Category: Noteworthy Re-issues

Updates from Hot Nun, The Nines and Radio Ready

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While Jeff Shelton is working on new tracks for a new Well Wishers full length album, his harder edged side project Hot Nun with Braden McGraw  and Pete Bohan (Headslide),  released a lone single this week. The new Well Wishers LP is due out in September, you can always go get the Dunwoody EP in the meantime.

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Also Steve Eggers of The Nines is hard at work on live album. Due out end of the month. Here is a bonus track from Nine Lives, a little cover tune written by an ex-Beatle…

 

Last summer we reviewed a compilation of rare power pop from Texas called Radio Ready, Vol.1, and this year another equally impressive collection has been released. This time Vol.2 goes north to Wisconsin and finds hidden gems that beg for re-discovery. Included in this are The Wigs – a classic power pop band that needs to be heard.

Carnival Season “Misguided Promise: Carnival Season Complete (1984-89)”

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Carnival Season “Misguided Promise: Carnival Season Complete (1984-89)”
As a music collector you often spend some some time looking over “lost” bands that never got the attention they deserved, and thanks to the internet nothing is “lost” anymore. Through a connection with Tommy Keene (FYI: new album coming up next month), I came across this obscure ’80s power pop band from Birmingham, AL that toured with The Replacements and Redd Kross (to name a few). Made up of guitarist Tim Boykin, bassist Brad Quinn, and drummer Mark Reynolds they broke up just as the Seattle grunge scene emerged in the early ’90s.

They certainly deserved more recognition than as mere footnote in power pop history, as Misguided Promise gathers up the bands entire output in one neat package. Read the full review on BlogCritics.org

Amazon | Kool Kat Musik

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Carnival Season “In Our Time”
Carnival Season drummer Mark Reynolds passed away in December of 2012, the band had been sharing song demos for possible inclusion on their first album in 25 years. “In Our Time” would have been one of Mark’s songs to be included on the album. The song was recorded In Kobe, Japan, and Birmingham, Alabama, by Carnival Season’s Brad Quinn (bass, keyboards, vocals) and Tim Boykin (guitars) with guest drummer Eric Wiegmann. So this is the official last single of Carnival Season, it makes as perfect epilogue to the above mentioned anthology.

CD Baby

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JTG Implosion and The Connection

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The JTG Implosion “All The People Some of The Time”
This resissue of Joe Gidding’s band from 2002 is a welcome addition if you’ve missed it when it was part of Not Lame Record’s catalog (which is now gone forever). This is a classic melodic power pop album that needs to be re-discovered. Giddings crunchy riffs get the party started on “Delta 88” and the hand clapping goodness of “This Is What You Get” is another gem. Best compared to Enuff Z’nuff and Velvet Crush these tunes have layers of fuzzy rock guitars against bouncy melodies (“The Biggest Liar In The World”), with the occasional harmony laden mellower tune (“Puzzle Peace”). Every song here is exemplary, not a weak track in the bunch – and if you’re looking for a yardstick in this genre it’s hard to find better. For newbies to power pop this is required listening.

CD Baby | Amazon

The Connection “New England’s Newest Hit Makers”
Retro to the max, baby! If you love those “classic oldies,” we’re not talking about Boston or REO Speedwagon. We’re talking about Chuck Berry, Beatles, and The Swinging Blue Jeans. Musicians Brad Marino, Geoff Palmer, Chris Faulkner,and Andy Casey have decide to form The Connection, and deliver balls to the wall Merseybeat in its best form. The short punchy compositions start with the bouncy riffs in “It’s All Right.” Each of the eight songs here follow the feel-good high energy vibe – in fact I’ve been listening to the guys on my treadmill (“Stop Talking” has got the perfect BPM). Despite the lack of a ballad, the songs are catchy as hell, much like The Romantics early efforts and their hit single “What I Like About You.” Enjoy!

CD Baby | Amazon

The Beach Boys “SMiLE Sessions”

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For all you audiophiles, this is the motherlode. On November 1, the original tracks of the legendary Beach Boys SMiLE will be released in a 2 CD set. If you are a really completist, the expanded boxed edition of The SMiLE Sessions will also be released, featuring the main SMiLE album tracks, plus four CDs of additional audio from the legendary sessions, a double vinyl LP set, and two 7″ vinyl singles. The deluxe box also contains a 60-page hardbound book with rare and previously unseen photos and memorabilia from The Beach Boys’ archive and newly-written essays by Beach Boys Al Jardine, Mike Love, Brian Wilson, and Bruce Johnston, as well as by Beach Boys historian and author Domenic Priore and many other inner-circle participants.

Remastered Dukes of Stratosphear due April 20th

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n 1985, the XTC recorded as The Dukes Of Stratosphear – an amazing tribute to late 60’s psychedelic pop. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that this was far more than a trippy parody, but “some of the best pure pop tunes XTC ever wrote” and that the group never sounded as “immediately catchy or consistent.” 


Now, Andy Partridge’s Ape Records is releasing “25 O’Clock” Remastered from the original analogue tapes, available for the first time on CD in its own right. Packaged in a luxurious hardback book format with 24 colour pages of full lyrics, photos and reams of brand new sleeve notes written by Dave Gregory, Colin Moulding and Andy Partridge. Produced by John Leckie the disc includes 9 extra tracks of demos and previously unrelased material.

Also released is the 2nd album, “Psonic Psunspot.” Remastered from the original analogue tapes, and available for the first time on CD in its own right. Produced by John Leckie the album includes 6 bonus demo recordings and is packaged in a hard back book format with a full colour 24 page booklet with all the lyrics and reams of brand new sleeve notes written by Dave Gregory, Colin Moulding and Andy Partridge. According to the site, Buy both The Dukes CD’s and get a set of 6 FREE set of XTC as The Dukes Badges from Ape Records.

Preorder both albums directly from Andy’s label Ape Records.

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