Tag: Power Pop

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Matthew Sweet Tops Saturday’s PowerPop Bill

Matthew Sweet (Photo: Henry Diltz)

Matthew Sweet is the perfect choice to headline the Memphis PowerPop Festival, happening at the Overton Park Shell at 5 p.m. this Saturday, August 31st. Being younger than the likes of the Who, the Raspberries, or Big Star, he’s nevertheless an actively performing link to the originators of the genre — first as a fan. The direct result of the first wave of “power pop” filtering down to younger denizens of the 1970s via radio and funky little record shops, he can well remember the thrill of discovering key LPs back when power pop gems were rare.

Sweet, of course, came to define power pop for a whole new generation after his third album, Girlfriend, blew up in 1991, not coincidentally featuring band members — Richard Lloyd, Robert Quine — who’d appeared on the very records he bought in high school. From the ’90s on, he’s been a reliably rocking and intriguing artist, and continues to mine the power pop vein today, with one album dropping during Covid and another on the way. A common thread through all of his music, as a both fan and an artist, is his love of melody, often paired with rock’s grit. And that, in a nutshell is what power pop is. Naturally, the topic of melody was where my recent conversation with him soon headed.

Memphis Flyer: As it turns out, you and I were growing up in eastern Nebraska at the same time [much discussion of this ensues]. I imagine you were a frequent patron of Dirt Cheap Records in Lincoln?

Matthew Sweet: Most of the records that found their way to me were from my older brother, or from someone recommending them to me at Dirt Cheap. People at Dirt Cheap knew all about everything. So you’d get to know a guy at a record store and he sort of knew what you liked. I remember going in Dirt Cheap one day and seeing one of the 45s that ended up on Singles Going Steady, by the Buzzcocks. That record was one that I really loved, because they were really melodic, but also very new wave.

I think of it as a British Invasion, that kind of new wave, punk, and everything, and it’s interesting, because my concern at the time was, How can I be like an American person, from a new generation or whatever, and do that kind of thing? And that’s why it was so, so critical for me to find [records by] the dBs or Big Star, because they became my American role models. Like on #1 Record, the voices were so pristine and beautiful sounding. The guitars were so incredible. It was everything I loved really melodic stuff that really hit me emotionally. Melody was always really important to me. It’s kind of what I heard first, even before lyrics. Even when the lyrics were important, it was the melodies that I really felt like I had, you know, inside me or something.

There was a lot of surprise in discovering the music then. And now I realize what a special time it was. I love the internet, and I love being able to find out instantly about anything I’m interested in, but back then, records were very special, at least to me and people I knew at the time. A record was this thing that was really personal.

It seems like those melodic records also led you to the South, in a way. The dB’s and Mitch Easter coming out of the North Carolina scene, and Big Star being from Memphis. Were you already into those bands when you moved to Athens, Georgia?

I had all these records in high school. I got into the dBs, and they were the gateway for me to find Big Star. As far as I was concerned, Alex Chilton was, you know, John Lennon, or something. He reminded me so much of Lennon, and does now even, because what I admired about John Lennon was the breadth of emotional things in his songs. He could write very beautiful, tender music that showed he really had a heart, and he could do more edgy stuff that was sort of sassy. And that was also such an Alex thing. From the soft and beautiful to the crazy and weird and electric. And I just loved those records as I was preparing to leave Nebraska, when I got out of high school. I guess that  would have been May of ’83. I just told my parents, like, ‘I have to go to college in Athens, Georgia.’

The scene there was still really kind of going, and there was just kind of a magic. Growing up in Nebraska was so different from that Southern Gothic kind of feeling [in Athens]. It was a place that had a much longer history than we had in Lincoln or Omaha, you know. So it really felt kind of heavy and mysterious and kind of magical to me, as an 18 or 19 year old. Yeah, it was amazing.

And now you’re calling me from Athens, where you really got your career going when R.E.M. and that scene was taking off, and where your current full band tour is taking you now, just before playing Memphis. And you’re living in Nebraska again. A lot of full-circle moments are happening these days! How does it feel to hear the new release, WXRT Live in Grant Park, Chicago, IL, July 4, 1993, documenting a live show you and your band played at the height of the Altered Beast era?

