Further Observations From a Jangly Music Fan

September just flew right by, and when I last checked, the stack of excellent new CDs to report on in this column was already substantial. I may just have to wait until next month's column to "clear" all of these tuneful discs. If that becomes the case, fellow music enthusiasts will enjoy starting to sample the following recent releases:

Stand - the latest disc from folk-rock's grooviest duo the Kennedys. This album features the trademark jangly tunes that Pete and Maura Kennedy are known for, and it also features a number of acoustic ballads with timely messages about our contemporary world. Pete's Rickenbacker 12-string guitar is most pronounced on "Dharma Café" and "Easy People," but pop fans should not limit themselves to the chiming tracks. "When I Go" sounds like it could have been performed during an unplugged Heart show, and "Anna And The Magic Gown" showcases more of their studio wizardry with psychedelic folk-rock. From start to finish, Stand is a testament to the Kennedys' maturing skills as songwriters and musicians. Catch them live, and you will be amazed at how well they can recreate these studio tracks in an acoustic setting.

Year Of The Rhinos - the debut disc by the Rhinos. This is the cream of the latest crop of discs to be released by the Rainbow Quartz label. The tear sheet says the Rhinos "blend Byrds-like guitars, Hollies-esque vocals and ingratiating melodies." Amen! "Everything To Me" has a chord progression similar to the Byrds' "Bells Of Rhymney" and the final track, "Memories And Bones," borrows its lead riff from the Roger McGuinn/Tom Petty tune "King Of The Hill." With only two exceptions, a Rickenbacker 12-string guitar can be heard chiming on every tune. From my perspective, this is a serious contender for Top Ten honors in 2003.

Change Is On Its Way and Northern Liberties - two full-length discs from the Three 4 Tens. When the songs aren't ringing with 12-string guitar riffs, they are overflowing with layered guitars and some terrific pseudo-60s psych-pop. "Philly Blues" and "Mr. Fantastic," featured on the superb Rainbow Quartz 2003 label sampler, provide the pop listener with an excellent introduction to this band. "Ostinato Raga" will even have some listeners convinced they are listening to Roger McGuinn.

Better Than Before - by yet another Rainbow Quartz artist, the Singles. This is snappy pseudo-60s jangle pop ala the Resonars. Look no further than "Since You've Been Gone," "Until You Came Along," "It'll Never Be The Same Again" and "I'm Coming Home To You" for the British Invasion sound that keeps invading … 40 years later!

Signature - by Germany's premier Byrds-influenced band, the Different Faces. Look no further than the CD cover (which depicts a mapleglow Roger McGuinn signature model Rickenbacker 370RM 12-string guitar) to surmise what the contents will feature. Long may you run, Sir Horst-Peter and band mates!

(((Stereo))) - by teen artist Derek Duplessie (and the Desert Poets). Once again, a "jangle" word search helped me find this nifty indie gem (on the Jangle Music label). Duplessie may only be 14 years old, but he's got a strong supporting cast and some very nice original tunes to augment the cover songs on this album (among them a nice acoustic arrangement of Gene Clark's "American Dreamer" and Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down"). Derek is pictured with a Rickenbacker 12-string, so he's definitely headed in the right musical direction! While most teens are toiling with garage bands, Duplessie already has a full-length album to his credit - chock full of chiming tunes!

Long Weekend - by the Shorewoods. Seattle has received lots of attention for the "grunge" bands of the 90s, but the pop scene there has always been vibrant - and it just became a lot more vibrant with this full-length release from a band that flirts with some jangle'n'twang and dabbles with some mainstream jangly pop/rock tunes. The riffs in "Leaves Me Shaking" sound vaguely like the Byrds' "So You Want To Be A Rock'n'Roll Star." Listen carefully to "Emerald Downs" and you'll hear a nod to the Byrds' "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better." Even a casual listener will notice the similarity between "Church Ranch Road" and the Gin Blossoms' "Allison Road." It's hard to fault this band for periodic reliance on tried and true pop chords. This 14-song debut disc is very impressive, and the Shorewoods deserve comparisons with early Blue Rodeo and the aforementioned Gin Blossoms.

The Mindbending Sounds of … the Chesterfield Kings, by the "kings" of pseudo-60s garage rock, the Chesterfield Kings. Jangleholics should feast on "Don't Understand" and "Somewhere Nowhere;" and all pop fans should be very pleased with this entire album. These guys blend shades of the Blues Magoos, the Standells, Sky Saxon and the Seeds with a host of other 60s bands. Nobody does it better!

