JANGLE ON! – February 2021

by Eric Sorensen

While we all hold our breath that 2021 will be a marked improvement over 2020, I am pleased to let jangly music fans know that the new year is already off to an impressive start.  Power pop pandemic productivity (p4) continues to surge – with tons of fresh and vintage chiming ear candy tunes.  New and old jangly albums and singles that warrant attention include:

Songs From Another Life – The Boys With The Perpetual Nervousness.  Due for digital release on 5 February, this will be the second full-length CD from Andrew Taylor and Gonzalo Marcos.  The duo have been teasing their fans by pre-releasing individual tracks from this CD.  Byrds, REM and Teenage Fanclub references are still very apparent in the bright, melodic, chiming and harmony-laced tracks.  Songs From Another Life is an early contender for Top Ten honors in 2021.  Long may you run, Sir Andrew and Sir Gonzalo!

After receiving my copy of Strum & Thrum: The American Jangle Underground 1983 – 1987, I started to seek out the back-catalog of some of the featured artists.  I already had a very complete discography of Windbreakers, Bobby Sutliff and Tim Lee recordings in my music library.   To my pleasant surprise, some terrific releases by the Outnumbered  – Holding The Grenade Too Long, Why Are All The Good People Going Crazy and Work…Buy…Die, are available through Bandcamp.  Two sea tours and several deployments made it difficult to keep up with contemporary music in the early to mid-1980s, so it’s good to fill in these gaps in my collection.  Listening to 91X in San Diego and WHFS in Washington, D.C. (many thanks to “Weasel” for his daily “My Three Songs” feature) also helped to eliminate some of my “blind spots.”

Another Bandcamp find is the Roanoke, Virginia band the Young Sinclairs.  Original songs like “Change Your Mind” and “Once Or Twice” are excellent jangly tracks, and the band also excels at catchy covers of “I Have Always Been Here Before,” Baby Blue,” “You Tore Me Down,” Gene Clark’s “Long Time,” and Love’s “My Flash On You” and “You I’ll Be Following.”  I will be keeping an eye out for more releases from this current jangle-pop group.

Florida’s the BellTowers (born from the ashes of the Lears) have released five more chiming, Byrdsian tracks – begging the question about when the next full-length CD will become available?  The updated version of “Annabel Lee” now includes horns – which reminds me of “Alone Again Or” by Love.  When you combine the compressed sound of a Rickenbacker 12-string guitar with tons of pseudo-60s references, what’s not to like about the BellTowers!

Several Boomer musician friends continue to pursue their passion for making music.  Rich Arithmetic has just released a full-length CD – Shiftingears – on the Kool Kat Musik label.Back in the mid-1990s, Rich released Sleep In A Wigwam on his own Optional Art label – so this is a welcome return to the pop music scene.  Shiftingears represents a continuation of Rich’s reverence for the pop-rock music of earlier decades, and his skill at giving his own compositions a full measure of originality.  I don’t hear Rich’s Rickenbacker 370RM 12-string on any of the thirteen tracks, but I do hear some great instrumentation, vocals and harmonies.

German singer/songwriter Horst-Peter Schmidt is working on the twelfth Starbyrd release, and he has shared some cover versions of “Diamonds And Rust” and “She Don’t Care About Time” – both of these tracks prominently feature his Rickenbacker 370RM 12-string.

Veteran Austin, Texas musician Freddie Steady Krc has just reissued the CD with five bonus tracks; the release date is 19 February.  When this disc was first released in 2007, it made my Top Ten for that year.  Chiming Rickenbacker 12-string riffs abound on the 18 tracks, which include nifty power pop originals as well as some terrific covers.  New to Freddie’s catalog is a sweet cover of the Lovin’ Spooful’s “You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice.”

Long may you run, Sir Rich, Sir Horst-Peter and Sir Freddie!

Notable singles from the past month include: “You’ll Be The Death Of Me” by Emperor Penguin; “Three Camelias” by Goodman; “Can’t You See” by the Boys With the Perpetual Nervousness; “Days” by the Lousy Pop Group; “Girl In My System” by the Never Never; “The Children of McGuinn” by Kevin Odegard; and two tracks from the new 20/20 tribute disc – “Out Of This Time” by the Toms and “The Night I Heard A Scream” by the Armoires.

Until next time, jangle on!