The Campbell Apartment "Insomniacs Almanac" FREE Album

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The Campbell Apartment formed in mid to late 2007 when long-time friends Ari Vais and Dan Haag had a conversation about how for the 10 years they have known each other, they’ve always wanted to play together but never have. So now they have collaborated to create the first album “Insomniacs Almanac” which I can say has a Guided By Voices meets Fountains of Wayne-styled sound. So it’s no surprise that FOW is touring with them. The opener “Long Distance Relationship” sounds like an outtake from GBV’s “Alien Lanes” with contrasting vocal and guitar melodies that melt together. The short tunes are full of cognizant material and occasionally hilarious lyrics. Both “Wife” and “St. Louis” have those wonderful hook-filled choruses and stream of thought details similar to FOW. By mid album, the tone changes a bit to more topical humor, an example are the very funny “How To Be Alone” and “Addicted To MySpace” that fans of Jonathan Coulton or They Might Be Giants will appreciate. The next group of songs “Afterthought” and “Stuck” get a lttile more guitar heavy and lean closer towards Weezer. Toward album’s end Vais and Haag ruminate on the effects of creative burnout. This is evidenced with “Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired” and the tired theme continues with “Feverish and Friendly” where they mention “the only thing that I can think of is sleep.” Overall a fine album that will appeal without a doubt to GBV and FOW fans, as well as anyone who thinks they spend too much time on a computer… Wait, do I have an e-mail? Let me check.

UPDATE

The album can be listened to streaming on the band’s label Headphone Treats. But for a limited time the entire album will be available for as a FREE download from AmieStreet.com

My Space | Headphone Treats

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Cinderpop "A Lesson in Science"

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Cinderpop is a offbeat Vancouver power pop group with distorted guitar and rhythm accompanied by the sweet harmonic vocals of Kevan Ellis. The short title song “A Lesson in Science” has a Beatles vibe, that leads into “Speechless” a full indie mid tempo guitar song with a haunting chorus that remind me of The Sneeches meeting The Left Banke. The style is very catchy as the album see-saws between guitars and pianos, but stays bright and fun throughout. With “Blonder” we get the guitars and spacey jangle that Frank Black would be proud of, and then those Beatlesque harmonies kick in. The next tune “Cinnamon Winter” is vibrant piano pop and has an effervescence that makes this band easy to love. Then out of left field “Speed of Light” glides by like an Eric Matthews orch-pop baroque trip. Cinderpop’s strength here is the ability to fuse together aspects of ’60s piano pop and 90’s guitar and bass effortlessly. The dream-like “Mary. All Messed in The Head” and “Latest of Five” uses a slow guitar strum and Ellis’ vocal to channel a Shins-like ballads that often refer to dark tragedies. The manic opener “Bumblebee” features a progression of synths over the guitar chaos, but still that melody shines through the dissonance, much like an early Radiohead track. Other than the strange effects laden “Bounce Me” to end the album, every track does a great job of drawing you into the music.

Cinderpop Site | My Space | CD Baby

Listen to “Cinnamon Winter”

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Bill Popp and The Tapes "My Lonely Mind"

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Bill Popp is among the unsung heroes of power pop. Popp is a music veteran of early 60’s rock influences in the classic tradition of The Beatles, REM, and The Who. Popp and his band, The Tapes delivers melodic hooks, combined with dance grooves and poetic harmony, that have a timeless quality. He compares well to Frank Royster, with more of a British Merseybeat flavor. The lyrics are personal and touching in all cases here, and fans who favor DIY artists like Chris Breetveld (“The Breetles”) will go nuts for Bill Popp and seek out his music. The new album starts with “Paradise,” a “don’t-worry-be-happy” mantra set to a nice guitar riff. It’s got a nice Beatley vibe and just the right amount of mellow reassurance in the chorus. The follow up “Perfect Idiot” is a wonderful fast paced diatribe of self-criticism and nervous conversation in under three minutes all set to a wonderful hook. “Love and Lust” is a very Pete Townshend-styled rocker with plenty of jangle and a sweet piano break in the middle of the song. The song “Your Hero” is an perfect autobiographical snapshot of Popp at 50 years old – he’ll literally tell you, “Yeah, I tend to drink a lot, but what else do I got?” in the song. The Popp’s wisdom continues in the song “Love Many Trust Few” – it has a little rap in the middle with guitars, that reminds me a little bit of 10cc. A nice cover of The Beau Brummels “Just a Little” round out this release. It a shame that this band isn’t bigger or more well known than they are. They are one of NYC’s best kept musical secrets. CD Baby is expected to carry the album soon, but you can check out earlier releases there.

Bill Popp’s Site | My Space | CD Baby

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Bo Diddley R.I.P.

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“If you ain’t got no money, ain’t nobody calls you honey,” he once said. Criminally underappreciated, Bo was a true rock and roll pioneer who not only perfected a guitar style used by everybody, but also an innovator of electric guitar reverb and tremelo effects. Without him there would be no “rock and roll”, nevermind power pop. When you talk about who stole a riff from somebody else… you have to mention Bo Diddley because EVERYONE copied from him. His major songs included, “Say Man,” “You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover,” “Shave and a Haircut,” “Uncle John,” “Who Do You Love?” and “The Mule.” He was 79 years old.

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Charlotte Pop Fest Compilation CD

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My goodness, how this event has grown since I first reported James Deem’s popcast in January. The sponsor list is deep now and the concert looks to be a huge success – great job, James. I had the opportunity to listen to the Compilation CD which has tracks from every artist to appear on the show. It’s actually odd hearing the opening track “It Stands to Reason” by James Deem with lyrics, as I’m now used to it being a “theme” for the pop cast radio show. All the tracks here are good and some are exclusive to this set. My favorites are “Obvious” by The Saving Graces, “Brenna, You!” by Frank Royster,  and “Pretend” by Crisis. Other noteable tracks are the Pete Ham-like “Candy” by Steve Caraway and Spongetones-like “Tell Me What You See” by Barry Holdship. Other songs range from the aggressive punk pop of The Stellas to the folkie pop of Chad Mackey. Actually nothing too “southern” sounding – although a few tracks like “Let it Go” by U-Phonik have that REM style jangle and others do flirt with the DBs-styled “Chapel Hill” sound, especially power pop favorite Andy Bopp of Myracle Brah. It would’ve been really cool to get P.Hux in this set. “Careless Love” by Lindy Dobbins is the lone female vocal here, so at the next fest I would encourage a few more female artists (not such an easy task with this genre). Like an IPO compilation, you may not like everything here, but the ratio of good tracks are higher than average, and at ten bucks it’s a really good value for 27 tracks of kick ass pop music. Get this collection only at The Charlotte Pop Fest web site, and those who pre-order the CD will also get instant access to a digital download of the entire CD in MP3 format plus bonus tracks by the remaining artists performing at the event that are not on the CD.

Charlotte Pop Fest Website

Visit this page if you want to learn a little bit about the history of North Carolina Music Scene

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