It feels so long ago, I wanted it to be called Matthew Sweet, Live in Chicago, 1893. I thought it was funny, but no one would implement it. But that was a really memorable show. The Jayhawks were there, and I love Gary [Louris]. And Chicago was always a great place for me, so I had a lot of support there, not just fans, but from radio. It was one of the places where everything sort of went right, you know? So it’s always been a little bit of a second home area around Chicago. I wasn’t, you know, living in Nebraska at the time, but it still felt closer to home. You know, it was just sort of cool, the big Midwestern city. But maybe the real reason I loved that show was that the next morning, there was a newspaper headline in Chicago that read: The Pope, the Bulls, and Matthew Sweet. My mother came from a giant Catholic family, and she was pretty religious and so, you know, there could be nothing more thrilling for her than me being mentioned in the same breath as the Pope.

And here you are, 1993 is in the far distant past, and you’re still touring with a full band.

And playing this power pop fest! I’ve never heard of such a thing, except maybe in Spain, right? Power pop is a thing there, and we toured there a lot, and did really well. But to think we are in America, at a power pop festival! I heard it may get moved out of the bandshell to an indoor venue, due to weather, but we really want to play the Shell. It’s one of the last bandshells, I think. There’s only a couple left. And, I mean, you know, we’ve all seen those photos of Elvis standing in the middle of that stage…

The Memphis PowerPop Festival, part of the Orion Free Concert Series, takes place at the Overton Park Shell this Saturday, August 31st at 5 p.m., and features Matthew Sweet with openers Abe Partridge and The Sonny Wilsons. An after-party featuring Your Academy, 40 Watt Moon, and Lately David starts at 9 p.m. at B-Side.

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Music Music Features

Chris Milam Goes Back to the Future

Chris Milam (Photo: Andrew Trent Fleming)

You can trace the shifts in Chris Milam’s songwriting style through the type of guitar he’s opted to play over the course of his three albums. And music fans who’ve come to appreciate the more sparse Americana of his first two albums, Kids These Days and Meanwhile, will hear the change immediately when they play his latest album, Orchid South. The songs mine an anthemic, power pop vein that he’s hinted at before, but never embraced to this degree. And of course, with power pop comes the sound of electric guitars. In this case, the triple guitar team of Milam, Steve Selvidge, and Luke White.

Electric guitar has always been in Milam’s toolbox, but never in quite this way. “In the lead up to making Kids These Days, and then touring that album in 2017, I was playing solo electric. There’s a lot of acoustic guitar on there, too, but the main guitar you hear me playing on that album is a hollow body, Gibson-sounding, reverbed-out electric. So yeah, there was a couple years there where I was doing a fair amount of electric playing — in solo shows. But then I shifted to acoustic surrounding Meanwhile.”

Chris Milam (Photo: Lisa Mac)

That sophomore effort, released in 2020, was a sparse masterpiece of which Milam said at the time, “I inadvertently wrote a good album for quarantine, honestly. It’s basically 10 different versions of how we deal with loss, or survive being in limbo.” Along with that pensive mood came pensive music, with acoustic guitar at its foundation.

Now that’s all changed.

“For this one, I don’t know, maybe this is impolitic to say,” he says, “but I’ve just been bored to tears by so many singer-songwriter albums” with acoustic guitar at their heart. “I just was like, I think that you can discuss weighty topics and still make an album that is fun and dynamic and that people actually want to listen to.”

And that’s a fair description of Orchid South, which seems custom-made to burst from radio speakers while blasting down the highway on a hot summer night. “I’ve always been a big fan of power pop from the 1970s and alt-rock of the 1990s,” he says. “That was the stuff that I was listening to when I first picked up a guitar and when I first really fell in love with music. That was really the soundtrack of my adolescence.”

Yet it wasn’t until recently that Milam, now 40, felt he could address those years with the proper tone and voice. And the tone, he knew, would have to be full of jangle and crunch. Who better to bring that sound than Selvidge and White?

