Poetry and Pop

By Henry Lipput

Being a writer can be a lonely business. Whether you sit at a desk in a fancy side room in a house or with a pad on your lap in a garret, you’re by yourself as you work to find the right words.

Brian Bilston may have started out in one of those situations but he’s now one of the most popular poets in England with half a million followers on social media, a bunch of best-selling books, and sold-out live shows.

But for all his success he’s never fronted a pop band. Until now. Word reached Rob Pursey and Amelia Fletcher of The Catenary Wires band (who also run the Skep Wax label) that Bilston had been seen wearing a Heavenly (also a Skep Wax band) T- shirt and they got in touch.

The result is Sounds Made By Humans (Skep Wax), a unique collaboration between the poet’s own voice and the pop sounds of a band to produce an album of “song-poems.” Pursey selected thirteen of Bilston’s poems and created melodies and arrangements.

Some of the songs are performed by The Catenary Wires, sung by Pursey or Fletcher and joined by Ian Button and Fay Hallam of the band.

Some of the tracks are spoken by Bilston.

And sometimes both things happen together and become songs by humans in perfect alignment, poetry and pop in a perfect collaboration.

Joy to the World! Like The First Time by The Bablers is reviewed and front man Arto Tamminen answers the Pure Pop Phive

By Henry Lipput

25 years ago The Bablers released their album Like The First Time – but only in Japan and Finland, their native country. After that the album, for all intents and purposes, disappeared.

But a few years ago their current label, the California-based Big Stir Records, has been releasing singles from Like The First Time which was only whetting the appetites of power pop devotees as to whether the entire album would be made available at a future date.

That time is now. Joy to the world!

For the first time Like The First Time (Big Stir Records) is out now for the whole world to enjoy. If, like me, prior to the album’s release you’ve only heard the great power pop bangers (like the opening track “You Are The One For Me” ) you’re really in for a treat because the ballads are just as good – and all together make the whole album a terrific listen. And although the Big Stir release has a new track listing and new mixes and arrangements we’re not dealing with what Capitol records did to The Beatles albums pre-Pepper – this is the album The Bablers want us to hear and the way they want us to hear it.

The album’s power pop rave ups are the sounds The Bablers have developed since they got together in the 1970s. Songs like “You Are The One For Me,” the Peter Gunn-with-a-bullet of “Thinking Of You,” and “Holding Me Tight Tonight” all show the band working at full steam.

On the wonderful ballads the band’s influences show but none of this takes away from what The Bablers have done with them. “Together Forever” recalls solo McCartney while The Bablers channel solo Lennon with “In This World.”

The Bablers’ Arto Tamminen answers the Pure Pop Phive

How would you describe your music?

Pop with a rock attitude… or as our slogan says: “The best possible organic pop music. No artificial ingredients.” We use no samples, no autotune – no artificial ingredients!

What/who are your major influences?

Each member of the band has different preferences. I was born and raised in a family where music was everywhere. Everyone played an instrument or sang in a choir.

My first influences were classical – from Sibelius (the Finnish composer) to Bach, Mozart, and the rest of those guys. I remember we had "go-to-sleep music" when we were very young, and I still remember falling asleep to those beautiful classical pieces. I started playing the cello when I was six, and it has stayed with me ever since – you can hear it on our new album, on tracks like “Where The Wind Blows Free.” So classical music is a big one!

Then came jazz, fusion, progressive rock, folk-rock, Irish folk, and all that British Invasion stuff – plus Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Wonder. I got into those through my older brothers, who had about 1000 vinyl records in our "music room," where we had a drum kit, a Vox AC30, a Gibson SG, acoustic guitars… and my mother’s piano, which I still use in our recordings!

Do you perform live? Do you have any upcoming gigs?

Not at the moment. But you never know! If something interesting comes up, we’re open to hitting the road. For live shows, we’d need a fifth member – a multi-instrumentalist – to make it possible to play all the tracks from Psychadilly Circus and Like The First Time. In some arrangements, four guys just don’t have enough hands. 😊

Everyone's pretty busy playing with other bands and working on recordings. Janne, our drummer, and Pekka, our bassist/keyboardist, are on the list of the top 10 most recorded musicians in Finland – and they’re constantly touring with top Finnish artists, so they’re really in demand! Hannu now works full-time in a recording studio. He also used to do a lot of touring and producing – which he still does.