The self-titled disc by The Naomi Star. Although this disc is less jangly than other discs mentioned in this column, it should be on many pop fans' short list for Top Ten honors in 2003. Those familiar with Stephen Bunovsky know that his work exudes quality from start to finish. This group effort is no exception. The more acoustic tunes remind me of the Lilac Time and the early Posies, and the more electric tunes remind me of Van de Lecki's. The sum of the parts is very appealing, and "Waiting" is a Beatlesque gem.

Kill The Messenger - by the Indicators. This is jangle'n'twang roots rock that reminds me of Big In Iowa (when Bob Burns fronted the band) and Hangtown. Don't miss "Say Goodnight."

Last and certainly not least I am pleased to mention one of the finest promo discs to arrive in my mailbox in many months - There's This Girl by Nebraska band Lovetap. The eleven tracks on this disc should appeal to Top 40 listeners of several different generations - much like Chicago's Million Yen. My ears picked up some references to the Foo Fighters, the Goo Goo Dolls, Creed, Weezer, Everclear, Truck Stop Love, Metallica, Thin Lizzy … and even a little U-2. When you sprinkle in some Grass Roots-like vocals, Illinois Speed Press guitars and Max Frost psych-pop, you'll understand why this disc should appeal to Boomers. "Please" will seal the deal for pop fans - with a Beatlesque song structure that borrows the melody from Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want To Be With You." If you like your pop on the more guitar-driven side, you'll love "Lemonade," "Kayla" and "Call Me Crazy." Even though the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team struggled in 2002, Nebraska pop music has made a giant stride forward with the release of There's This Girl!

When "Mr. Tambourine Man" hit the AM radio airwaves in the spring of 1965, I became hooked on the sound of a Rickenbacker 12-string guitar, and any group that could emulate the wonderful vocal harmony of Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark and David Crosby. During that eventful year, the Byrds' original five-member lineup released two outstanding albums titled after their two #1 hits - Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn! Those albums included timeless jangly tunes like "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better," "Chimes Of Freedom," "Bells Of Rhymney" and "The World Turns All Around Her." The b-side to "Turn! Turn! Turn!" was also one of the Byrds'finest jangly songs - "She Don't Care About Time."

Since then, I have collected music that I often refer to as "Byrdsian" - meaning, it sounds like the Byrds. In the months to come, I will list the artists and songs that most remind me of the Byrds. For this installment of my Recommendations, I'll start with some of the Byrds' contemporaries from the 60s. The following list is hardly comprehensive, but it provides fufkin website readers with a good launching point for those who are similarly inclined to crank up the treble setting on their stereos and listen to those Rickenbacker 12-string guitars jangle, chime and ring!

The Seventies:

Tom Petty - "Listen To Her Heart" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was only the first of many Petty songs to be mistaken as a Byrds song (on the band's 1978 You're Gonna Get It album). Purchase the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Greatest Hits disc (on MCA) so that you can relish many of his other jangly Rickenbacker tunes. Check out Petty's original version of "American Girl" and then check out the live version of "So You Want To Be A Rock'n'Roll Star" from the mid-80s album, Pack Up The Plantation: Live! When Petty released his first album without the Heartbreakers, 1989's Full Moon Fever, the disc included a solid cover version of the Byrds' "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better." Gene Clark received a six-figure royalty check from the commercial success of Petty's album. Fast forward to the early 90s and score a video version of Roger McGuinn's "King Of The Hill" - which features McGuinn and Petty both playing Rickenbacker 12-string guitars and trading lead vocals. Rickenbacker has released a limited edition Tom Petty signature 12-string guitar, but Heartbreaker guitarist Mike Campbell is often the guy playing those lead 12-string riffs on Petty's songs.

The Searchers - Although I mentioned the Searchers among the artists of the Sixties, they bear mention again. I saw the Searchers in 1987 as part of a "British Invasion" reunion tour. Midway through their set, Mike Pender strapped on a 12-string guitar, told the audience "We're going to play some 12-string songs now" and the band proceeded to deliver the goods with a succession of songs that began with "Hearts In Her Eyes." Within a week, I tracked down the vinyl album that this song first appeared on, The Searchers (1979) … and I vaguely remembered that "Hearts In Her Eyes" got some limited airplay on a Seattle rock station when I lived in that area. Although I now have several other versions of this John Wicks/Records classic, I still believe that the Searchers version is the best. Seek out Raven Records' 23-song The Searchers: The Sire Sessions. "Hearts In Her Eyes," "Love's Melody," "Everything But A Heartbeat" and "September Gurls" will convince you that the Searchers and Byrds influenced one another for quite some time. During a 1998 Searchers reunion tour, the band even covered the great Byrds/Gene Clark tune "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better."

