Playing it forward

By Henry Lipput

Stands for deciBels, the debut album by North Carolina’s The dB's, has been re-released by Propellor Sound Recordings. It’s been remastered and is available for the first time on vinyl in the U.S (the new CD edition of the album includes the bonus track “Judy” which was not included on the original release).

The sounds on Stands for deciBels are made up of both older bands that had influenced The dB's but also newer musical trends that members Peter Holsapple, Chris Stamey, Gene Holder, and Will Rigby clicked with.  The album contains songs like “The Fight” with a prominent jagged guitar right out of XTC and “Tearjerkin’” has the electro-pop of Gary Numan but with extra pop. 

Both “Bad Reputation” and “Big Brown Eyes” have a real 70’s power pop glow with the first channeling The Romantics and the second right out of the Raspberries’ song book and “Moving in Your Sleep” recalls the hazy sound of Big Star’s Third. My favorite of these musical tributes to bands of the not-so-distant past is the wonderful Beach Boys-flavored “She’s Not Worried.”

But Stands for deciBels isn’t only about looking backwards; the album became an inspiration for bands that were just starting out but also those who were yet to be. Mike Mills of R.E.M. said about hearing the album for the first time: “This is the one that let me know we were not alone, that there were others out there with the same curiosity, the same willingness to dive into melody, structure, and pop sensibility,”

And although you can hear what Mills is talking about when it comes to the album’s melody, structure, and pop sensibility, it’s the first song on the dB's album, “Black and White,” that more than likely hit the nail on the head for him and his new band.

A dream is a wish your heart makes

By Henry Lipput

Dreamers On The Run, the new album by BMX Bandits (Tapete Records), with its wonderful arrangements of instruments and both backing and choral voices, is, in many ways, the band’s Pet Sounds. (Need convincing? Check out the stereo mix of Pet Sounds created for the Pet Sounds Sessions box set in 1997.) “I am dreaming all the time/Not just when I’m asleep” sings lead Bandit Duglas T Stewart on the opening track and title song. Dreamers On The Run is full of tales of dreams achieved, hoped for, and sometimes dashed.

In my review of “Setting Sun,” the first single from the album, I referred to it as “jaunty pop.” Both it and the next song on Dreamers On The Run, “Time To Get Away,” are about dream vacations, whether real or imagined, and contain this type of uplifting vibe.  On initial listen so does “Hop Skip Jump (For You Love” with its Bo Didley riff.  But sometimes in a relationship, no matter how hard one tries, you don’t make the grade. “My best was never good enough/I go so far to win your love” – so “I’m sick and tired of running after you.” 

On the segue that connects “Time To Get Away” and “What He Set Out To Be” we hear the tide that has washed away the dreams of the man in this song. “He thought too much of himself/And not enough of she/He can’t replace her smiles/Not if he walked a million miles.” Both musically and lyrically it can remind you of a Ray Davies song from mid-period Kinks, as this sad and lonely man may be the figure watching lovers crossing Waterloo Bridge each evening to meet.

With “My Name Is Duglas (Don’t Listen To What They Say)” one is also reminded of The Kinks, this time from their Schoolboys in Disgrace album. The voices that introduce “Jack The Idiot Dunce” have the same dismissive tone of people who have no regard for others who are different. The BMX Bandits track gives both Duglas and Jack a chance to respond to the haters.