Nevertheless - this is a secret - we are working on new Bablers material.

How do you support yourself so you can continue to make music?

I’m the only one with an "honest day job" at the moment. The others work with music 24/7. I used to be a full-time musician for almost eight years, but lately I’ve been working as a director at a copyright licensing agency.

What's your favorite album of all time  (that's not one of yours)?

I’ve never really thought about that. But if I had to choose right now, I’d pick Mstislav Rostropovich’s recording of J.S. Bach’s six suites for solo cello. It has everything!

Ticking Haze, the debut album from Shapes Like People, is reviewed and Kat and Carl Mann answer the Pure Pop Phive

By Henry Lipput

Ticking Haze (Jangleshop Records), the debut album from Shapes Like People, is rich with melodies, full of yearnings for love and a better life, and the offerings of a hand of support to lovers and friends.

It’s appropriate that Ticking Haze begins with the song “Ambition Is Your Friend” with the lines “Don’t punish me for trying/Ambition is your friend” because Carl Mann, one half of the husband-and-wife duo that makes up Shapes Like People, is one of the most ambitious people I know of in the indie music industry. He began work on Ticking Haze after two years of work on last year’s Daysdream, a two LP, 16 song collection (and one of the best albums of 2024) from his other band The Shop Window (he sang lead vocals and played lead guitar, keyboard, and percussion and he also produced the whole thing).

Carl began writing song to pitch to other singers and asked his wife Kat, who works in the film industry, to provide female vocals so he could hear what it sounded like (Kat is no stranger to singing as she provided backing vocals to three of Carl’s songs on Daysdream). He decided to keep her vocals and went to work writing more songs for what would eventually become Ticking Haze.

With jangle-meister Carl at the helm and Kat’s double-tracked vocals on songs like the new pop classic “When The Radio Plays” Shapes Like People have a tendency to sound like Kirsty Maccoll covering a Smiths song.

Although “When The Radio Plays” and “A New Crown” are not set along side each other on the album’s track listing they are two sides of the same look at life in a city. In “When The Radio Plays” a woman watches the missed buses go by in the same way she has missed opportunities to find love. In the gentle “A New Crown” this woman has also dealt with buses but in a different way: “I’ve done time in the city smoke/Had to leave before I choked” and decides to leave for a life in the country with its “shade from an old chestnut tree’ and “blissful scenes with natural stone.”

Other highlights on Ticking Haze include the beautiful, hopeful “Weathering” with lyrics that work as life lessons and conjure up “weathering the storm” and “taking the breaks off.” And on the upbeat, alt-Country tune “The Ship Has Sailed” I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Kat and Carl were wearing Stetsons during the recording.

Kat and Carl answer the Pure Pop Phive

How would you describe your music?

Carl: It has elements of all the music we love - Janglepop, Dreampop, Shoegaze, Indiepop, and some have described it as having Folky vibes here and there. 

Kat: When we make music we’re not really thinking about genre, we’re just trying to create something we love the sound of. 

What/who are your major influences?

Carl: When we first started recording demos we’d sit and listen to all the albums and artists we both loved. We mainly focused on female-fronted acts to think about where we might want to take it.  

Kat: Here are some that we both love and may have inspired us - Alvvays, Sol Seppy, Agnes Obel, Weyes Blood, Lee & Nancy, Johnny & June, Isobel & Mark, Eurythmics, Carpenters, Jenny Lewis, Mazzy Star, The Sundays, Cocteau Twins. 

Do you perform live? Do you have any upcoming gigs?

Kat: At the moment we don’t have any plans to play live, but we’ll never say never.

Carl: Life doesn't provide us with much space for gigging, but it would be a joy to perform these songs. If we ever get around to it hopefully The Shop Window gents would step up and provide us with the band. 

How do you support yourself so you can continue to make music?

Kat: I work full time in the film industry, while Carl is focused on music and running the label. 

Carl: We’re about to start offering production, mixing, mastering, writing/collaborations and session guitar services through Jangleshop Records, so we’re in a little period of development before opening the books up. 

What’s your favorite album of all time (that's not one of yours)?

Carl: There are so many, but if we had to pick one album that is really special to both of us it would be It’s a Wonderful Life by Sparklehorse. 