The Records - John Wicks and Will Birch combined with two other bandmates to crank out some of the best Byrdsian tunes of the 70s. In addition to "Hearts In Her Eyes," the Records gave the world another jangly classic in "Starry Eyes." Wicks (now a Los Angeles area musician) continues to compose, record and perform Byrds-inspired music. Acquire a copy of the Records' Smashes, Crashes and Near Misses disc (on Virgin) and enjoy the other power pop tunes that the Records recorded.

Starry Eyed & Laughing - Tony Poole and his pub-rock bandmates hardly made a dent in the pop music charts in the mid-70s, but their abiding love of Byrds music has survived to the present. A two-CD compilation of the band's work, entitled That Was Now And This Is Then, was released by Aurora Music last year. The band took its name from a verse in the Dylan tune "Chimes Of Freedom," and the compilation includes the band's superb version of this song. You can hear the Rickenbacker 12-string guitar's compressor sustain cleanly on the lead-in and fade-out to the song, and the group's chorus harmony is outstanding. One of my other favorite Byrdsian tunes in the two-disc set is "One Foot In The Boat."

Paul Thornton & Les Fradkin (AKA The Godz) - Like their British counterparts (Starry Eyed & Laughing), the Godz were one of the few bands in the 70s to emulate and perpetuate the sound of the Byrds. They even opened for Roger McGuinn a couple of times. A terrific anthology of their material, Godzology, was released several years ago by Renaissance Records. Check out "I Know You Rider" and "A Hard Rain's-A-Gonna Fall."

Electric Range - This country-rock band originally formed in the 70s and they were ready to release a full-length album in 1975 … but the album never saw daylight until over twenty years later, when the original lineup reunited, re-mastered the material and released it as a self-titled album on Smokehouse Records. "We Came For Love" (a Gene Clark composition) features a Rickenbacker 12-string and some terrific Byrdsian harmonies. This one song is worth the price of admission, but the rest of the album has stood the test of time nicely.

The Sorrows - "Can't Go Back." There's an interesting history to how I learned about this song. I borrowed a cassette from a neighbor who is a fellow pop music enthusiast. He used to tape songs from a local radio station - often without knowing what artists performed the songs featured on the tape. Such was the case when I first heard this terrific jangly tune in 1994. I asked pop expert Jordan Oakes (seek out any of his Yellow Pills compilation discs for examples of primo pseudo-60s pop - perhaps the subject of another Recommendations column), and Jordan told me that the group in question was the Sorrows. The song first appeared on the band's 1980 album, Teenage Heartbreak (Pavillion label). I eventually tracked down a CDR compilation of the band's two albums … and later learned that one of their members is the younger brother of Nancy Leigh - the wife and accompanist of the talented indie pop artist Richard Heyman. Heyman often records and performs with one of his vintage Rickenbacker guitars. To learn of Richard's encounters with former members of the Byrds, pick up a copy of Richard's "quick read" musical biography - Boom Harangue.

The Flamin' Groovies - Okay, so this San Francisco band originated in the mid-60s. It reached its commercial zenith in the 70s - particularly with the often-covered power pop classic tune "Shake Some Action," which was released in 1976. Cyril Jordan and Chris Wilson co-wrote many of the pseudo-60s tunes that this group is now know for. There are a number of Flamin' Groovies compilation discs, but my personal favorite is the Japanese import Sixteen Tunes - which includes "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better," "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "She Don't Care About Time." Other Flamin' Groovies' "nuggets" include "You Tore Me Down" and "First Plane Home." The band's frequent use of a Rickenbacker 12-string guitar and their penchant for 60s melodies made it easy for music fans to associate them with the Byrds.

In months to come, I will similarly list artists in the 80s (REM, Jimmy Silva), the 90s (Different Faces, The Lears) and contemporary bands who have perpetuated the Byrdsian sound.

Until next month, jangle on!

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