(this short note below is repeated each day for those missed previous days)
I’m getting ready to release the latest installment in the “Best Power Pop” CD compilation yearly series in about a month. Each year I do something different and hopefully fun, adding an element of discovery to the process of the promotion of the latest in the series. Regardless of whether one decides to purchase the CD(and all its crazy, over-the-top bonuses), I try set up each day to be an experience, a pleasure rabbit hole to go down and encounter new music from the present and past that you might have missed – or just were not aware of.
By the end of the 7 days, you’ll have some great new discoveries and you will have been able to check out some of the 61 artists appearing on this year’s 3-CD set. You’ll hear about ordering it and the extra special package connected to it at the end of these seven days. But leave that all aside…let’s have some fun below!
So, to summarize – Three Sections. THE PRESENT and THE PAST and THE VIDEOS.
Scroll on and let’s continue on this journey with Day Three!
(if you missed, Day One – click HERE)
(if you missed, Day Two – click HERE)
(if you missed, Day Three – click HERE)
(if you missed, Day Four – click HERE)
(if you missed, Day Five – click HERE)
(if you missed, Day Six – click HERE)
Each day I’ll be spotlighting 4-5 bands that are appearing on the upcoming “Best Power Pop of 2018” release coming out in next month(October). Step right in, get to know some of the finer power pop artists of the last few years. Here’s the next batch of featured artists.
PAT BUCHANAN
Nashville, Tennessee-based session guitarist, Pat Buchanan, has worked with a wide range of recording artists, including Cameo, Dixie Chicks, Faith Hill, Kenny Chesney, Don Henley, Hall and Oates, Cyndi Lauper, Dolly Parton, and many more artists. For a sample list of artists Pat has recorded with, visit the CREDITS page
Pat won ACM Guitarist of the Year in 2005 and has been nominated for several awards over the years.
Growing up in Florida in a musical household (his father played bass in jazz bands while his mother is a singer), Buchanan was playing guitar from an early age. Graduating from the band circuit, he started his recording career recording on jingles for radio and television in Atlanta, Ga in the mid 80’s. He went on to record on the ground-breaking album, “Word Up!” with the hit funk band Cameo. He joined their US and UK tour before going on to record and tour with both Hall and Oates and Cyndi Lauper in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
In 1994 Buchanan moved his family to Nashville and became part of the Nashville session scene. He has since recorded with many artist and bands. Pat has also recorded on many songs on soundtracks for movies and television including the current running ABC television series “Nashville.”
https://www.patbuchananmusic.com/
Check out some of Pat’s amazing session credits – click HERE
Interview with Pat: https://purepopradio.com/tag/pat-buchanan/
Amazon Music: click HERE
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THE CAPER CLOWNS
Caper Clowns are a Danish band, who released their second album, A Salty Taste To The Lake, October, 2018). Many of the songs from their album, A Salty Taste To The Lake, have enjoyed airplay on both Denmark`s nationale radio DR, as well as a lot of web-radio stations around the world.
Caper Clowns released their debut album, The Buca Bus, September 2016, which was well received in both Denmark and abroad. The American radio host Alan Haber from Pure Pop Radio awarded The Buca Bus debut album of the year. The band are packing more than 400 gigs in their luggage, including support gigs for bands like The Crookes (UK) and Level 42 (UK). Caper Clowns also featured the IPO-festival in Liverpool on The Cavern Club for the last 3 years.
Review, Shindig! # 85 (UK): https://pocketmags.com/eu/shindig-magazine
5 stars. ….the album can proudly stand with the best of 2018. The band boats four singers, as well as a sound which can be characterized as a cross between The merrymakers and Crowded House, with a bit of Sir Paul thrown in….not a single duff track here.
Review, Power Popaholic (USA): click HERE for full review
….The opener “The Way I Dream” is a wonderfully catchy composition, with its bouncy rhythm it sets the stage nicely. In contrast, “Lifeline” adds some darker guitar riffs but the chords change to sunshine by the end of the harmony-filled chorus. The Caper Clowns biggest strength is its diverse sound…. The light acoustic guitar of “Kissing Daylight” is a winner, as well as the Squeeze-like magic of “Pretty & Underwear.” The album is both unpredictable and refreshing without a single filler track.
Review, Jansen’s Jamz (NL) : click HERE for full review
….The third single (Paper Trail) is a perky indie-rock song, wrapped in a vivacious vintage coating. With bouncy electric guitar strums, lively percussion and Electric Light Orchestra-dipped harmonies, it fuses 60s, 70s and 00s influences into a contemporary composite of rejuvenating and lively guitar-driven rock…..
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CaperClowns/
Link to all online platforms to purchase and listen to A Salty Taste To The Lake (2018): click HERE
Link to the album, The Buca Bus (2016): click HERE
Interview with the band on Pure Pop Radio: click HERE
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VEGAS WITH RANDOLPH
“Hot of the release of their highly acclaimed late-2018 album “Legs & Luggage”, Vegas With Randolph is continuing full-bore with promotional videos of L&L songs, and new material for a forthcoming 5th CD! The first single and video towards this 5th effort, “Give In To Love” is currently available at the links above, as are their 4 previous CD’s, each well received and reviewed in the powerpop community and beyond!
VWR is currently running a bundle special for all 4 of their CDs at https://vegaswithrandolph.bandcamp.com/album/legs-luggage for just $25!!”