Kat: Carl introduced me to this record when we first met, and all these years later we still listen to it. We instantly get transported back to that time. Plus, it’s just an incredibly beautiful album.

 

A Second Look, A Second Listen

By Henry Lipput

Certain Memories (Subjangle) by the UK band Assistant is their first album since The World Could Be So Much Fun in 2022 (there were three albums before that one all of which are also available from Subjangle).

The band for Certain Memories is made up of three members who have been onboard for all four albums: Jonathan Shipley (vocals and guitars), Peter Simmons (vocals and guitars), and Anne Sophie-Marsh (keyboards and vocals). Together this threesome makes a lovely, delicate, jangly sound that belies the darkness of some of the lyrics. It’s best described as a small group of friends recording in a small room making sure they don’t bother the elderly couple in the bedsit next door (except for the burst of fuzz guitar at the end of “My Phone Began To Ring”).

Certain Memories isn’t really a concept album but the major themes are the illness and death of a parent (Shipley’s mother) and how one gets through it. The album begins with “My Phone Began To Ring” with the lyrics relating a diagnosis no one wants to hear: “They said you couldn’t treat it with anything/That’s just life, that’s just death.”

“Song For Jill” fits in between “My Phone Began To Ring” and the following song “Jill Is Fading.” After a stint in the hospital, Shipley tells his mother “Mum, I know you’re on the mend/I hope you’re feeling better.” But on “Jill Is Fading” the joy of Shipley's recent nuptials knocks heads with the death of his mother: “This was supposed to be our year/And she’s fading, there’s no explaining/it’s amazing, Jill is fading/And the pain is appalling/No amount of warning/Can prepare.” Helen McCookerybook, a friend of the band, provides vocals and plays melodica to, as the album notes say, “lend warmth and joy to a devastating topic.” (The mix on the Certain Memories is by McCookerybook and another mix of the song by Tom O’Leary, another friend of the band, is available on the Assistant Bandcamp page.)

Sophie-Marsh takes the lead on three songs that are dotted throughout the album: “Overwhelming,” “Before And After You,” and “Tread.” “Before And After You” has an acoustic guitar, a treated French vocal, and a beat that recalls Massive Attack. “Tread” may be about someone missing in her life, another tenant in her building, or a ghostly visitor who leaves “A print in the dust/At the edge of my mirror.”

But it’s “Overwhelming” that provides a connection to the rest of the album as it’s a different take on a partner’s loss and their attempt to get through the day, day by day. Sophie-Marsh sings most of the lyrics but Shipley joins in for “I don’t know what I’m going to do/But I’m glad I have you.”

Simmons sings “Raking Leaves” about the joys (and perhaps boredom and frustration) of gardening and seasonal duties. “I’ve been raking leaves/Ever since November/Just raking leaves/Goes on forever.” But when he sings “I don’t know what I’m doing it for/Is it just a metaphor/Or just a chore” it’s hard not to think of the line from “My Phone Began To Ring:” “You get so sick of tests and trials/When no one says anything good.”

“I’m So Much Better” is in the middle of the album but might have fit better to close it as the song provides a positive look at where Shipley might be as time goes on. Dreaming of an earlier time in his life, “at the edge of waking up/I felt the earth beneath/I had to smile and stick around a while.” Throughout the song he repeats the line “Won’t you come and hang around with me?” which can be seen as an invitation to his family but also to the listener.

Why is this post called A Second Look, A Second Listen? A few days after Certain Memories was announced back in December with a release date of January  (and as with most Subjangle releases the entire track listing was available) I wrote a short appreciation of the album (called Sadly Beautiful after the Replacements song) and said it was “an early entry for one of the best albums of 2025.” Well here it is April 2025 and as far as I’m concerned it is officially one of the best albums of 2025.

The Pure Pop Singles Club 2025 Edition #1

By Henry Lipput

I have a bunch of new albums on my list to review but I thought I'd start things a bit slower this year with a look at three recent singles that have caught my ears.

"Lookin'", The Needmores (Bandcamp)

Michigan's The Needmores released "Lookin," their debut single, last month (it's a free download on Bandcamp). In an email announcing the song's release Lenny Grassa (guitar and vocals) said "I’m not going to bore you who we kinda sound like or who we were influenced by. I’m sure that can be figured out by listening to the song." But don't bother just listen to this really cool track. (P.S. The Needmores are touring as the support act for Jeremy Porter and the Tucos so catch them live if you can.)

