Crunchy power pop from Stratocruiser

Stratocruiser: "Starched White Shirt" (from Revolutions 2006. Buy/download.)

Not a lot of time for posting this week, but I'm committed to keeping this thing rolling. So let me just say that I've been really enjoying Revolutions, the recent release from Chapel Hill's power pop/classic rock quartet Stratocruiser. While I question the necessity of their Led Zep cover, their originals carry on in a fine Cheap Trick-T Rex vein. Great for air guitar! I'll offer up one song here; you can listen to a few more on their MySpace page.

Also: shows to see this weekend: On Friday, the Rock for a Cure show at Broad Street Cafe featuring Red Collar (great show last week, guys!), Can Joann, The Relatively Calm, Saunter, and Jeff Crawford. On Saturday, the grand opening of Bull City HQ, featuring Dead Elephant Bicycle, the Future Kings of Nowhere, Beloved Binge, Eberhardt, and Mandarin Dynasty. (Chaz has to be Durham's MVP this year -- great record store, key Troika guy, and now spearheading this new performance space. Great work!) Wish I had time to say more about these, but perhaps I'll come back to some of these bands soon.

Sparklefest Preview: power pop and more

The last time I wrote about the annual local festival Sparklefest, it seemed to be showcasing a fairly coherent style of music, which (depite some protests) might as well be called power pop, in particular melodic garage rock kind of stuff. A quick glance at this year's lineup seems far less cohesive, at least among the groups that I'm familiar with. I think the best way to sum up the theme this year might be "GUITARS!" Three nights of guitars kick off Thursday night at the Pour House in Raleigh.

Here's a quick look at a few of the featured bands.

SNMNMNM: a quirky group whose sound owes more than a little to They Might Be Giants, especially in the nasally, slightly nerdy vocals, whimsical lyrical topics, and subsitution of a tuba for a bass guitar. Also, the accordian.
"Danielle" (from Exploderama 2005. Buy/download SNMNMNM stuff.)

Parklife: draws on a variety of tropes from classic, 80s, and 90s rock, including the expected-from-the name Blur. "San Jacinto" has some of the breadth of sound and amibition of mid-80s U2, which I mean as a compliment.This is a band that I keep meaning to dig into, but somehow keeps getting put on my back burner. I need to fix that. (Their main site has apparently been Haxx0r3d!)
"San Jacinto"

Tiger Thief: another band that's been on my radar lately -- they've been playing out a lot and in pretty good company. I haven't given them the attentive listen they deserve, but "Jet Set Girls" is an entertaing blast of unpolished energy.
"Jet Set Girls"

Bull City: yep, these guys again. Their EP is available to download in full, and it's good stuff that builds on the promise of the Balance.
"Hurricane Eleanor"

Stratocruiser: I've noted their crunchy, Cheap-Trick influenced rock before. They have a new album, Revolutions, which is more of the same -- in this case, that's good. No downloads from that, but you can hear a few tracks here.
"Copyshop Girl"

Shalini: Shalini Chatterji is the wife of famed producer/Let's Active founder Mitch Easter (who's also on the Sparklefest bill). The music has more of a hard-rock edge than that might lead you to expect, but it hits a nice Blake Babies kind of note. The bass player here is Velvet's Jane Francis, by the way.
"Synthesize"

That covers most of the bands that I have at least a nodding acquaintance with. Time permitting, I'll come back tomorrow and at least link some music from some of the others. (Though I must say, quite a few of these bands are not down with the MP3 sharing -- get with the program, people!)

Stratocruiser: crunchy guitar-pop

This is another post based off e-mail contact from a band. Somehow when I wrote about the power-pop festival Sparklefest back in April, I overlooked[1] Chapel Hill's Stratocruiser, but the guys were kind enough to point me in the direction of their new single[2], and I'm glad they did. It's crunchy guitar-pop with a 60s flavor that seems to draw a lot of comparisons to Cheap Trick. (They don't seem to mind that; see the Cheap Trick cover below.)

The main guys in Stratocruiser are Mike Nicholson (who's the organizer of Sparklefest) and Clay Howard. Howard joined the band for their second full-length release, Suburban Contemporary. Nicholson brought Howard on board to improve the vocals -- as he told the Independent, "I've sung in punk bands, but when pitch or melody is important, I'm not the guy" -- but they've formed a strong partnership. The album is rounded out by various other musicians, including an appearance by Tres Chicas' Lynn Blakey, and was produced by Robbie Rist (who in a previous life was cousin Oliver on the Brady Bunch -- no joke!)

Their schedule's fairly light this summer, but they have a couple of shows in Greensboro and Winston-Salem at the end of July. See the details here.

MP3: "Smell of Success"
(from Smell of Success 7" single, SevenFoot Entertainment 2005. Buy it here.)
MP3: "Copyshop Girl"
(on Suburban Contemporary, Zip Records 2004, [though maybe not this exact version]. Buy it here.)
MP3: "Come On, Come On" (Cheap Trick cover)
(from Copyshop Girl CD single, New Atlas Records 2004. Buy it here.)

BONUS (If you like this sort of thing):
Drummer Matt Brown recently joined Stratocruiser. He also plays with Oak Room favorite Two Dollar Pistols (who have let their web site domain lapse and get claimed by a porn site -- oops!). Here's a drum solo courtesy of Saluda Cymbals, which Brown endorses.
MP3: Matt Brown drum solo

[1] Actually, I recognize the graphics, so I must have looked at them. I suspect their MP3 links weren't working, so I moved on. There's still a busted link to their "website exclusive single" -- d'oh!
[2] I see that Dodge wrote about them as well, right about the time that I heard from them, so I don't feel as special, but I'll live...