Today is Thanksgiving Day in the US, which is why I thought it appropriate to feature a little known gem called Thanks as this week’s #ThrowbackThursday entry. This concise but sweet song is just 74 seconds long and was the last track on the fifth studio album, Matters (2004) of California-based punk rock band: Pulley. This band released 5 albums between 1996 and 2004 and only one since then until now, and whereas they never reached the popularity of other punk rock bands from that time, they garnered a loyal following.Something curious about them is that Pulley‘s lead singer, Scott Radinsky, was a major league pitcher and a pitching coach after he retired.
Most punk-rock albums feature one or two acoustic tracks and Thanks was that song on Matters. It is a tune to reminisce about the past and appreciating your old friends.
To those of you celebrating it today, Happy Thanksgiving!
If you are looking for alternative rock music that can cheer you up, Dirt Royal is just the band for you. This three-piece band from Brighton, UK, merges garage rock and punk to produce energetic music that is catchy and fun, including satirical lyrics commenting on serious socio-political issues. After starting in 2013 and releasing a debut album in 2014, they worked on a number of singles and EPs over the years, but hadn’t released another full album until last month, when they dropped Great Expectations, an upbeat album that is on-brand with the band’s style of infectious melodies and chanty choruses, while discussing themes like unrealized potential and nostalgia.
Lose Our Way is the last song on the record and also its second single. It’s a perfect example of everything I said above. Check it out below and pay attention to Dirt Royal. They are here to stay.
Tough On Fridays is a three-piece rock band from Texas that started in 2017. It is female-fronted, which is always nice to have in rock music. Their sound reminds me of late 90s alternative rock, but, if you listen to their latest album, A Fantastic Way To Kill Some Time, you will see that some of the tracks got elements of punk rock as well. If you want to read a fantastic review of that album, just head over to friend blog, Eclectic Music Lover, as Jeff wrote about it last month. It is spot on, as usual.
Instead, I will focus here on Patches, my favorite track on the record. I really like the mellow guitar that emphasizes the melancholic vocals. The lyrics, singing about an unrequited love, are honest and relatable. Who hasn’t been in that position at some point in time? In fact, I think authenticity could be Tough On Fridays‘ brand, as they are making the music they like with real lyrics about what they actually feel or think. In the age of the influencers and people pretending to be someone they’re not, it’s refreshing to hear a band who just wants to keep it real.
The first Our Lady Peace song I heard was Superman’s Dead, and, at least at first, I didn’t like it that much. It wasn’t until they released Spiritual Machines, their fourth studio album, that I started to take them seriously. I’m glad that happened because otherwise I would have missed out on some great music from these gods of Canada’s alternative rock scene. The band has just released a remastered edition of this double-platinum certified album to celebrate its 20th anniversary, reason for which I decided to feature one of its best songs as this week’s #ThrowbackThursday entry.
All things being equal, I would probably have chosen Right Behind You (Mafia) for this entry, but Life is just as good and has a beautiful message that is more valid than ever today; message that OLP managed to transmit quite well on the music video (see below). Sure, life can be messed up sometimes but everybody is dealing with some issue, one way or another. We just have to keep moving on. Call me crazy, but I think this song comes in handy this year.
By the way, Our Lady Peace announced that they’re working on a follow-up to Spiritual Machines and plan to release it next year. Color me intrigued.
Musical taste is totally subjective and the process of coming up with favorite songs even more so. It’s not just about the quality of the tune because not all great songs will become special to you. There’s a bit of randomness or luck involved. Listening to a song for the first time at the right time and place in your life will play a huge factor because then it will be forever linked to a certain moment or phase in your life. Mr. Jones by Counting Crows is definitely in my top 5 and a big reason behind that is that the first time I heard it (a few years after its release), I had just finished high school. It is an incredible track, for sure, but I know that I love it that much because it can transport me back to that point my life. Which song has the same effect on you?
Anyway, here’s this week’s #ThrowbackThursday entry. Enjoy this #musicalcrush of mine.
The music business is tough. You could be the most talented singer/songwriter in the world and still fail to make it without some marketing and a little bit of luck. Social media helps with the marketing part, making it easier to reach a wider audience but, nevertheless, it still requires time and effort and not everybody is going to enjoy that work. It’s really hard to do something you hate, every day, when all you want to do is pick up your guitar and make some good music.
Dana Knox hates marketing and doesn’t even have a social media presence, but he surely got talent. He self-released a really good album in 2016 titled One Long Song that nobody listened to, mostly because few people were aware of it. Still, I guess that working so hard on an album only to get basically no traction can break you. When Dana reached out to me to make me aware of his music, I could sense that he was about to give up. He didn’t even think I would actually be willing to feature it here, he just decided to give it a try. I’m glad he did though because I really liked what I found.