"She Looks Good In Black," Chris Church (Big Stir Records)

Chris Church's "She Looks Good In Black" is the first single from his new album Obsolete Path (out on March 28th also from Big Stir and when you get it -- and you really should -- you'll also get to hear 11 other terrific tracks including "I Don't Want To Be There").  The song has a melancholy country rock feel as Church's narrator gets his heart broken by a real-life goth girl who goes off to see a Satanic band. It's not just the music but the whole life style she's bought into and when he says "she's never coming back again" it may not be the girl he fell in love with that shows up.

"The Whole Endeavor," Push Puppets (Bandcamp)

"The Whole Endeavor" is the second single from the Chicago five-piece Push Puppets. Their new album Tethered Together is going to be released on May 16th and will also feature their first single "All Together On 3." Both singles are sad pop gems and "The Whole Endeavor" (the great leap forward in beginning a relationship) seems to be a combination of "Some Enchanted Evening" and/or a tale of two ships that pass in the night (and the line "Stray dog lying in a dumpster fire in an apartment" deserves some Walrus-like strings although there's a neat synth run right before it).

A Few Of My Favorite Things 2024 Edition - Part Two: Singles, EPs, Compilations, Live, and Reissues

 By Henry Lipput

I was thinking of changing the name of this post to Life Gets In The Way which is the best way to explain why this year's Part Two of my year-end list is so dreadfully behind in its arrival to the folks whose music I'm writing about. Each year I make the same promise to myself to write about releases closer to when they come out and get my year-end lists out earlier in the year so we'll see if that's going to happen in 2025. 

There's a Part Two to my year-end list because some of my favorite music in a given year is contained in more than brand-new albums and comes in the way of singles, EPs, live (in this case live in a BBC recording studio or in a recording studio like Abbey Road), compilations, and reissues. 

P.S. I want to apologize for what seems to be some funky stuff going on with my blog program -- maybe it's because I'm trying to cram a lot of stuff on it.

SINGLES

Librarians With Hickeys, "Hello Operator" (Big Stir Records)

"Hello Operation" was the first single from the Librarians With Hickeys third  album How To Make Friends By Telephone and it sets up the yearning jangle of an almost concept album of making and breaking off connections.

Sassyhiya, "Kristen Stewart" (Shep Wax)

This very cool pop ode and the video not only chronicles a near real-life encounter between one of the band members and the actress but also celebrates Stewart’s bold fashion choices. It's also on the band's Take You Somewhere album.

 

Suzy Goodwin, "Ain't No Next Time" (Bandcamp)

Suzy Goodwin’s full-throated, heart-felt vocal on her dazzling debut solo single, “Ain’t No Next Time," hits you right between the ears. She puts her foot down and tells a roaming lover that if he leaves there won’t be a next time.

EPs

Peter Hall, What Are You Waiting For? (Bandcamp)

Halls's ability to write and record songs that touch both the head and the heart has continued through EPs and albums. He has become a singer-songwriter to reckon with especially if you, like me, appreciate the kind of melodic pop that reverberated throughout the 1960s.

Favorite track: "I'm In Love With You"

Warm Coat, Terminus EP (Bandcamp)

I was introduced to this self-described "shoegazing jangly indie duo" by Paul Bennett on his Sunday morning Magical Mystery Four (one of the few things I miss from leaving that other social media platform). They also released the Wine and Roses EP in 2024,

Favorite track: "Never Thought"

COMPILATIONS 

The Blue Herons, Go On (Subjangle)

The Blue Herons are composed of Andy Jossi (music and instruments) and Gretchen DeVault (lyrics and vocals). They've been releasing their jangly dreamy guitar (and mostly joyful) pop as downloads on Bandcamp but Go On is the first physical release. The songs on Go On have been partly re-recorded and newly mixed and mastered for your listening pleasure.

Favorite track: "Go On"

The Half-Cubes, Pop Treasures (Big Stir Records)

Pop Treasures is an exceedingly cool collection of songs that were released over a span of 50 years and covered by The Half-Cubes Gary Frenay (drums and lead vocals) and Tommy Allen (bass and acoustic guitar) of The Flashcubes plus the guitar army of Randy Klawson and Fernando Perdomo.

