Pop / Rock

  • Jerry Rooth - But You'll Try...Again b/w But You Loved Me Anyway Jerry Rooth – But You’ll Try…Again b/w But You Loved Me Anyway

    Jerry Rooth’s Higney-produced single is further evidence that Higney’s sonic philosophy was no accident. All the classic shimmers present are: muted drums, rough, desperate vocals, and the wonderfully inexplicable audio-temporal mixing that made Attic Demonstration such a classic. “But You’ll Try…Again” strays from Higney’s downer-rock and dives into a strange brew of hard-rock, power-pop, [...]

  • Billy Earl - The World of Billy Earl Billy Earl – The World of Billy Earl

    Floridian country rocker Billy Earl offers up a one-tracker with “Ninety Nine Thump”. While poor Billy was out lookin’ for lovin’, the session axeman worked his mediocre magic with limp fuzz riffs and fake (read: wah pedal) lion’s roar for added intrigue.  Awesomely tepid.[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

  • Denise and the Jaguars - Accompagnandotti/Gone Denise and the Jaguars – Accompagnandotti/Gone

    I just thought this is a charming 45 and as of yet it doesn’t yield results on the Google. Pressed in italy and arranged by one Gioriano Baldassari.  It appears to be an Italian backing group with an English singer. Probably some lounge act, as this private record is signed by the whole bunch. Gone [...]

  • The Krug Bros - The Memories Remain The Krug Bros – The Memories Remain

    Private press soft rock LP out of Wisconsin from 1981. Side A is all originals while Side B sees the brothers covering a bunch of songs from the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young & the Beatles among others. Loren & Leon Krug look like twins, but I’m not sure about that. [...]

  • Young Approach: More Love Around Young Approach: More Love Around

    “The young approach to music is here.  We choose love as our theme.  We sing, we write, we play and live it.  It’s in our every scheme.  Of all that we have experienced, love is the best we’ve found.  Now we pass it on to you, so there’s more love around.”  If ever there was [...]

  • Various Artists: Night Club 68 Various Artists: Night Club 68

    Released on the Czech Supraphon label, “Night Club 68” features not only a way cool mod pop art LP cover, but a nice sampling of the groovy young sounds from hip Prague nightspots. Pavel Sedlacek opens the proceedings by covering a couple of UK beat pop hits — his version of The Move’s “Flowers In [...]

  • Various Artists - Haus Musik Various Artists – Haus Musik

    Here is a German compilation LP from 1991. It was the first release on the Hausmusik label and was limited to maybe 200 copies, all numbered on the front cover. The covers are all handpainted and handcut with different cut locations giving views of different pictures. It comes with no less [...]

  • Warren Kime - Children of Time Warren Kime – Children of Time

    Warren Kime may be best known to record collectors for his trio of Brass Impact LPs on the Command label released in the mid-to-late 60’s. An excellent overview of his career and how these LPs came to be can be found here: http://www.spaceagepop.com/kime.htm.
    There’s one LP the Space Age Pop overview missed, though, as his “Children [...]

  • Savannah: Crank It Up Savannah: Crank It Up

    Prior to verifying the Bob Berry production credits & dedication to Tommy Bolin on the back I’d momentarily assumed this was some newfangled overly retro hipster thing that had somehow managed to become authentically ringworn. I mean, you have to admit, the band bears an uncanny resemblance to the male cast members of Fox’s “That [...]

  • Inneke Kusumawati - Pengen Kenal Inneke Kusumawati – Pengen Kenal

    If you, like me, habitually check out Indonesian krontjong pop records, you know many of them look promising and some might have a good sounding backing band. But in the end, the songs are for the bigger part pretty formulaic. I was very happy to find this one though. The excellent backing group De Galaxies add [...]

  • Estudiantina Electronica - Colombianas con vestido Hippie Estudiantina Electronica – Colombianas con vestido Hippie

    A fun instrumental exploito record from Colombia 1974. The cover, with face painted hippie chics and the title, “Colombians in Hippie Clothes”, promise at least some psychedelic music. The drum-organ-guitar-bass combo has more of a cool South American surf/go go sound but derails frequently enough. In fact, I was initially a bit disapointed in this [...]

  • Johnny Devlin - Nervous Wreck Johnny Devlin – Nervous Wreck

    Sometimes it seems a bit easy to overlook just how much of a nuclear blast upon music worldwide old Elvis Presley really was. What with so many images of overweight Vegas Elvis floating around it’s pretty easy to forget that young budding singers everywhere wanted to be just like him. Now by everywhere, [...]

  • Ani Ma-Amin Ani Ma-Amin

    Debbie Friedman leads a group of Minnesota musicians in a set of songs that comprise, in her words, a “musical montage spanning generations of Jewish liturgical and biblical vision”. Debbie’s voice is strong and sometimes the language sounds almost Japanese in nature. And so it kind of reminds me of Happy End in instrumentation and [...]

  • Sunstorm - Summers Day Sunstorm – Summers Day

    I have never seen this label before & I guess from the number that it’s maybe the third or fourth release on what appears to be a private or custom label out of Lincoln, Nebraska. I don’t think it’s related to the other large custom Century label at all. I don’t know if [...]

  • Virgin Release: Turn It Down/Hey Now! Virgin Release: Turn It Down/Hey Now!

    OK, so, for whatever reason, lately I’ve felt guilty that I rarely contribute any content to my own website anymore. It happenes sometimes and I’m sure it’ll pass but in the meantime you’ll have to forgive my desperate, half-assed stabs at writing about records I no longer own in genres I know zero about. For [...]

  • Jack Wood - 'Born To Wander' Jack Wood – ‘Born To Wander’

    Off-the-wall (yet very catchy) mix of Hank Williams & Yma Sumac – another obscure title produced at the Fenton studio in Grand Rapids – in my private mindgarden this is a deep funk floorfiller.
    [Audio clip: view full post to listen]

  • Black & White - Samba-Soul-Beat Black & White – Samba-Soul-Beat

    It’s not immediately clear to me what the correct name of this German group is. The graphic design leaves you the choice whether it’s Daniela und Ann or Black & White. I’ll take the latter. I’ve had the record for a while and always liked the music. Rumour has it the two girls, refered to [...]

  • Carole Caroompas - Target Practice Carole Caroompas – Target Practice

    Probably the most unique and unassuming record I purchased at the 2008 WFMU record fair. Housed in a plain sleeve with a screen printed bird and real feathers waxed-on to the cover, Carole Caroompas’ only record from 1981 is a sure winner for fans of minimal pop. Carole is/was an established L.A. visual artist who [...]

  • Burk Price: Distant Visions (Maya) Burk Price: Distant Visions (Maya)

    I first heard Burk Price’s “Synthezoid Heartbreak” over the phone from Ohio when I lived in London but it was the B-side “Distant Vision” that flipped my neurons when I received it in the mail. For me, it was a downbeat psychedelic masterpiece: the perfect down-tempo meter, heavy skins work, an ambitious arrangement, perfect change-ups [...]

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