My Amazon Reviews: Walk The Moon "Talking Is Hard"

Pop is Easy
3 Out Of 5 Stars

Walk The Moon are a band that makes the kind of effortless pop that can make a power popper go green with envy. Almost every song here is perky, danceable and anchored with a mighty hook. You've likely heard the invincible single, "Shut Up and Dance." But fair warning; it's the best song on the CD. Like a lot of bands enamored by 80's new wave and synth pop, much of "Talking Is Hard" is very derivative, even though it's a lot of fun. It's jellybean music, all sugar and chewy.

As a genre album, you can't do much better. Walk The Moon remind me more than a little of Neon Trees, who also specialize in this sort of dynamo pop. Even when they try and scream one out ("Up 2 U"), you're still playing spot the influence, even though you're still digging the hook. "Work The Body" has a hand clapping goodness about it - it could easily be the follow-up single. The overall effect of the album is one of effervescence and cheeriness. When they ask "What do you spend your money on?" and respond in kind, "I hope it's something of value," they could easily be describing "Talking Is Hard." There's nothing heavyweight here, but it's all in good fun. "Shut Up and Dance," indeed.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers "Hypnotic Eye"

Cast Your Spell Over Me
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Tom Petty may have been making albums for over 40 years now, but he never lost his will to rock. Even with the maddeningly uneven "Mojo," there was plenty of guitar to go around. Same with the "Mudcrutch" reunion. Now he's back in the studio after a tour that was comprised mainly of deep cuts from across all his albums and a couple of small theater residencies. All of this seems to have given Petty and the band a kick in the kiester, as "Hypnotic Eye" gets down to business and doesn't let up.

The first thing you hear is a great big fuzz blast and you know you're in for a good time. "American Dream Plan B" picks up where "American Girl" left off all that time ago, and brings her back with her boyfriend who still believes in the dream, but he's getting old enough to know it might never happen. But you'd never guess the song's a bit of a bummer because the band is laying done a sound that's pure retro Petty, organ and all. Speaking of retro, you might even feel a little Doors creep in on the next song, "Fault Lines."

All across "Hypnotic Eye," you'll find mesmerizing rock and more of the "Mojo" blues. There's a shuffling blues harp surfing the rhythm of "Burnt Out Town" and a bump and grinder nearly seven minute "Shadow People." What Petty also reminds himself here is that you can still deliver a knockout in under three minutes, and he gets that body blow in with "Forgotten Man" (dig those twin lead guitars featuring Petty and Mike Campbell) and "American Dream Part B." There's a little something for everyone here, and it's all good. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers' "Hypnotic Eye" will cast its spell and you won't mind a bit.

    

My Amazon Reviews: Toad The Wet Sprocket "PS: A Toad The Wet Sprocket Retrospective"

Leapfrogging the Competition
4 Out Of 5 Stars

They'd have pulled three stars just for the fact that they lifted the band name from a Monty Python "MTV News/Rolling Stone" parody skit, but then Toad The Wet Sprocket were a band that didn't want to be conventional. They had an acoustically based rock-pop foundation that was lead by singer Glen Phillips and bandmates that all crafted songs for the band. Phillips, along with guitarist Todd Nichols, bassist Dean Dinning, and drummer Randy Guss lead off with a pair of modest albums, "Bread and Circus" and then "Pale." The songs "Way Away," "Come Back Down," and a different version of "Jam" come from this first duo, and show the band mastering an REM style of jangle pop.

The band refined their sound quickly and the next two albums were the band's watersheds. "Fear" came first and popped up Toad's first top 20 single in "All I Want." Easily one of the better jangle pop songs top come from the 90's, it masked the albums darker themes. "Hold Her Down" is a diatribe against sexual abuse, while "I Will Not Take These Things For Granted" is a lush take that follows the good things that life serves you, just as the title states. There was also the stately waltz-time "Walk On The Ocean." "Dulcinea" (which translates roughly in Spanish to a sweet lady) contained more of the same themes, with a sense of whimsy. But the singles were also the toughest of Toad's career to date; "Fall Down" (which squeaked into the Top 40) and an edit of "Something's Always Wrong," again using REM as a starting point. In my opinion, the best two Toad The Wet Sprocket CD's.