Favorite track: "I Live"

LIVE

Close Lobsters, Janice Long BBC session 7/6/86 (Precious Recordings of London)

Based on their "Firestation Towers" track on the legendary NME C86 tape the Scottish band Close Lobsters were invited to record a four-song set at the BBC. They also did another for John Peel two years later.

Favorite track: "Never Seen Before"

Paul McCartney & Wings, One Hand Clapping (PaulMcCartney.com)

Recorded at Abbey Road Studios in 1974 -- and never before released in it's entirety -- One Hand Clapping shows Wings Phase II (now with Jimmy McColloch and Geoff Britten) being recorded and filmed as they go through a proposed set list for an evertual European tour,

Favorite track(s): "Sally G" and "Tomorrow" (I'm breaking my own rules here by including two of my favorite McCartney songs both of which -- I'm pretty sure -- he's never performed live.)

REISSUES

Josh Rouse, Nashville (Yep Roc Records)

Released in 2005 on CD and, like Jon Brion's Meaningless first out on CD in 2001 and on vinyl in 2022 and this year's Chappaquidick Skyline, some of my favorite albums are now being made available on vinyl.

Favorite track: "Winter in the Hamptons"

Assistant, Ten Songs & Second LP and In The Summer Sun & This World Could Be So Much Fun (Subjangle)

Between 2003 and 2022 the UK band Assistant recorded four albums all of which have been reissued by Subjangle on lovely two CD packages. All four of these releases act not only as a time capsule (one very much worth diving into) but also as a primer for Certain Memories their first album in three years out now also on Subjangle..

Favorite track: "No-One Need Ever Know" (from Ten Songs)

A Few of My Favorite Things 2024 Edition – Part One: The Albums

By Henry Lipput

Better late than never (as usual) here's my year-end album favorites from 2024. This time around I've selected ten albums that have, with their tunes, lyrics, arrangements, and voices have tickled my ears. There are old favorites as well as new tunesmiths who last year hit me right between those ears. So let's dig in and (as if you need to be told again because if you didn't you wouldn't be reading this) support indie music!

The Shop WIndow, Daysdream (Jangleshop Records)

Daysdream is The Shop Window's first new album in two years following A 4 Letter Word in 2022.  This double LP is two mini albums with one being Days and the other Dream. The Days disc is filled with upbeat jangle and indie pop sounds while the Dream disc has a more melancholy feel with its dreampop/shoegaze elements. The singles "I Run" and "It's A High" cover the jangle while the epic 7-minute closing track "Made In Heaven" is already, as far as I'm concerned, a dreampop classic.

Favorite track: "Made In Heaven"

Steve Conte, The Concrete Jangle (Wicked Cool Records)

For The Concrete Jangle the New York-based rocker Steve Conte joined forces with Andy Partridge of XTC and the two of them co-wrote the five songs on Side One. The flip side is all Conte all the time and as much as I love Partridge these five songs are my favorites on the album. These guitar-driven tunes are pop gems with tunes and arrangements that could have/should have been a mid-Sixties AM radio hit (and might just be one now on the interwebs radio).

Favorite track: "Girl With No Name"

Tamar Berk, Good Times For A Change (Bandcamp)

Good Times for a Change is Tamar Berk's fourth album in four years and it's her best yet. Her production and arrangement skills continue to shine and her crack band hits their marks on every song. Berk writes honest lyrics as an act of therapy with many recalling  conversations; and the responses she didn't make at the time. She's also a master of mood, going from the upbeat 80's exercise video vibe of "Good Impression" to the somber "Sorrow is Hunting."

Favorite track: "Artful Dodger"

The Pearlfishers, Making Tapes For Girls (Marina Records)

On Making Tapes for Girls, the latest album from The Pearlfishers (their first in six years), David Scot and company present an album full of wonderful tunes and arrangements. Two of the highlights are the singles that came out prior to the album’s release. Both the title song and “We’re Gonna Make a Hit Record, Boy” are trademark classic sounding pop from the band. On “Hold Out for A Mistic” and “Put the Baby in The Milk” Scott pulls off the neat trick of having an uplifting message without being preachy. 

Favorite track: "Making Tapes For Girls"

Young Scum, Lighter Blue (Bandcamp)

I was a big fan of Young Scum's 2018 debut self-titled album so was excited when I learned Lighter Blue was being released last year. The last we heard from them was their song "Seltzer" on the 2019 "sunshine psychpop" compilation F.A.R. Out from Fadeawayradiate Records. Lighter Blue not only continues the band's jangle pop leanings but also their whole broken-heart vibe. 

