A Few of My Favorite Things 2023 Edition – Part Two: The EPs, singles, a live release, compilations, and a reissue.

By Henry Lipput

Here is the rest of the music I've been enjoying (and listening to more than once) over the past year. I hope there's something here that you can get into as well. Next time we'll see start to see what 2024 is going to bring us.

EPs

Peter Hall, About Last Night

The initial email for About Last Night from the Subjangle label described the new Peter Hall release as a mini-album and/or an extended EP. For the purposes of this blog post I’m going with the latter although it would have been in the top five of my album list from Part One. About Last Night (Bandcamp) is another brilliant collection of songs from Hall whose Light The Stars album was at the top of the list in my 2021 year-end roundup. Each EP or album Hall presents to us is a musical step forward and we continue to be struck by how the vocals, lyrics, and soaring arrangements come together .

The 3 Clubmen, The 3 Clubmen

The musical powerhouse trio that is The 3 Clubmen is made up of Andy Partridge, Jen Olive, and Stu Rowe. Their self-titled EP (Burning Shed) is the kind of musically inventive and downright fun collection of songs that you just don’t hear much anymore. The trio made their first appearance when the first single from the EP, “Aviatrix,” was announced back in the Spring of 2023 (a few weeks later a glorious pop-art style video was released). In my review of the song I called it “mind-bending” and this also applies to the paint-splattering way all of these songs have been put together; there’s nothing in these songs that’s expected. 

Caleb Nichols, So This Is Crimble

It’s hard to deny Caleb Nichols his Beatle fan credentials. In addition to the very Beatles-influenced Ramon, he also released the single DoubleMantasy with covers of McCartney’s “Waterfalls” and Lennon’s “Watching The Wheels.” The centerpiece of the EP (Kill Rock Stars) is “Crimble Medley” in which Nichols creates a wonderful mashup of a song from a Beatles Christmas fanclub disc as well as holiday offerings from three solo Beatles along with Ringo's "Photograph" which fits very nicely in the mix (what's Christmas without photographs?). The EP also includes his two most recent Christmas songs, “(I Fell In Love On) Christmas Day” from Ramon (my favorite new Christmas song) and “Christmas, California” from his recent Let’s Look Back album.

SINGLES

The Bablers, “Thinking of You"

“Thinking Of You” (Big Stir Records), the latest single from The Bablers, is just the latest knock-out track following “Holding Me Tight Tonight,” “You Are the One for Me” (my personal favorite), and “Mr. King” which was released as the commutation (as a certain Mr. Lennon might have said) of Prince Charles was taking place. With these songs we’ve been treated to four singles from Like The First Time, an album only available in Japan and Finland (their home country) and things look good for a world-wide release of the whole thing in 2024. 

Fallon Cush, “Grain of Salt”

“Grain of Salt” (Bandcamp and all streaming services) is the first new music from Fallon Cush since 2019’s Stranger Things Have Happened album and the second single from the five-track Tricks EP which is being released in March 2024. “Grain of Salt” is mostly a solo effort with Fallon Cush’s main man Steve Smith with an assist from producer Josh Schuberth. At the beginning of 2020 Smith suffered a breakdown that left him with crippling anxiety. He stopped working and barely picked up a guitar. I wasn’t aware of any of this when I reviewed the song; it didn’t sound anything like an ask for help from its author, but it certainly sounds like that now.

Confusion Boats, “I Want To Hold Your Hand”

Brian Dear of Confusion Boats has been coming up with Beatles and Beatles-related covers for a long time and the fourth one to be released “I Want To Hold Your Hand” (Bandcamp) is the best. With the slowed down and soulful vocal of Andrew Lubman, Dear and fellow Boater Fernando Perdomo lay down the original arrangement for Abbey Road’s “Oh! Darling” on top. It’s just such a brilliant move that I’m sure no one saw it coming (I certainly didn't and have been playing it for people since it came out) and the result is amazing.

LIVE

The Sylvia Platters, Summer Dreamin'

The Sylvia Platters from Vancouver, British Columbia, is a four-piece consisting of Alex Kerc-Murchison, Stephen Carl O’Shea, Nick Ubels, and Tim Ubels. In December 2022 the band entered Malibu Sound Studio in Burnaby BC and performed a five-song set. Recorded and mixed by Kyle Schick, the collection was released in the summer of 2023 as Summer Dreamin' (Bandcamp). The title song is new to the band’s catalog but the other four tunes are from the albums, singles, and EPs The Sylvia Platters have released over the past ten years. Their sound is undoubtedly influenced by Teenage Fanclub and “Norman 4” (a bonus track originally on 2022’s Youth Without Virtue EP and dedicated to Norman Blake) is a standout on Summer Dreamin’.

COMPILATIONS

Dot Dash, 16 Again

The wonderful Dot Dash collection, 16 Again (Country Mile Records [sold out]/Last Night From Glasgow: vinyl/ Bandcamp: digital), is the first time these songs have been on vinyl and it’s a great way to hear them. It’s also a terrific way to introduce new fans to the band and a way to remind current fans why they liked Dot Dash so much in the first place. The title 16 Again refers to the fact that these songs (all but one) have been previously available on all ten of their albums released by Wally Salem’s The Beautiful Music label between 2011 and 2022. You can think of these songs, hand-picked by the band, as "a greatest hits album by a band with no hits" as the Bandcamp page says. But there's a difference between songs not being hits and songs loved by fans that should have been hits ("Unfair Weather" immediately comes to mind). 