It took a couple of years and an odds and ends compilation titled "In Light Syrup" (again with the Monty Python references, from which the jangly "Good Intentions" comes from) before 1997's "Coil" appeared. Toad seemed a bit more somber, and they must have liked the album a lot afterwards, as "Come Down," "Crazy Life," and "Whatever I Fear" all made this best of's cut. It was also the band's highest charting album, peaking at #19. There's three new songs, a redone version of "PS," and the two previously unreleased in the US tunes "Eyes Wide Open" and "Silo Lullaby." Both are good representations of the band's overall sound and dynamic. I may have even bumped this up an extra star had they included their version of KISS's "Rock and Roll All Night" set to roughly the same arrangement as "Walk On The Ocean." But not to be.

Taken as a whole, this is one of those Greatest Hits collections that serves the band well. There are a couple of songs I would have wished for ("Windmills" would be a big one for me), but I am certain every fan has a quibble to make. "PS," by playing with the recording chronology, feels like an album made as a whole and not as a collection culled together without thought. That's how all best of's should be, and Toad The Wet Sprocket" get the treatment they deserve.

PS: Glen Phillips still records and tours, and has several decent solo CD's under his belt.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Dwight Twilley "XXI"

Twilley Mania
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Dwight Twilley has always been one of those artists that everyone expected to rocket to stardom. He bounced across four major labels, yet only two were ever able to break a single by Twilley into the top 40 (only one better than his former bandmate, Phil Seymour). In that period of 1979 to 1995, Twilley recorded so many should have been hits that "XXI" plays out almost as a singularly recorded album. The power pop hooks, the swinging guitar and Twilley's vocal style remain timeless, hits or not.

Twilley's two big records, "I'm On Fire" (1976) and "Girls" (1984), but struggled to get heard throughout his career. His sole album for Arista in 1979 had the Tom Petty meets the Beatles single "Out Of My Hands" (and the B-Side was an incredible live version of "Money - That's What I Want" that should have been here). Since Petty and Twilley were friends from their Shelter Records days (Twilley is in the background of Petty's debut), Petty gave Twilley some payback on the album "Jungle." That great chorus vocal helped Twilley get only his second top 100 album, the other being the Twilley Band's "Twilley Don't Mind." "Little Bit of Love" should have been a contender, as it had the same kind of longing vocal and a killer hook. But from there on out, Dwight Twilley kept making albums that seemingly disappeared on release. You still can't get "Jungle" or "Wild Dogs" on CD.

So this CD XXI, also ridiculously out of print, is the only place you'll find such gems as "Shooting Stars" or "Why You Wanna Break My Heart" (eventually earning Twilley some excellent royalties when it was covered by actress Tia Carrere in the chart topping soundtrack to "Wayne's World"). There's an unreleased anywhere else single, "That Thing You Do," which was inspired by but not used in the Tom Hanks movie of the same name. Combine it with the rockabilly "TV" or teenage heartache of "Sincerely" and wind it out with "The Luck's" "Grey Buildings," and you have a power pop collection every bit as essential as The Plimsouls and The Shoes, and a rocker whose star should have risen alongside of Tom Petty's.

Many of these tracks can be found on "Best of Dwight Twilley 1975-1984," only available on CD, not yet a download.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Tommy Keene "Tommy Keene You Hear Me? A Retrospective"

Hearing is Believing 
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Tommy Keene is a power pop prince who so many folks have never heard of. Based out of DC, he spent two heavily hyped albums on the Geffen label, before taking his show to the indies, and this double disc, 41 song retrospective spans a quarter century of ace song-writing, killer vocals and jangling guitars that would make Dwight Twilley proud. While those two records for Geffen (Songs from The Film and Based on Happy Times) are widely considered power pop masterpieces, they only make up a fraction of this set. As per usual with brilliant failures, the Geffen stuff is long out of print and even the later albums are tough to locate without digging. That makes "Tommy Keene You Hear Me" as close to a must have collection as you're going to get from Keene. That even despite the doofy title.