Favorite track: "Got Mad"

Greg Williams, Stone on Stone (Bandcamp)

Having been part of Australia’s Splurge band, The Young Homebuyers, and The Everys,  Greg Williams’ Stone On Stone is his first solo release this century.   He’s obviously been influenced by other musicians from his home country.  “Rock Song” and “Just for Fun” may remind you of the crunchy guitar sounds of Hoodoo Gurus and “This Life” and “The Things That Make Me Happy” have the melodic grace and vocal of the late Grant McLennan of The Go-Betweens..

Favorite track: "The Things That Make Me Happy"

SUPER 8, Retro Metro (Think Like A Key Music)

With his new album, Retro Metro Scotland’s SUPER 8 -- aka Trip aka Paul Ryan -- continues to delight and surprise us, as he’s been doing for the last six years, keeping us guessing about what he has up his musical sleeve. Retro is the word that may be the answer to the some of the songs on the album. He opens it with an instrumental theme song like one from an early 60s pop show. "Keep Doing It" sounds like an early Kinks song. And he's dusted off the lovely "Mary Jane" which first appeared on his second album 2018's Turn Around Or … 

Favorite track: "Another Me"

The Black Watch, Weird Rooms (ATOM Records)

On The Black Watch's Weird Rooms (ATOM records) they are again led by singer, songwriter, and guitarist John Andrew Fredrick this time with his son Chandler l California for Austin, Texas, to record the new album. The Black Watch is known for its dream pop sound and there’s plenty of that on Weird Rooms. Although it’s not always clear where Fredrick’s influences come from the album’s first song “Myrmidon” has“Dear Prudence” -inspired pacing and production, there are also “Walrus”-strings. On “Gobbledegook” the band gives us an example of a different kind of classic Black Watch pop gem and on the title song has Fredrick’s acoustic guitar along with a terrific interplay of electric guitars. 

Favorite track: "Miles & Miles"

The Jack Rubies, Clocks Are Out Of Time (Big Stir Records)

Clocks Are Out Of Time from The Jack Rubies is their first in over 30 years. It doesn’t turn back in the clocks in a daylight savings time sort of way as much as it continues the streak the band had in the late 80s and early 90s..And it doesn’t hurt that the band on Clocks Are Out Of Time is composed of the original line-up.  Even though The Jack Rubies were a year of two late to be included in NME’s fabled original C86 collection, the songs “Angeline Soul” and “Heaven Shook Me” would have not only fit perfectly on that cassette but would have made a killer double A-side single.

Favorite track: "Angeline Soul"

Amy Rigby, Hang In There With Me (Tapete Records)

It's appropriate that Amy Rigby is following up her 2018 release The Old Guys with an album about turning 60. On Hang In There With Me Rigby looks back over her career in "Hell-oh Sixty" and to me "Requiem" is about the joys and frustrations of songwriting. On "Dylan in Dubuque" she borrows a riff from Stealers Wheel (although it's not clear if the song is about Rigby as solo acoustic act early in her career or about the actual Bob). As you get older you may want to catch up with old friends as Rigby does in "O Anjali" or break ties with someone who did you wrong in the past ("Bricks").

Favorite track: "Bricks"

Sometimes half is more than enough

By Henry Lipput

If you remember listening to AM radio in the ‘60s and early ‘70s (before you had a receiver that allowed you to get free-form FM radio), not only are you getting to be pretty old now but you know what it was like to hear blast after blast of pop tunes.

Well that’s what you get with Pop Treasures (Big Stir Records) an exceedingly cool collection of songs that were released over a span of 50 years and now covered by The Half-Cubes. The Half-Cubes are, as their name suggests, half of Power Pop Hall of Famers The Flashcubes. On Pop Treasures Gary Frenay (drums and lead vocals) and Tommy Allen (bass and acoustic guitar) of The Flashcubes get a little help from the guitar army of Randy Klawson and Fernando Perdomo.

Throughout Pop Treasures The Half-Cubes revel in not only showing a real affection for these songs but also amping up the pop quotient in each of them as the band hopscotches from decade to decade. 