“Most of the lead guitar is Steve, and all the 12-string Rickenbacker guitar is Luke, kind of on the left channel. With Steve on the right. I added rhythm guitar, for the most part.” Moreover, the album gains its immediacy and energy by virtue of having largely been tracked live, with the players all in the same room. “At the heart of the album, the core band was Shawn Zorn on drums, Mark Stuart on bass, and then me and Luke. And then Steve came in for an overdub day, and the horns [Art Edmaiston and Marc Franklin] did an overdub day. And that was pretty much it.”

The end product is a big, radio-friendly sound that conjures up the longings and impulsiveness of adolescence. And ironically, though Meanwhile came out during the onset of Covid, this album is even more of a product of that time. “A good chunk of the album was written during quarantine,” Milam says. “And I was probably going a little stir crazy and wanting to be loud and kick out the jams.”

Yet he was also applying his more finely-honed writerly chops to an earlier version of himself, the young man listening to alternative radio in the ’90s. “When I was a teenager, growing up in Memphis, I was listening to 96X [FM],” he recalls. ““Hey Jealousy’ was one of the first songs I learned on guitar, and there’s a lot of Gin Blossoms influence on this album.” But there was more to evoking his youth than turning his amp up to 11.

“My earlier stuff had been more in the Americana or folk realm, and so the lyrics were a little bit more of that narrative style,” reflects Milam. “But when I was a teenager, I didn’t really experience things in that way. It was all very heightened emotions, very amplified feelings, and everything was just evocative and impressionist. That was the type of writing I did when I was that age and I wanted to get back to that again, but hopefully do a better job on it. Instead of narrative lyrics, I wanted stuff that had more freshness, or was a little bit more evocative. That makes emotional sense, even though it doesn’t necessarily make literal sense.”

Chris Milam is in the midst of a national solo tour now, but will celebrate the release of Orchid South with a full band at Railgarten on Saturday, August 10th, with Alexis Grace opening.

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Music Music Blog

The Who: Power Pop Apotheosis at FedExForum

Jon Button, Billy Nicholls, Roger Daltrey, Zak Starkey, and Pete Townshend of The Who perform onstage during The Who Hits Back! Tour on May 03, 2022 at Moody Center in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images for The Who)

Power pop takes many guises, but few would dispute that The Who played a pivotal role in its birth, combining soaring melodies and rich harmonies with crunchy guitar riffs and other sonic delights. Granted, a rock opera like Tommy steps outside the three-minute parameters of the ideal pop song, but even that example is littered with brilliant singles, mixed in with the “Overture,” “Underture,” and other instrumental passages.

The band’s hand in perfecting power pop, and the sheer artistry of their very deep catalog, whatever the genre, was eminently apparent at their appearance at the FedExForum last Friday night. Of course, purists are quick to point out that the most anyone can see these days is half the Who, and that’s technically true. But that rock band, by any name, was only part of the recipe Friday, as the group comprised only about one sixth of the total musicianship onstage. The Who that played Memphis Friday was a symphonic Who.

The core band was a powerhouse, of course. Front and center were the two original members, singer Roger Daltrey and songwriter/lead guitarist Pete Townshend. The late Keith Moon has long had a worthy stand-in with Zak Starkey on drums, who’s style owes more to the inimitable Mr. Moon than his own father, Ringo Starr. And the guitarist/backup singer was Pete’s brother, Simon Townshend. The shoes of the late John Entwistle, who passed away in 2002, were filled by the enthusiastic Jon Button. One special guest, who crafted pop singles in his own right back in the day and has written many charting songs, was backing vocalist Billy Nicholls. Keyboardist Loren Gold mastered the often tricky synthesizer, piano and organ parts capably, augmented by second keyboardist Emily Marshall. Finally, orchestra conductor Keith Levenson, lead violinist Katie Jacoby and lead cellist Audrey Snyder were joined by a few dozen classical players from Memphis.

Pete Townshend introduced the latter musicians, saying they were “Memphis born and bred, though only about five of them are any good at basketball.” Though stoically focused on their scores during the performance, many of the local players could barely conceal their delight after the show.

Tom Clary’s office last Friday (Credit: Tom Clary)

“I got to sit right by Pete Townshend and his amp…it was awesome,” quipped one player. Another said, “They were amazing! So cool to see Pete Townshend do the windmill in real life. It was a dream to hear them and be a part of their sound.”