Title or not, there's a power popper's knack for jangle-hooks, a rocker's passion for forceful playing, and the man is an ace guitarist and songwriter. You'll catch hints of The Replacements ("Back to Zero Now"), Cheap Trick ("Nothing Can Change You") and the ever memorable kings of American Power Pop, The Raspberries ("Places That Are Gone"). As eclectic as that is, nothing compares to the man's cover of Lou Reed's "Kill Your Sons," is which he pulls a rocking melody line out of Reed's NYC nihilism. He goes one step further with his own love letter to NYC, the acoustic kicker "Black and White New York." His recorded work has always been of a high level, which means that even his lesser albums always carried some kickers. They're all here.

My sole gripe is that the liner notes could be a bit more oriented towards discography information, but this album is laid out chronologically. That also means that disc one (Which leans heaviest on the original three albums and EP's) would be a five star record on it's own, with participation from the likes of Jules Shear and Peter Buck. "Tommy Keene You Hear Me" is a super strong set all together, and fans of power pop should get in line. As most of Keene's albums are OOP, you never know how long this CD will stay available.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Searchers "Love's Melodies"

Searching for The Time Machine 
3 Out of 5 Stars

Original Searchers John MacNally and John Pender were the core of the original incarnation of The Searchers, playing on such classic songs as "Needles and Pins" and "Sweets for My Sweet." Frank Allan had been in the band from the late sixties on. Even if the hits had long stop coming, The Searchers soldiered on. Then, it seems, time caught up with them again. Their brand of jangle pop had been flaunted by everyone from Tom Petty to REM, and in 1980, Sire Records (home to Talking Heads, Ramones, etc) signed them for a new album. That 1980 album, simply titled "The Searchers," was an amazingly deft, surprisingly strong modern jangle pop album, did modest sales and garnered a fair amount of critical acclaim.

Naturally, there was a follow-up a year later. "Love's Melodies" is just as good, despite sporting an awful album cover. However, the album followed the same formula as the prior; tart covers of songs by a crop of current writers, a pair of originals, and the tingle of twelve string Richenbachers giving The Searchers their classic sound in an up-to-date setting. This disc does miss the killer punch of The Records' Will Birch's "Hearts In Her Eyes," but The Searchers went back to him for a pair of gems. Both "Everything But a Heartbeat" and "Radio Romance" came from Birch's pen and highlight "Love's Melodies." The Motors get a solid via a cover of "Love's Melody," as does Moon Martin on "Love's Made a Fool Of You."

The Searchers also took a step back to their heyday by taking on John Fogerty's "Almost Saturday Night" and nodded to a band that had obviously taken some influence by recording Big Star's "September Gurls" about a decade before The Bangles. The seriousness of the album's selection should have made more music buffs sit up and take notice, as most of these could have slipped on any current modern rock station. Even a couple decades later, "Love's Melodies" stirring harmonies and chiming guitars hold up excellently. It may have taken a long time for these two discs to make it to CD, but they're still very much worth having.

   

My Amazon Reviews: Tinted Windows "Tinted Windows"

Wayne Hanson's Smashing Trick 
3 Out Of 5 Stars

A most unlikely supergroup, Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger asked pal pop singer Taylor Hanson (who'da thunk?) to team with him and James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins and then hauled in Cheap Trick drummer Bun E Carlos to pound the skins. So you have a multi-generational and multi-stylistic team who cranked out a one shot (so far) album under the moniker "Tinted Windows." Not surprisingly, with Hanson's and Schlesinger's affinity for power-pop and Carlos used to backing the glammy rock of Cheap Trick, the album is a power-popper's dream.

What is so funny about this is just how teen-pop this sounds. Rack up Jonas Brothers' "B-B-Good To Me" with "Kind Of a Girl" and you'll be hard pressed to tell which cut is the Disney act. James Iha is all but a reformed jangle popper this time around, and the whammy he puts into "Messing With My Head" or "Nothing To Me" is going to make you wonder why he didn't ditch Billy Corgan years ago. It's also easy to tell Carlos is having a ball when he digs into "Can't Get a Read on You."

"Tinted Windows" is by no means a brilliant album, at best it will make Dwight Twilley, 20/20 or fans of The Knack get nostalgic for their skinny ties. Or fans of any of TW's respective members (and frankly, there were a couple moments where I found myself wondering what FoW's Chris Collingwood would have done with a few of these. However, for straight-up four-piece power-pop rock with no synths, the Tinted Windows' debut makes me hope for maybe another go-round.