Power pop is a genre built for mainstream appeal—big hooks, catchy riffs, ear-worm melodies—yet dominated by bands that never broke through, making it the most radio-friendly music that rarely made it to the radio.
Here are just a few unsung bands from the second-wave era of 1970s power pop. While these artists may be lesser-known, they’re just as bittersweet as Big Star, as rollicking as The Romantics, and as melodic as Eric Carmen.
Released in tandem with a plethora of other aquatic-based horror/sci-fi thrillers, George P. Cosmatos’ Leviathan (1989) is a prime example of cinematic micro-trends and the old Hollywood adage, “give us the same, but different.”
This month marks thirty years since the release of Radiohead’s sophomore album, and first masterpiece, The Bends. Threatened with relegation to status as one-hit wonders, the Oxfordshire quintet answered the success of Pablo Honey with an album even more infectious and confident than the last, a collection of songs which took the band’s inherent contradictions in stride. In twelve tracks and fifty-eight minutes, The Bends travels the spectrum from oppositional to vulnerable, from artistic to commercial, from alienated to universal and back again—frequently in the same blow.
Recorded slap bang in the middle of the 1970s is this free US/Japanese free jazz behemoth Seikatsu Kōjyō Iinkai, which translates to ‘Lifestyle Improvement Committee’ – a jocular reference to the reference to the Marxist discourse doing the rounds among radical students at the time. The record involves the coming together of key figures of the New York (William Parker, Ahmed Abdullah and Rashid Sinan) and Tokyo (Kazutoki “Kappo” Umezu and Yoriyuki Harada) scenes.
The Los Angeles-based trio of Nicky Benedek, Alex Talan, and Anthony Calonico have been making music together in various configurations for well over a decade. Their newest project, the outstanding Total Blue, takes the ingredients of smooth jazz and world fusion–fretless bass, muted horns, piles of synthesizers, global rhythms–and vaporizes them into a shimmering mist. The result is one of the most alluring things to come out of LA’s adventurous post-jazz scene.
In tribute to David Lynch, we reached out to a variety of musicians, writers, directors, and artists within the AD orbit to share their thoughts on working with Lynch, watching his films, and the many ways he influenced their own art and life.
Chatuye is a group composed of musicians from Dangriga, Belize, who only got together in Los Angeles in 1981. There, they quickly became major exponents of the newly-formed afrobeat scene, garnering attention from world music enthusiasts that were emerging in the US in the 1980s. As such, it was one of the first— though certainly not the last—bands to be described as “afrobeat” without being from Africa.
When two members of The Pastels started the Domino imprint Geographic in 2000, the ethos was simple. “The idea was to release beautiful semi-unknown music from around the world and take it as far as we could”. Specifically garnering an organic, collaborative spirit between Glasgow and Tokyo, the label reached the influential ears of the likes of John Peel, David Berman and Jarvis Cocker. From avant-pop ensembles and minimalist jazz to sun-soaked guitar soundscapes, here is a sampling of the singular spirit of the mighty Geographic catalogue.
As we so often find with the relics of the 1960s, Jim Glover resurfaced in the eighties with a private press disc. Released under the one-off Fang Records, No Need to Explain finds the songwriter in true folky form with just a man, a set of strings, and his words at the microphone.
Welcome to Aquarium Drunkard Transmissions; this week on the show, we’re joined by arvis Taveniere of Woods. You know his long running Woods band with Jeremy Earl of course—and Woodsist, their record label and Woodsist Festival, which returns September 23-24 upstate with Kevin Morby, Avey Tare, Cochemea, Tapers Choice, Ana Saint Louis, Natural Information Society, Kurt Vile, Scientist, DJ Aquarium Drunkard—that’s our own Justin Gage—plus many more. The band also just released a glowing new album, Perennial, which finds the band in a gentle, rambling mode.
“Waiting for the guitar to play” concludes a short written piece penned by musician Yuzo Iwata, a memory of observing a jam session outside Tokyo. This Daylight Moon insert is a perfectly suitable precursor to the album: a fascinating, whirlwind relic of the late guitarist. Spiraling, Velvets-inspired guitar textures float between seaside ambiance and complex riffs over gloomy soundscapes. The (mostly) instrumental record grips hold of you as a reminder of the essence of a true psychedelia in sound, rather than the buzzy ambiguity that the term seems to be placated in of late.
Steve Gunn, Rick Brown (75 Dollar Bill) and drummer Jim White join Aquarium Drunkard to discuss the lasting appeal of the two-piece band in improv and experimental music.
Turning 60 this year, Coltrane and Hartman is essential listening not just for jazz aficionados, but hopeless romantics far and wide. The smokey mood of the record eclipses its genre, belonging more to an ethereal wavelength of nocturnal ambiance than musical categorization.
Prior to founding Zelone Records and becoming the emperor of mellow groove, Shintaro Sakamoto fronted Yura Yura Teikoku. A scrappy psych trio with humble origins in the Tokyo’s DIY underground, the band cut a unique trail guided by an eclecticism that pushed their sound ever further to new heights. Over two decades, 10 studio albums, a live record, and a slew of EP’s, the band eventually saw crossover success in Japan, signing to a major label and garnering a cult following abroad. However, as everything seemed to fall in place for in place for Yura Yura Teikoku, the band dissolved amicably in 2010, a decision rendering 2007’s masterful Hollow Me their de-facto swan song.
For better or worse, there is something within us that won’t give up. For better, that is what Matt O’Keefe does with his music. We recently caught up with O’Keefe in his front yard to discuss three songs that will be released off his debut solo record, Warm Infinity.