Bandcamp: www.vegaswithrandolph.bandcamp.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VegasWithRandolph/
Some Free Songs from the band for you:
– “The Better Part” from our “Above The Blue” CD: https://vegaswithrandolph.bandcamp.com/track/the-better-part-2
– “Salt Water Taffy” from our “Rings Around The Sun” CD: https://vegaswithrandolph.bandcamp.com/track/salt-water-taffy-2
– “I Could Be The One” from our “Legs & Luggage” CD: https://vegaswithrandolph.bandcamp.com/track/i-could-be-the-one-2
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RICHIE PARSONS
Boston musician Richie Parsons is back with his Kickstarter funded LP (produced by The Posies Ken Stringfellow, who also sings and plays on everything.) Parsons approximately sounds like a combo of Jonathan Richman and Chris Stamey. The hi-energy opener “Beverly” captures Parson’s pop-rock sound perfectly. “Winter’s Dream” is another winner, a love song with a chugging melody and hook-filled chorus. And “Six Hours Ahead” name drops The Raspberries, as he goes to “a punk rock show.” The album takes a somber turn mid-way on “Rainy Day” which has Bacharach-styled orchestration with horns and strings. The twang of “Here I Am” is a rootsy Western blues tune, and the Farfisa organ of “Tomorrow” is reminiscent of The Doors. 8 out of 10.” – Powerpopaholic
Bandcamp: https://richieparsons.bandcamp.com/music
Spotify: click HERE
AmazonMusic: click HERE
THE JUNIOR LEAGUE
The Junior League, the name multi-instrumentalist and songwriter under which Joe Adragna works, is back with “Adventureland”, a 10 song blast of pop-rock that harkens back to his first release, 2005’s “Catchy”. “I had all these songs I was working on,” Adragna explains. “and I thought that maybe it would be fun to take all the rocking ones and stick them together–A record you could ride the rides to!”
“Adventureland” is indeed a ride of it’s own, blasting through 10 songs in just under a half hour. Adragna explains, “I really love short pop songs. Get in and get out. I don’t always do that with my material, but often times, I do.” “Adventureland” doesn’t let up, from the opening burst of “Heavy” to the dizzying rock of “Adventureland at Night”. The sound is aggressive and rocking throughout, which was the plan: “I wanted this to just be full out rock, because since my first record (“Catchy”) I really hadn’t done that.”
The record was recorded by Adragna in his Greenleaves Sound Recorders studio outside New Orleans, La. Friends that appear on this record include Tammy Ealom (Dressy Bessy) providing backing vocals on “Falling In Love; regular JL contributor and Minus 5 leader Scott McCaughey wrote “Have Faith In Yourself”; keyboardist Liam Catchings (The Jolly Racket) on “Falling In Love” and “Have Faith In Yourself”; and Jason Wacha (The Roebucks, Jason Stohn) providing vocals on and co-writing “Heavy” and “The Queen Of The Dead”; the rest of the writing, instrumentation and singing is, as usual, handled by Adragna.
“Adventureland” is garnering fabulous reviews. Something Else claims that “It is really no exaggeration to say this is a flawless album at every angle”; I Don’t Hear A Single says the record is a “revelation” and that “Adventureland is a contender for IDHAS’s Album Of The Year”; Power Pop News says “Adventureland” is “hooky pop goodness” that is “one of this year’s best power pop LPs”.
Bandcamp: https://thejuniorleague.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thejrleague/
Band Site: http://www.thejrleague.com/
Twitter is @thejuniorleague
There are THREE parts to each day in ‘the past’ section.
The first part is a re-presentation of a promotion from 2 1/2 years ago called ‘the music discovery experience‘(what can I say, it’s a theme for me – ‘discovery‘) Each day there will be one folder for you to download. In each folder, there will be 5/6 songs of different varieties and sub-genres of the power pop genre, spanning the 60s-00s. These songs are truly off the normal track and go deep.
CLICK HERE to download “MDE – Day 7”
(there are six great ‘finds’ in this folder)
The second part is various fun tracks from the (mostly) 70s and 80s that are rare, unreleased and hard to find or completely unavailable. For the next seven days, I’m calling it…DISCOVERY DAYS. The folders that you will see from each day are similar to the ones right above here. These songs, though, I’ve pulled together just this last week, poring over almost a thousand other tracks before arriving at these. Going deep, going good.
Discovery. Let’s begin.
CLICK HERE to download “Discovery Days – Day 7”
The third part is even easier. If you have the time and inclination, just watch some of the videos I’ve pulled in from over the past 8 years of Pop Geek Heaven video activity.
As always, I leave this kind of activity from me with a simple request….ENJOY.
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So you payin’ attention, ‘ole friend?! Going through these posts and enjoying the Discovery Journey? Well, right on! Here’s some extra tuneage, which if you are new to these parts in the last 3 years or so, you’ve not seen. This is from some years back when I was going through the archives of my entire 20+ year music business journey(not even including the years I worked in the music biz in L.A. in the 80s). Not Lame Recordings released over 120 CDs and distributed well over 5,000 indie power pop-oriented artists and small labels in its time(1994-2010). Catch a small bit of that legacy here. There was so much that I was just sharing and giving away for the only reason of ‘keeping the music from these great artists alive’. Keep the Fire Burning, Pop Fans!
(note: this link will only be live during these Discovery Days – go below now)
