Crossword Smiles
The Girl With a Penchant For Yellow Single
Big Stir
This sounds like a really good Fountains Of Wayne song that Adam Schlesinger could’ve written. It’s maybe about divorce, definitely a breakup song, and rolls merrily along, including some cool Vocoder sprinkled throughout. Recommended to those who like smart pop, fun songs, and music that kicks up its heels.
Andrea Weiss
Old Town Crier
You
Self-Released
Old Town Crier is Massachusetts singer/songwriter Jim Lough and friends. The music is good, guitar-based indie folk/rock, perfect for adult alternative radio. It's light and nimble on its feet and good for walking around to.
It's also very political, from the left. For instance “Coal River Mountain” is about strip mining and mountain top removal in West Virginia, and about what happened to the mountain. The Coal River Mountain Watch opposes strip mining in the region.
The opening track, "You," the most rock track, is about how the people standing together will never be defeated. Though he’s pointed in his politics, he doesn’t preach or hector, just explains the issues.
The album is a benefit for three US House candidates: Christine Olivo (FL-26), Angelica Duenas (CA-29), and Derek Marshall (CA-23). I support donating to them, and to the Democrats in any contest in your state, and vote for them, not election deniers and those who would trash democracy. (For me, it's Pennsylvania: everyone, vote for Fetterman and Shapiro, keep Oz and Doug M out of Washington and Harrisburg.)
Whether you’re a disaffected Republican who can’t stand what the GOP has become, or of the left, this album will get you fired up to do whatever you can to help our country. You’ll hear some great music and think about the issues, as well.
Andrea Weiss
The Cynz are a new band to me, but if they’re anything like their featured single, “Narrow Hips,” their upcoming album will be great. It's good punk, the best kind.
Cyndi Dawson, lead singer and songwriter for the band, was kind enough to answer a few questions for me.
Andrea Weiss: Tell us about the animator for the video, Christina Brancella. I like how everyone gets together at the end and the ladies make their peace. Did you have that kind of story line in mind, or was that scenario created by the animator and producer?
Cyndi Dawson: We were looking for an animator and a friend told me her niece went to school for that. I contacted her, she sent me her Instagram account with some of her artwork, which I liked, so I sent her the song. I wanted something cute and ‘summery.’ She eventually sent me some story boards and I loved her concept, so I told her have fun and surprise me. I trusted her ability.
AW: “Narrow Hips” is nicely punk. Who are your influences?
CD: I have an eclectic bunch of influences, but I’d say Jim Carroll, Patti Smith, The Runaways, Bowie, The Stooges, and even The Distillers. I love Brody Dalle! I love Courtney! Henry has his own influences, so our music is a combination of those.
AW: How did the band form?
CD: Henry and myself have been friends since I was 15, but our lives often went in separate directions. Somehow we’d always run into one another again. I was a poet doing shows with a band. Ran into Henry after many years. He said if I ever needed a guitar player to call him, so eventually I started working with him. He suggested I sing my pieces and that became The Cynz! Now we cross lines where sometimes I come up with music or harmony ideas and he will change or add words. We are true collaborators.
AW: Where in New Jersey are you from? I ask because I’m originally from Jersey myself.
CD: I was born in Newark. My family moved, divorced, but I was always in New Jersey.
AW: Will there be an album with “Narrow Hips” on it?
CD: Yes, we are almost halfway done recording and writing it. We hope to release it in early 2023. It will be our fifth album!
The Cynz
Narrow Hips (Official Video)
Jem Records
This animated video is about sun, fun, and surfing, but also heartache and loss. It has something of a happy ending and is a lot of fun to watch. With great animation by Christina Brancella (Creative Crossi), the song rocks and is a wonderful summer tune. If you want a reminder of summer, or long for next summer, watch this clip, and dream.
Andrea Weiss
I first became aware of Librarians With Hickeys on their excellent album Long Overdue and have enjoyed them ever since. Good pop, great jangle, wonderful lyrics. What’s not to like?
The band was kind enough to answer some questions for me.
Andrea Weiss: How does it feel to have a new album out?
Ray Carmen: It feels great! We’re really excited with how it turned out, and so far people seem to be really digging it (he said in an old 1960s hippie parlance).
Mike Crooker: Yes, after two years of writing, recording, mixing, stopping, re-evaluating, writing some more, recording, recording, mixing, mastering, making two videos – well, I gotta tell you, it does feels great!
AW: Who were you listening to when you were recording it?
Mike: Once we decided on which 12 songs were going to be on the album – that's all we listened to for the last year – I would literally fall asleep with the headphones on with the current song on a loop and then wake up at 3:30 AM with a list of tweaks to make in the morning. There really wasn't time left for recreational music listening. But, my, uh... unique process did yield results in the end, even if my sleep pattern suffered!
Ray: I was also listening to a lot of us, going back over our older material and getting psyched up for writing the new record. I was also checking out Beabadoobee, She & Him, Courtney Barnett, and The Go! Team. Then there are my go-to’s – the Beatles, the Monkees, Queen, Marshall Crenshaw, Guided By Voices, Martin Newell, R. Stevie Moore…the list goes on…and on…
AW: Which comes first for you, melodies or rhythms?
