Mediocre surf and garage rock.

>>starjets

This band really ate it although Chuck thinks more highly of 'em. Nondescript (faceless) sort of pub rock. Or fit them in with The Jolt or sub-mediocre Cortinas or milder version of The Carpettes or...The Headboys.

Maybe wanted to be like the Diodes or the Tourists without Dave Steward and Annie Haslam.

The Jags big hit was 'Back Of My Hand', which was a very blatant Elvis Costello rip off. Great record!

I think one of them may have gone onto form Pansy Division.

Led Zep? Yeah, in the states they did. They didn't want to , but the u.s. demanded them. um, communication breakdown, whole lotta love, over the hills and far away. those are three that i can think of.

the jags - sub Costello, actually sub Joe Jackson, had one hit in the UK

the barracudas - they were a kind of garage/ psychedelic pastiche/ homage band back when garage and psychedelia was the krautrock of its day, the lead singer was a journalist. They served a purpose I suppose.

the pleasers - their gimmick was they looked like the Beatles, I imagined they must have sounded like them too

starjets - from Northern Ireland, post-Undertones, but more power pop

No idea. Mediocre surf and garage rock.

The Barracudas song I remember hearing all the time was "I Wish It Could Be 1965 Again." Maybe they ran down a list of some of their favorite acts from that time in the song? I bought one of their albums, it had them holding surfboards on the cover maybe making wacky Beatles/Monkees poses. Other than that I have nothing else to add.

Edd, I'm a little suprised you don't remember The Jags big hit. The chorus of the song went "I got your number/(pause) written (pr. "ridden") on the back of my hand." I knew they were British because the lyrics featured a "fruit machine," which took me a while to figure out.

Wrong about "Grammar." Nothing surf-y about it.

Weirdly cryptic and urgent, with four-on-the-floor bass drum and one of the all-time 12-string solos.

xpost

I heard "Hold On Loosely" last night on a jukebox in east Nashville! What a great song.

And to the person who wondered why the Sidewinders weren't on the list...I believe it's supposed to be a 1980 power-pop guide, not 1972 (when their one and only album came out). At least the Paley Brothers' album was more recent.

Apologies for being so late contributing to this thread, but I didn't realize the discussion had gotten as hot as it did!

I don't think Big Star were a weirdo Raspberries, but that's an elegant formulation. I will always think that Big Star was a relaxed Moby Grape, California folk-rock with a lope and a trunkful of Stax records. 'Cause Memphis sure ain't California.

On the other hand I think what I'm after from UK Powerpop is skinnier and clipped. Early Joe Jackson, Jags etc etc. Also more 'beat-pop' ...The Motors, The Records..

Speaking of which, the Raspberries became so much better when they let other members write and sing lead. Listen to those last two 'Berries albums (SIDE THREE and STARTING OVER) - they're not as schlocky as the other two elpees they did.

I found Van Duren's '78 album w/ Jon Tiven today for three bucks. On London. four great songs: "Grow Yourself Up," "Chemical Fire," "New Year's Eve" and "For a While." And a lot of pretty tepid shit.

and no, I do not know about the Mutantes stuff...and I guess I will have to hear it. I like them, altho not as much as I like Gilberto Gil...who is also probably better than anyone we've talked about on this thread.

yeah, but he wasn't power-pop, so let's save him for the "Rolling Country 1965 Thread" or something. the man had his moments, though - the way he used to scat-sing, he sounded like a hillbilly King Pleasure.

doo-doo-doot-doot-doot-doot-doo-doo-bom!!

I Wanna Be With You - Pure power popper. good song.

Goin' Nowhere Tonight - Power twanger. And totally what Big Star could have come up with if they were signed to Capitol and someone put a gun to their heads. Good song.

Let's Pretend - Yes, some mushy Eric, but the harmonies are great and he gets tough at the end (cuz he liked to ape McCartney's mumble to a yowl approach.). Good song.

Every Way I Can - Uptempo pop-rock. Cool guitars. Good song.

I Reach For The Light - Total McCartney action. Mushy? Yeah, but jaunty and there are synth horns!. A complete and utter Beatles rip. And I like those. Great harmonies too and Eric actually does his best macca here. Good song.

Nobody Knows - Acoustic guitar driven power pop. Nice!

It Seemed So Easy - More acoustic guitar driven power pop. Nobody Knows & It Seemed So Easy being some alternate universe Beatles single.

Might As Well - How about one more acoustic guitar driven power pop song! Wally sings this one. It's great!

If You Change Your Mind - The second of only TWO full-on ballads. And there isn't a piano in sight. This is the one track I don't need. It's too long (the whole album is probably just about 30 minutes. Maybe shorter.) and it doesn't really go anywhere.

Drivin' Around - Hey, let's mix things up and rip the Beach Boys! It's okay. Mostly for the line about drivin' around blastin' his tapedeck. lyrical concerns that would form the basis for 50% of all future power pop.

2 BALLADS! Out of 10 songs. I wouldn't consider I Reach For The Light a ballad. Too many shifts in tempo and too many cool effects. it's a down-tempo pop take on Abbey Road-era Beatles.

I wish I could have seen their reunion.

* With the disclaimer once again that I only ever had the 2nd Big Star LP

Now, as far as them other tunes...I don't rightly recall whether they were slow or fast...I usually run the needle through the three songs I actually like...but getting back to those others, I remember there being more pop than power. Just wasn't feelin' it.

Yeah, what Scott says on the sound of the Big Star 2-fer CD. #1 Record is more immediate, maybe more pop. Radio City is a grower...

Like I say, I haven't heard the whole 1st album. Maybe you can understand where I'm coming from, though. I'm looking at the liner notes on the Raspberries Greatest Hits LP just now and there's that one article called "What the Critics Said." Check this out:

"When reviewing the 'Tonight' single, Eric Rudolph said in Rock magazine, 'You hear the slashing opening and wonder why other people, who are supposedly a lot 'heavier' than the Raspberries, can't make rock 'n' roll as compelling at that."

"Nick Charles, when reviewing the tune that many critics expected to follow 'Tonight' as a single, became somewhat extremist when he said in Hit Parader, ''Ecstasy' is a thrilling gut-kicker with Wally tossing off jagged Who lightning bolts. No band has ever been better than this song."

I just can't imagine people saying things like this about Big Star.

I didn't hear much on the record that didn't draw heavily from American older pop music, including the cover. And I liked it. Some of it sounded a lot like Blondie in a foreign language, which isn't unusual at all.

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0335,eddy,46551,22.html

Also, just realized that the title of the catchiest track on Dengue Fever's debut, "I'm Sixteen," is also a very memorable chorus from the 2nd Shakin Street album. Coincidence??

Sound-wise? Surely, Shocking Blue had way better songs.

So Will Birch of The Records wrote the liner notes for the new Jesus Of Cool reissue?

Max here, bass player for Cargoe.. Sept 2010, we just released our first "follow-up" to the 1972 Cargoe... it took us 38 years to finally get it together.. but these are many songs that would have been on the '73 follow-up, had there been one.. check it out on iTunes and Amazon.com as starters.. we tried to be authentic 70's... all original members except for new Lead Guitar, Steve Thornbrugh... Check it out and pass the word please.. /Cheers, Max.. Bill.. Tim.. and Steve.. www.cargoemusic.com

What? No Racey?

The Racey songs I've heard are great. But nope, they're not in the book.

In other news, I actually found a dollar copy of the Jags LP with "Back Of My Hand" this weekend!

Best 80s powerpop?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2jRez9_mwE