Trumpeter Tom Clary posted a photo with only the caption “Jumbotron,” featuring a moment when his face loomed on the large screens flanking the stage.

Trumpeter Tom Clary on The Who’s jumbotron screen (Credit: David Torres).

In bolstering the sound of the Who, local classical musicians were carrying on a long tradition of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, players from which have graced pop and power pop records for over half a century now. And, under Levenson’s direction, the woodwinds, brass, strings and percussionists turned on a dime, from precise and delicate passages to outright bombast.

The sheer size and complexity of the mix may have diminished the sheer rocking abandon of The Who in their prime, especially when Townshend seemed to approach his role with great humility, blending in with the other orchestra players and generally keeping a low profile. At first, his guitar was notably quieter than one would imagine, until about midway through the set.

That was appropriate, as it turned out, as that half focused on material from Tommy. The irony, as Townshend pointed out after “Pinball Wizard,” was that there was no orchestra on the original album. “Our producer Kit Lambert wanted to use an orchestra, but I thought The Who were better than any orchestra.” The only nod to the classical world on the original release, Townshend noted, was John Entwistle’s French horn.

And yet the rock opera was receiving orchestral treatments from the first year of its release, even being transformed into a musical by Townshend in the 1990s. Last Friday, the orchestrations blended perfectly with the solid hammering of the rock band, bringing a bit of shimmer to the ethereal chords of Tommy‘s “Overture.”

A contemporary bit of inspiration made an appearance during Tommy as well. As the classic refrain of “See me, feel me, touch me, heal me” gave way to “Listening to you I get the music/Gazing at you I get the heat,” Townshend cranked his guitar up a notch and the lights glowed with the blue-and-gold of Ukraine.

Pete Townshend of The Who performs onstage during The Who Hits Back! Tour on May 03, 2022 at Moody Center in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images for The Who)

Townshend sang relatively little through the night, explaining that a recent illness had left his voice sounding “like a cross between Elvis Presley and Louis Armstrong,” even as he belted out “Eminence Front” very much like that latter. At one point between songs, he pulled out his phone and fiddled about with it, saying, “I’m not checking my phone, I’m adjusting my hearing controls,” referring to Bluetooth-connected in-ear monitors he wore.

But he took the occasion to wax nostalgic about Keith Moon’s great desire to have an old-school rotary phone by his drum kit during shows, which would ring between songs, requiring him to answer it. “Hello, darling,” Townshend mimicked Moon. “Yes, everything’s fine, the show’s going well. Please don’t call me at work!”

Roger Daltrey of The Who performs onstage during The Who Hits Back! Tour on May 03, 2022 at Moody Center in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images for The Who)

Daltrey, for his part, was in fine voice throughout the night, delivering the high notes and even the scream in “Won’t Get Fooled Again” as if he was fifty years younger. Indeed, hearing him carry so many of the band’s greatest songs was a stark reminder of what a force of nature his voice still is.

Midway through the set, fans were able to hear The Who as an honest-to-god rock band, or at least a relatively stripped-down seven piece, kicking into “The Seeker” with both guitarists on acoustics. This was also the segment that featured a rare non-hit, which Daltrey called “one we recorded for the Lifehouse project,” albeit unreleased until the Odds and Sods LP: “Relay.” Perhaps egged on by Gold’s blistering organ solo, Townshend finally revved up his guitar during the number.

Eventually, the orchestra returned, and it was a very welcome re-augmentation as the collective launched into songs from Quadrophenia, Townshend’s lesser known, if more literary, rock opera. The titular instrumental number from the opera was a revelation in this form, as Time-Life style images of great moments in history from the ’60s onward flashed on the screen (a bit predictably). The photos did include local headlines about the death of Elvis. But the grandeur of the music made such a montage redundant. And that was brought home when, after an artful solo piano introduction by Gold, the entire ensemble erupted into “Love, Reign O’er Me.”

With “Baba O’Riley” and its extended fiddle outro by Jacoby (who changed into a Grizzlies shirt for the occasion), the night was over, as Daltrey blessed us with the words, “May you all have wonderful lives ahead of you!”

Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of The Who perform onstage during The Who Hits Back! Tour on May 03, 2022 at Moody Center in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images for The Who)

Setlist:
With Orchestra
Overture
1921
Amazing Journey
Sparks
Pinball Wizard
We’re Not Gonna Take It
Who Are You
Eminence Front
Ball and Chain
Join Together

Band Only
The Seeker
You Better You Bet
Relay
Won’t Get Fooled Again

With Orchestra
Behind Blue Eyes
The Real Me
I’m One
5:15
The Rock
Love, Reign O’er Me
Baba O’Riley

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Music Record Reviews

William Luke White’s Triumphant Return to Music

Whether you knew it or not, Luke White has probably been a fixture in some of your favorite Memphis bands. He’s played integral roles in Snowglobe, The Pirates, Spiral Stairs (Pavement’s Scott Kannberg), Colour Revolt, James and the Ultrasounds, Clay Otis, Jeffery James and the Haul, The Coach and Four, Sons of Mudboy, Harlan T. Bobo and Rob Junklas, among others.

Now, as William Luke White, he’s making his debut as a band leader and solo artist. But going solo doesn’t have to mean going it alone. He’s assembled a few of the city’s best rock and roll players to create an EP of rare energy and hope.

It’s especially moving for friends and colleagues of Luke, as he has tried to come to grips with some setbacks in physical health. Returning home from a West Coast tour supporting Spiral Stairs’ We Wanna Be Hyp-No-Tized in June 2019, Luke had a massive seizure in his apartment. He woke up four days later to find out that he had a cancerous brain tumor that needed to be removed. The successful surgery took place August 13th at LeBonheur.

In truth, that final surgery was the culmination a long process of recovery and healing. Over recent months, White has been seen at musical events (before quarantine), or on social media, at times in recording studios. As it turns out, he was putting the finishing touches on material that he had started working on before his seizure.

As he notes in a statement: “I decided to put out these songs I had recorded a while back that were basically finished and started talking to Tim Regan about releasing them on his Nine Mile Records label. I sent him the tunes I had and work got underway. I just want these songs to see the light of day and want to reclaim the date from my accident. Tim Regan and Tommy Kha, photography and artwork, have been with me since my seizure and it has been an amazing collaboration that is exactly what I needed.”

The result is a shot in the arm of these doldrum-plagued times. All notions of ill health or angst are swept away with the opening bass riff of “(Tell Me) Where Ya From From,” full of four-on-the-floor pounding drums, Jim Spake’s skronking baritone sax, and chiming background vocals courtesy Jana Misener and Krista Wroten. Eventually, some Steve Cropper-esque guitar fills show up as well. It’s a grand old time and a brilliant shot across the bow for White’s return.

The first single, “Glory Line,” spotlighted in visual artist Tommy Kha’s music video that was released today, is more contemplative, evoking shades of power pop, Americana, and even a touch of wistful Joni Mitchell, as he sings “I’m flying 20,000 miles an hour and without getting closer/My heart is radiating, I just hope you can feel it.”

William Luke White’s Triumphant Return to Music

Then it’s once more onto the dance floor with the perfect upbeat power pop of “Love In a Cage,” which actually makes such a prospect sound fun. If the Smiths cut an album at Stax, ca. 1986, this might have been the result.

And then White gets contemplative again with “My Worst,” but it’s a driving contemplation and catchy as hell. Throughout, White’s voice is in fine form, by measures both vulnerable and roaring, as needed, and sits perfectly in the shimmering guitar jangle and big beats, as background vocals sing the title words in what could be a Big Star sample.

But it’s not a sample, and all the more glorious for being so alive. As is William Luke White. And for that we are thankful.

William Luke White’s eponymous debut EP is available Friday, October 2, from Nine Mile Records.

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Music Music Features

Power Pop on the Rise

Listen closely to some of the newer acts on the local garage-rock scene, and you’ll hear real melodies emerging from behind the workmanlike chords. “I’m trying to get away from punk rock. I’m getting kind of tired of it,” says guitarist Scott Rogers, who describes his latest project, The Perfect Fits, as “straight-ahead power pop.