Ray: When I write with Mike, he gives me the music and I write the lyrics. I have a notebook full of lyrics and phrases, which I refer to periodically when my mind goes blank, which is often.
Mike: For me it's usually chord structures (guitar or piano), which lead to melodies, then rhythms, which lead to figuring out what words fit within that structure. For a counter example, although I had written the words for "Over You" first, long before any music, it influenced both the rhythm and the melody because of the meter and syllabic emphasis.
AW: I hear some jangle pop as well as rock here. Did you want both?
Mike: When you have a Rickenbacker guitar in a band you're legally obligated to jangle. So we do. Sometimes we break out the distortion boxes and rattle the china a bit.
Ray: Absolutely! We are most definitely a jangle pop band – everything we do is based on catchy riffs, melodies and harmonies! We like distortion too. We usually end our live sets with the distortion pedals on and the guitars cranked up. It’s a lot of fun, and it always goes over really well.
AW: The tone of some of the songs is regret. Did the lyrics just tend toward that theme?
Ray: I’m responsible for most of the lyrics for our songs. The pandemic and the planet being in such turmoil reflected in some of the lyrics, for sure. Getting older in a world that is more or less a dumpster fire will do that, I guess.
Mike: In the process of writing we ended up with about 30 songs and if the record had come out in 2021, it probably would have contained a much different song list; a song like “Stumbling Down Memory Lane” is sort of the lyrical heart of the album. There's nostalgia, regret, and sense of absence. A large part of that was the emotional mine-field we were all living through at the time.
AW: Who’s your favorite Ohio band?
Ray: Pleasure Leftists.
Mike: Yes, we just saw them in Cleveland a few months back. That's was a great show!
For me depends on what day it is. Devo, Tin Huey, Lemon Pipers, The Human Beinz, James Gang, Dead Boys, Guided By Voices...
AW: Any good Ohio bands people should be listening for?
Ray: The aforementioned Pleasure Leftists, the Tambourine People (speaking of jangle/sunshine pop!!), the Kahuna Kings, and the Rainy Day Saints. And, if you haven’t heard Pere Ubu by now, get crackin’!
Mike: The Tambourine People, The Vindys, Duo Decibel System, Operation Tomorrow.
But if you really want to take a deep dive and hear what's going on in the 330/216/440 area code (Northeast Ohio), there's some great up-and-coming bands getting played hourly on WAPS-FM (https://thesummit.fm/) based in Akron. They also have a whole sub-channel streaming area bands 24/7 called https://the330.net/
AW: Do you plan to tour?
Mike: As we have learned from living in Ohio all these years, winter is not conducive to touring in the Great Lakes area! That's one of the reasons for the two videos for "I Can't Stop Thinking About You" and "Ghost Singer" that we shot beforehand. We knew that with the timing of Handclaps & Tambourines being out in October that touring wouldn't work. So we'll probably shoot a few more videos before the end of the year to keep us busy!
Librarians With Hickeys
Handclaps and Tambourines
Big Stir Records
LWH’s debut, Long Overdue, was a great album, but their new one may top it. Jangle pop rules, and this album is gloriously full of it.
It’s also full of great lyrics, mostly dealing with what the US has been though since 2016, by turns dark, full of turmoil, regret, and anger, but the anger keeps it from being depressing. The mood is more questioning why is the US in this situation. Some songs are about getting older, like “Stumbling Down Memory Lane,” but in the sense of looking back and finding that you’ve changed for the better.
It also has one of the finest songs of the year on it, “Ghost Singer,” a relationship song that says, “I won’t let you dump me at this concert, I’ll do the dumping instead.” It's angry jangle with great backing vocals from Christina Bulbenko and Rex Broome, and an unforgettable refrain: “Time is, time was, time will always be between us. Time is, time was, time will always be against us.”
Great singles deserve great albums to back them up, and this is absolutely that. If you love jangle pop, this will be a treat. If you love great pop, go get it, and have a blast.
Andrea Weiss
Lori Goldston
High And Low
Sofaburn Records
Goldston is best known as the cellist on Nirvana’s In Utero. She has played on a lot of other albums by artists as diverse as Earth, David Byrne, and Black Cat Orchestra, which she co-founded, and has released many solo and ensemble albums. This is her Sofaburn debut and it’s a great one.
The best way to listen to this album of amplified cello with effects, is to concentrate on the patterns made by her playing. It’s all little melodies and rhythms swirling around, but always propelling the music forward. Some tracks include percussion, like “Crossing Over Place,” played by Dan Sasaki, who has played with Jackie-O Motherfucker, Gun Club, and others, and "Moss on Rock," which features Dave Abramson on drums and percussion and Greg Kelley on trumpet. The drums and cymbals add more textures, which is another thing to look for: the shifting textures moving things along, and the interplay between percussion and cello.
The High section of the album is a tribute to a friend who had recently passed away, but the music is never mournful, more like a celebration of her life and a tribute. The Low section doesn’t have a unifying concept, but is as lively as the High section and just as exciting.
What this really is, though, is contemporary classical music, and those who like that will love this album. It’s special, it’s different, fun in its own way, and thrilling.
Andrea Weiss