Various Artists, Let The Band Times Roll (a tribute to The Replacements)

Philly’s Creep Records, with their Replacements tribute album Let The Bad Times Roll (digital available on Bandcamp and the vinyl from Creep Records) have put together a tremendous collection of 13 songs that span the ‘Mats recording career played by a group of bands and singers that I’ve never heard of playing songs I’ve been listening to for 30 or so years. Her Heads On Fire’s “Alex Chilton” and Celebration Summer’s “Left of the Dial” have arrangements close to the original but they just reinforce how great these songs are. The real gems are the ones that feature a different take on these beloved songs. Crazy Tom Martin’s “Sadly Beautiful” is electronically infused and Sammy Kay has an acoustic take and a Tom Waits vocal on “Favorite Things.” 

REISSUE

Pernice Brothers, Overcome By Happiness

I know I sound like a broken CD at times (because for a decade or so it was very difficult to buy a vinyl copy of an album in the US) but like 2001's Meaningless by Jon Brion (the vinyl release was in 2022) the Pernice Brothers great 1998 album Overcome By Happiness (New West Records) has finally been made available on a wonderful sounding remastered vinyl. Thanks to an arrangement with New West you can not only get yourself a single vinyl version of the 25th anniversary edition of Overcome but there's also a gorgeous deluxe edition with a second disc of pre-Overcome singles (the single version of "Monkey Suit" featuring both Joe and Bob Pernice is nearly worth the price of the whole thing), album demos, and a hardback book with comments by Joe and as well as lyrics. Another bonus of the coming together of New West and Pernice is the upcoming new solo album Who Will You Believe from Joe Pernice (now available for preorder here).

They just don’t make them like this anymore

By Henry Lipput

In May of 1967 Syd Barrett, Marianne Faithful, and George Martin booked time in Trident Studios in London. Throughout the summer, recording under the name The 3 Clubmen to avoid prying eyes and ears, the trio created four complete tracks in between their regular sessions with other artists. Released a few months after the juggernaut of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the four-song EP sunk without a trace.

Obviously, none of this ever happened but The 3 Clubmen is a real thing. Today it’s not Barrett, Faithful, and Martin but another musical powerhouse trio in Andy Partridge, Jen Olive, and Stu Rowe. Their self-titled EP (Burning Shed) is the kind of musically inventive and downright fun collection of songs that you just don’t hear much anymore; it’s the kind of thing the trio I made up in the opening paragraph of this review might have put together.

This current day trio made their first appearance when the first single from the EP, “Aviatrix,” was announced back in the Spring (a few weeks ago a glorious pop-art style video was released). In my review of the song I called it “mind-bending” and this also applies to the paint-splattering way all of these songs have been put together; there’s nothing in these songs that’s expected. 

Both Partridge and Olive provide alternating vocals on “Aviatrix” as well as on the lovely, very Partridge “Green Green Grasshopper.” Like a finger-picked folk song for children it’s the tale of a request for a grasshopper to take a journey to deliver a message of love. But there are dangers along the way: “take care you’re not breakfast for a bird in the sky” but more importantly when the destination is reached (there may have been a breakup or a misunderstanding between the lovers) “make note if there’s a Spring-time thunder look in her eye.” This grasshopper saga seems made for a children’s book or an animated short.

Olive sings lead on both “Racecar” and “Look at Those Stars” and both are about the ways someone handles down turns in their lives.

“I am blue/What should I do?” asks Olive in “Racecar.” The answer, at least for now, is to engage with a bit of conspicuous consumption: “You need to buy yourself a racecar baby.” The song has a metronome-like interplay of guitar and drums along with occasional spooky piano fills.

“Look at Those Stars” is the most accessible, out-and-out pop song on the EP (which is why it’s probably my favorite). It also provides a natural – as in nature – answer to the blues. “I’ve got the kind of blues/Don’t ever go away,” sings Olive, “I’ve got the kind of dues/I always got to pay.” The solution is to look skyward and there’s a joyful lyrical outburst reinforced by the sound of steel drums: “But hey!/Would you look at those stars/Nothing more beautiful!”

Flying high with the 3 clubmen

 By Henry Lipput

“Aviatrix,” the mind-bending first single by The 3 Clubmen from their self-titled EP out in June (Burning Shed/Lighterthief), is a love story made up of sounds and images that might, under normal circumstances, not work together. But these aren’t normal circumstances because The 3 Clubmen is the brand-new powerhouse musical trio of Andy Partridge, Jen Olive, and Stu Rowe.

Partridge, Olive, and Rowe have been working on projects since 2008 (Rowe and Partridge worked on 2oo7's Monstrance and Olive’s 2013 album The Breaks had all three of them on separate tracks performing separate tasks).  But The 3 Clubmen is the first time they’ve recorded as a proper trio. 

As for the process of making the new EP, Partridge said: “I throw paint, Jen throws paint, Stu throws paint...and we walk away. If, when we return, something in there calls to us, we’ll move heaven and earth to get it out and let it breath.” The result with “Aviatrix” may initially appear to be two separate songs but put together they complement each other not unlike Wasp Star’s “The Wheel and The Maypole” (or going even further back “A Day in The Life”).  And the paint on the walls must have stuck because the colors are so fresh you can smell them.