Dana‘s album is available, for now, on some of the major streaming platforms. It consists mostly of his raspy voice and acoustic guitar-based melodies that can transport you immediately to the Great Plains of Montana, where he lives. Granted, it’s not the type of music that would top music charts constantly, but it’s good music that plenty of people enjoy, enough to make it feasible to do that for a living. Dana‘s style reminds me a bit of Frightened Rabbits had they been from the American Midwest rather than Scotland; and the song I decided to feature here today, An Old Song, actually reminds me a lot of early Counting Crows.
Unfortunately, An Old Song is not available on Youtube (the video below is a beautiful cover Dana did of You Are My Sunshine), but you can listen to it on the mixtapes at the bottom of this page. Definitely, check Dana‘s music out, not only to show him some support, but also because it’s pretty damn good.
I think the universe wants me to write about Bruce Springsteen. Not only was he mentioned in a recent entry, but I also watched a decent movie last week called Blinded By The Light that is basically a homage to The Boss. To top it all, he just released a brand new album accompanied by a documentary on Apple TV+: Letters To You. I don’t think there is much I can say about this legendary artist from New Jersey that is not widely known by now, so I’ll just go straight to the point here. Springsteen got many great songs and the film I mentioned made me appreciate the lyrics from Dancing In The Dark even more (seriously, amazing lyrics), yet my favorite song from The Boss remains Streets Of Philadelphia.
This Oscar winning gem was written and performed for the film Philadelphia (great film, by the way) in 1993. Some people consider it the best movie song of all time. It’s certainly in the running. It got one of the greatest intros as well. Who can forget that drum beat? Enjoy this great tune as this week’s #ThrowbackThursday entry.
This five-piece band from Merseyside, Bedside Manners, epitomizes British rock. Creating what they describe as dirty indie rock/punk, their style feels like an amalgamation of many British bands such as Arctic Monkeys, the 1975 and even Oasis, resulting in riffs-heavy energetic rock. After starting out in 2018 with the release of their first EP, they have quickly garnered a following, with one of their singles gaining over 200k streams on Spotify. As with any other artist this year, Bedside Manners has been impacted by the Covid situation, but that hasn’t stop them from releasing a new single, What It Seems, which is also –in my opinion– their best one yet.
This banger consists of nearly three minutes of shimmy-inducing rock & roll. A song of multiple meanings, it manly deals with the subject of reminiscing about the past and wondering what would have happens if we had made different decisions. One decision you won’t have to regret though, is listening to What It Seems now. It will bring some energy to your Tuesday.
Speaking of iconic albums celebrating 25 years this month, Oasis‘ legendary album, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? also fits the bill. It featured hit after hit and if you ask different people what their favorite song from this record is, you will likely get different answers each time. For example, Some Might Say that it is that song; or Wonderwall, which usually tops ‘Best of’ chats and lists; or Don’t Look Back In Anger, recently crowned as the greatest song of the 1990s by listeners of Absolute Radio. However, if you ask me, the best track is one that wasn’t even released as a single in the UK (it was a single in the US though), Champagne Supernova, which is why I chose it as this week’s #ThrowbackThursday entry.
At “just” 07:30 minutes, I love the way this song starts. People complain about the lyrics being psychedelic –i.e: making no sense–, but I think they are great. You give them the meaning you want . You can complain about the track being too long (up to you), but everything else is spot on. Oasis might not exist as a band anymore, but thankfully, we’ll always have this record and, in particular, Champagne Supernova.
“This writer, he was going on about the lyrics to “Champagne Supernova”, and he actually said to me, “You know, the one thing that’s stopping it being a classic is the ridiculous lyrics.” And I went, “What do you mean by that?” And he said, “Well, Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball — what’s that mean?” And I went, “I don’t know. But are you telling me, when you’ve got 60,000 people singing it, they don’t know what it means? It means something different to every one of them.“
Lomon is a Seattle-based musician who feels out of place, as if he had been born a thousand years early. His style is described as psychedelic indie electronic, and perhaps that is the case in general, but this particular song we are featuring today, Little Visitors, is actually closer to glam rock. There’s certainly a David Bowie vibe to it.
Passionate about science fiction and all things related to space, Lomon, aka Zander Chocron, usually writes songs about our planet, taking care of it, and space exploration. Little Visitors, for example, is a metaphor for the human race not appreciating the beautiful planet we have. All in all, Lomon is certainly an artist with plenty to say and the creativity to do so in quirky and interesting ways. Check him out below.
