Hailing from Seattle, Ransom and the Subset borrow from a variety of bands to create their musical canvas. Rather than sounding overtly plagiaristic, their debut release ‘No Time To Lose’ merely celebrates many different pop and rock styles, creating an eleven track musical journey that’s sure to connect with lovers of post nineties power pop at some place along the way. The fact that it borrows so heavily from classic influences is no surprise when taking into consideration that singer songwriter RanDair Porter has called upon Ducky Carlisle (The Major Labels) and Brian E. King (Oranjuly/Parks) to bring these songs to life. Neither producer/multi-instrumentalist is exactly shy of tapping into the past for key inspirations and King’s Oranjuly project, especially, proved a fantastic exercise in celebrating pop’s golden years, resulting perhaps even one of the finest one-album bands ever. All the studio help/arranging in the world would be of no use, of course, if the band weren’t up to scratch…
Tag Archives: power pop
GAY ELVIS – Has Left The Building EP
Gay Elvis is the long-serving bassist with New Jersey based alt-rock/power pop band Readymade Breakup. In between work with that band, he’s tinkered with extra-curricular recordings, the first fruits of which surfaced as a free download track ‘Morning Cigarette’ in 2012. Since then, he’s embraced fatherhood. Various songwriting sessions since then yielded the bones some thirty or so songs, but by the musician’s own admission, those songs tackled the same topics repeatedly – how it sucks to grow up, how growing up can turn you into a loser and ultimately how growing up is inevitable…and cool. No matter how the tunes sounded, the sentiments were always pre-occupied with maturity. In this sense, he had hoped that his solo release would “be [his] ‘Pet Sounds’ or ‘Abbey Road’”. Things don’t always turn out as planned and after shelving lots of incomplete material for a later convenience, the result is this three song EP. Judging by these songs, it’s a shame we didn’t get just a little bit more…
BIG HUGE – Don’t Be Shy EP
On ‘Don’t Be Shy’ – the second release from New York’s Big Huge – the band blends punky sensibilities with a ferocious new wave energy that instantly conjures up images guys decked out skinny ties and sunglasses. Pulling various influences from the end of the seventies, the five songs on the EP throttle past at a speed that’s pretty impressive. Imagine Kurt Baker in a garage band playing after a weekend long amphetamine bender, or the tunes from the long-unreleased album by Texas power poppers True Hearts played at three times the speed and you’ll be halfway towards the band’s core sound.
Marshall Crenshaw returning to the UK in November
US singer-songwriter and cult power pop performer Marshall Crenshaw will be performing at the Jazz Cafe in Camden, London on 20th November 2014. The gig marks his first performance in the UK for almost two decades.
The intimate live show ties in with the release of new material, beginning with an EP via Lojinx Records.
Full details – including a pre-order link for the EP and link to obtain tickets – are below.
***
New video from The Muffs: ‘The Weird Boy Next Door’
In the summer of 2014, cult powerpop-punkers The Muffs released their first album in a decade. Listening to lead single ‘The Weird Boy Next Door’ it’s hard to even imagine they’ve been away for so long. The full video clip for the single can be seen below.