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The Rosenbergs
Mission: You
Discipline Global Mobile

www.therosenbergs.com

To be released February, 2001

This Is Powerpop

Ah, they're back! And they are even better than before. The Rosenbergs have got the hooks. They got the goods. They've got crunch. Lots of crunch. Mission: You makes Ameripop sound dull, and Ameripop was one the of the crunchiest, hookiest things heard two years past. I had doubts that David and Evan and the new guitarist, Joe and the new drummer, also named Joe, could do it again.

The lead song is "Sucking On A Plum", long a favorite live number, due in no small part to its strange time changes at the beginning and after each chorus, when it slows to a staccato dirge for all of fifteen seconds. The next tune, "Paper and Plastic", is a certifiably perfect piece of popcraft, completely infectious, with a hooky, harmony-laden chorus. Sheer brilliance. And track five, "Secret"...is a slice of retro pop music heaven. The strongest track on this full-length comes complete with tinkling keyboards, distorted vocals on the verses, and booty shaking, swaying, pop-'til-you-drop hooks all over the chorus. Very reminiscent of an uptempo version of The Posies' "Mrs. Green".

"After All" is also notable for hilarity quotient and yet more hookiness...and the climax is a spectacular reworking of the already-a-powerpop-classic "Soaked In Polyester". Doing this record is like doing nitrous oxide. The art of CD as proverbial happy pill, if you will. Music as an act of bouyancy.

There simply is not a bummer of a tune to be found on this album. I was stunned the first time I heard this record about three weeks ago. Absolutely awe-stricken, dumbfounded, speechless and giddy over it. Still giddy, and unable to control myself, you get the gushy, non-objective version of a review. As I was heard to exclaim over their aforementioned EP in 1999 when I'd been listening to it for a couple of weeks, in the wee hours of one weekend morning, "OH MY GOD! THIS IS JUST SOOOOOOO GOOD!"

Well, the Rosenbergs have done it again...and OH MY GOD, THIS IS JUST SOOOOOO GOOD!

Enjoy!

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Superdrag
In The Valley of Dying Stars
Arena Rock Recording Co.

www.arenarockrecordingco.com, www.superdrag.com

We're An American Band, Circa Y2K

The most intensely fascinating thing about Superdrag is how their guitars always sound like a prop-engine small craft airplane about to take off. The second most interesting thing is that their records seem thematic, at least this latest one (centered around songs about life in a rock 'n roll band) and Regretfully Yours (about sex and cigarettes).

Once a person hears Superdrag, it's unlikely they'll be mistaken for any other band because of the buzzing or the aforementioned airplane noises. Buzzing guitars. Like "Flight of the Bumblebee" modernized and updated and made accessible to power pop fans around the globe. It makes all of fearless bandleader John Davis's songs sound terribly busy.

I used to find listening to them a very guilty pleasure. Regretfully Yours, and it's predecessor, The Fabulous 8-Track Sound always struck me as quite sophomoric. I remember telling someone, "Those are cool records, I love them, but I really believe that maybe that band sucks", but then Headtrip... was released and I had to change my view. If the third outing showed maturing capabilities, then this one, the fourth (actually it is the fifth; someone out there will certainly point out that there is an album of outtakes and live cuts floating around) finds Davis and company graduated into near-perfect songcrafting, which alternates between Superdrag's trademark buzziness, chiming and straight-up jangle pop. It's hooky as hell and has the goods to make it a must-have for any power pop completist.

In The Valley of Dying Stars starts up right and never lets go, from the opening anthem "Keep It Close to Me" to the end anti-anthem title track. There is no contest that the first song is the best song on the record. If awards were handed out for "best opening line of an album", this would win for all eternity: "I want rock and roll, but I don't want the hassle". Davis always sounds a bit like a brat anyway, so hearing him sing this simply wraps up his attitude and puts a bow on it. Other outstanding bits are "Bright Pavilions"; "Unprepared", owing to keyboards and chiming/soaring guitar work; and "Some Kind of Tragedy", an ultra-hooky, ultra-radio friendly, somewhat Weezeresque song that would get loadsa airplay if radio was actually user friendly these days. It's a brilliant song. In a perfect world, it would make Superdrag superstars.

"True Believer" is the other great tune, if only because it harkens back to when some of us actually thought Superdrag were going to be the next big thing. It sounds like it belongs on Regretfully Yours enough to make me nostalgic for times past. Sniffle. Superdrag is yet another band-as major-labelcastoffs outfit, but a record this good can only go to prove once again, as with so many other greatly underappreciated bands these days, that you really don't have to sell out to put out a decent record.

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Self
Gizmodgery
Spongebath Records

www.spongebathrec.com

Genius and Insanity, and The Artist Formerly Known As Prince

First off, don't be fooled into thinking this record is some sort of gimmicky joke, because it is not. Yes, it was made with toys. Kids toys. All sorts of 'em, judging by the list on the liner notes. Matt Mahaffey, AKA Self, has created an absolute masterpiece of an album, and I'd be hard-pressed to find any record of the past twelve months I like more.

Word of warning to the faint of heart, straight pop fan: it's very funky. The first time I played it, i was about halfway through track two when I literally shrieked outloud to myself "This guy is a bleeping genius" and about halfway through track number four when I yelled "HE'S INSANE!"

This thing is da bomb, but it's a bit like opening Pandora's Box. After five weeks of at least daily spins, you'll be expecting something like an enormous stuffed bear with candy pink fur to materialize in front of you and drag you inside. It's way too much fun, and it's way too much fun because Mahaffey sounds like he's having way too much fun. From the opener, which is almost pure pop, despite the looping and bleeping, through a cover of "What A Fool Believes", an honest version made with a toy keyboard, and beyond, every second of it is out of this world and surprising and totally joyful. Some tunes are even typical Self-styled (no pun intended) post-punky offerings that would have fit on the last album just fine.

But it really is the funkiness and grooves on Gizmodgery--- from tracks like "5 Alive" and "Pattycake", and even "Hi, My Name's Cindy" (about the pitfalls of blind dating) with it's sing-song, la-la-la chorus---that set it apart. There's simply no way anyone with a soul could sit still through this record, or be unhappy when it's playing.

Do not expect part two of Breakfast With Girls and you'll be alright. I expected, er...toys. Instead, it's more like stomp 'em dead basslines and wacky loops and electronic beeps and squeals and hooks and funkiness and jeeeeeez, man, Prince or whatever he's calling himself these days only wishes he'd ever made a record this good, and he could have if he and Todd-Is-God Rundgren had pooled their talents back in the day.

But then, it takes only one insane genius to do something this great, and it is really more than that great. Just don't expect "just another pop record". One must be prepared for the future and judging from the sound of Gizmodgery, the twenty-second century started a few decades early.

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