The album kicks off with a blast with a cover of “Love’s Melody” by The Motors (which was already a cover of the Searchers’ original).  “I Live,” a solo track by Jason Faulkner, following his stint with the short -lived but much -loved group The Grays in the mid-90s, has much the same feel as the songs he wrote for that group. Del Amitri’s “Not Where It’s At” is from the same decade and it’s a cool song to include in this collection and, like so many of the songs on Pop Treasures, will encourage listeners to discover the bands and artists who first recorded them. The ‘70s are represented a lot including “Let Me Make Love to You” by Flo & Eddie.

Those are just some of the songs covered by the core Half-Cubes band but for me the highlights (your results may vary) are the songs in which guests – many of which played on the original recordings – bring their still formidable skills to the music.

Bob Pernice, one half of the actual biological Pernice Brothers, contributes his guitar once again to 2003’s gorgeous “Weakest Shade of Blue” from my album of that year Yours, Mine & Ours. 

John Rubin and Tommy Dunbar of The Rubinoos are on board for the power pop gem that is “The Girl.” Two songs by former Raspberries lead vocalist and songwriter Eric Carmen are included on Pop Treasures one covered by The Half-Cubes (“Someday”) and the other one, “My Girl,” brings on Darian Sahanaja, Matt Jardine, and Jim Laspesa. All of these gentlemen have had long relationships with Brian Wilson and they bring out the Beach Boys sound of Carmen’s original.

There are also some interesting choices of songs for The Half-Cubes to cover including “Souvenir” by Orchestral Manoeuveres in the Dark – but it works.

Sadly Beautiful

By Henry Lipput

I usually don’t write about albums that have been made available for pre-order because there are always a bunch of other releases waiting for me to listen to and write about. But I feel it’s a special case with the brilliant new collection Certain Memories (Subjangle) by the UK band Assistant. So I’ve decided to do a quick take on the album with a full review next year after it’s been officially released.

According to the album's Bandcamp page there’s going to be a very limited run of lathe-cut vinyl (50 but as of yesterday morning a quarter had already been purchased) and 125 CDs (Subjangle occasionally does a second run based on demand but I wouldn’t wait for that).

One of my favorite Replacement songs is “Sadly Beautiful” from the All Shook Down album. The song sounds just as you think it would be based on the title. It’s also the feel you get listening to Certain Memories with its songs full of sadness and loneliness. Certain Memories is the first new album by Assistant since their fourth album 2022’s This World Could Be So Much Fun (all four albums have been reissued by Subjangle in double CD sets and you can check them out here). And if you’re asking what the band has been doing since This World Could Be So Much Fun? It’s obvious they’ve been living and dealing with everything that came their way to produce what very much looks like an early entry for one of the best albums of 2025.

Another Halloween treat from The Jack Rubies

By Henry Lipput

It’s scary how good this song sounds. The Jack Rubies’ new single “Phantom” (Big Stir Records) is a follow up of sorts to this year’s “Poltergeist” from the terrific Clocks Are Out Of Time album (their first in 30 years).

“Phantom” is a song that celebrates and acknowledges a time of year filled with monsters and goblins but would also, at any other time, be a major dance club hit. It’s certainly early enough in the year for the DJs in the know to pick up on this and make it part of their set (where's my 12-inch remix?). And the song is as much about the spirits that haunt us as it’s about relationships that end and create a haunted house with someone who is no longer a part of your life and seen out of the corner of your eye.

The sound of “Phantom” recalls the sounds of The Jack Rubies' original contemporaries like The Boomtown Rats (especially Mondo Bongo). There’s also some more time travel going on in the video for the song in which the band dons masks of their younger selves.

Here's the video:

Don’t mess with Carla

By Henry Lipput

You know it’s bad enough for you when you get a knock on the door or a call from a bill collector or the police but it’s even worse when it’s because you’ve done Carla Olson wrong. Especially when she has Tall Poppy Syndrome backing her up.

On the brand-new collaboration “Is It True?” (Tres Melo Musique/Carla Olson Productions) Olson joins the TPS to give a fresh coat of rock and roll paint to a Brenda Lee classic from 1964. Tall Poppy Syndrome adds some fuzz to the guitars to add a sense of menace to Olson’s take-no-prisoners vocal and backing vocals from the TPS lads bring a real 60s sound to the mix. Olson means business and makes it clearer than Brenda did that you better not have been missing around.