“Power pop can be anything from Big Star to the Ramones. It’s a pretty broad category,” he says.

Listing his band mates — guitarist Joe T. Simpson (who also wrangles a six-string alongside Rogers in The Dutch Masters), bassist Tommy Trouble, and drummer Andrew McCalla — Rogers admits, “I’m playing with the same bunch of guys, and so we’re still [musically] limited, but we’re trying!”

On Saturday, May 26th, the Perfect Fits (MySpace.com/ThePerfectFits) are playing at The Buccaneer with New Orleans’ Black Rose Band and The Everyday Parade, which pairs Jeff Golightly and Rick Camp, of ’80s-era Memphis pop faves The Crime, with Noise Choir‘s J.B. Horrell and Leh Sammons.

“I’d heard talk about the Crime for years but never really heard them until Jeff played the Goner Records birthday bash, and he had all of these amazing songs,” Rogers explains. “I’d heard Jeff talk about getting a band together, and so I e-mailed him to ask where he stood on that. He had his first practice set up within the week.”

“Scott asking us to do the gig put me into high gear,” says Golightly, who became acquainted with the Goner community as a fan of The Reigning Sound. “It seems like everybody’s talking power pop now, although the Everyday Parade’s not gonna change the world. We’re just playing rock-and-roll with decent vocals.”

In the same vein: I’m Your Man, Harlan T. Bobo‘s long-awaited sophomore album, is set for release on Goner July 17th. Cut with an all-star cast of local musicians, including Doug Easley, Jeremy Scott, Paul Buchignani, Jonathan Kirkscey, and Tim Prudhomme, it features brilliantly stripped-down anthems such as “My Life” and “One of These Days,” the country-esque “So Bad?,” and pop masterpieces “Last Step” and “Pretty Foolish Things,” which bring to mind a blend of the Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society and Chris Bell’s I Am the Cosmos.

With Lover!, Rich Crook, a sideman who’s served time in The Reatards, Lost Sounds, and Knaughty Knights (he currently pounds the skins in Memphis Babylon), has also thrown his hat into the power-pop ring. At least that’s how the Portland, Oregon-based label Empty Records is describing Crook’s solo debut, released under the Lover! moniker this Tuesday.

“It’s a funny name. I wanted something ridiculous,” says Crook, a native of Natchez, Mississippi, who has spent the last decade in Memphis — except for a sojourn home last summer to earn some fast cash, an experience that ultimately inspired Lover! the album.

“I guess I took my job in Memphis for granted, because once it was gone, I couldn’t afford to live here,” he explains. “I cut my losses and moved to Natchez to work in an oil-rig yard. After a month, I got a job on a rig out in the Gulf of Mexico.

“I stayed for two hitches, and the entire time I was out there, my imagination took over. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I’d write these songs in my head and demo them later on a 16-track,” Crook says of songs like “Pipe Is Too Tight” and “DeWaynne.”

“DeWaynne was my crane operator, aka the boss. We had a hard time communicating with each other, to the point that he got the best of me. I couldn’t win the fight. It was his world, and I was just livin’ in it,” he confesses, pointing to his MySpace page, MySpace.com/KillDeWaynne, which sums up the album as “ten songs of friendly brushes with animal poachers, in-the-closet crane operators, and pure blood lust for the men who had kept [Crook] down while being there.”

Armed with a positive bank balance and plenty of material, Crook returned to Memphis in late 2006, booked time at Harry Koniditsiotis‘ Five and Dime Recording Studio, and began laying down tracks. “Greg Roberson played drums on seven songs,” he notes. “For others, I’d sit behind the drum kit and play the melody in my head. Once I had the foundation, I put everything on top of that.”

In June, German label Ptrash will release a vinyl edition of Lover!, which will be followed by 7-inch singles on the Solid Sex Lovie Doll and Dixie Gas labels. Crook is already rehearsing with Oscars drummer Abe White and Daphne and Marsh Nabors of Jackson, Mississippi’s Overnight Lows, who will back him for Lover!’s record-release party, slated for the Buccaneer on Saturday, June 2nd, and a European tour, which begins in October.