Archive For
Coma Coma New American Dream
75OL-194 Coma Coma – New American Dream CD
Digital download is available here
$7.00 S&H Included
Track Listing
1. No In Between
2. Last Night
3. Warning From The Outside
4. Lost in the Slow Decay
5. 21st Century Savior
6. Claustrophobic
7. Chicago
8. Bat Bat Bat
9. Syndrome
10. Letter to Your Former Self
New American Dream is the second full length release from Rhode Island indie rock trio Coma Coma. The album blends elements of punk, math, psychedelic, stoner rock and beyond, to create a sound that is as unique as the individual members themselves. Influences include artists such as Built to Spill, Fugazi, Neil Young, Mike Watt, Miles Davis and Deerhoof, just to name a few.
header Coma Coma New American Dream
Thrift Store Ransom review at The Sound
File under: Folk, Americana, Pop, Rock
Sounds like: Impromptu jams from The Byrds, Electric Light Orchestra, Elvis Costello, and
Roy Orbison
Thrift Store Ransom was born out of the annual RPM Challenge. As many RPM alumni know, to write and record an entire album in the year’s shortest month is a journey best experienced with friends. The studio project that began with songwriter Eric Ott and Sean Yadisernia quickly grew to a gathering of 10, including Guy Capecelatro, producer Chris Decato and even Ott’s daughter, Lindsay, who contributed the majority, and the best, of the albums’ lyrics.
The band’s name is, in a sense, literal, as if Ott, Yadisernia, and company have raided a thrift store and plucked out gems from the past. The songs travel from decade to decade, employing the best sounds of their respective eras. The ’60s are well represented in the pop hooks on the album’s standout track, “Moonshine,” and the slow psychedelic sounds of “Cold Blue.” The ’70s “Crazy Horse”-inspired sounds of “The Mill Song #2” give way to the ’80s Costello-esque ender, “Crescent Palms.” The transitions are seamless, and combined with Ott’s resonant vocals, make for traveled-time well spent.
Ott is recording new solo material and playing with Nate Laban in Bear, Brook and The Elephant. Let’s hope he finds an occasion to bring Thrift Store Ransom together again. It would be interesting to see what they could do with more time, literally and figuratively.
Bob Kendall Band at One Pelham East
This is a benefit for Paul Geremia and other performers include Honky Tonk Nights, Abbey Rhode, Michael Troy, Otis Reed & Friends, Another Roadside Attraction, and Art Manchester & Tony Medeiros. A silent auction and raffle will be held.
2pm-10pm
One Pelham East
270 Thames St
Newport, RI
Tickets $20 in advance at http://itrulycare.com/events/paul-geremia-benefit-concert or $25 at the door
Bill Keough ‘I Know Where You’ve Been’ video
I am Tom Cummins ‘Resolve to Start Again’ video
I am Tom Cummins ‘Squirrel Song’ video
Jackson Jillson ‘Room 175’ video
I Am Tom Cummins – Holiday 3-Pak
75OL-196 I Am Tom Cummins – Holiday 3-Pak CD
$6.00 S&H Included
Digital download is available here
Track Listing
1. Squirrel Song (video)
2. Downy Woodpecker
3. Resolve To Start Again (video)
The first release by I Am Tom Cummins features the musical ideas of Tom Cummins and Kraig Jordan (Lloyd’s Llamas, The Masons, Junior Varsity Arson.) Playful lyrics and simple beats set the scene for escape. Animals skate and speak. A man muses about the rush of America’s holiday season leaving him cold. And another New Year begins. Influences include Beck, Morrissey, Burl Ives, and Burt Bacharach.
Boston’s The Noise reviews Matt Fraza, Junior Varsity Arson, Sick Pills, and Deadlands in the December 2014 Issue
Deadlands – Faceless Angels
Deadlands play dangerously close to a line that would put them into the schmaltzy bar-band blues category. What saves them from that awful fate is a skill for invoking the ghost of early ZZ Top in order to bring some character to their tracks. As often as the generic “Before You Were Born” and the “Mustang Sally”-baiting “Discotex” make me want to scream, tracks like “Bottom Feeders,” “Libby Prison Blues,” and “Fink” prove that there’s much more at hand with Deadlands than Thursday-night-dive-bar status. There are glimpses of real blues-rock genius on Faceless Angels. If you queue up those stellar moments and skip past the cheese you are certain to find something to enjoy on this record.
Junior Varsity Arson – Self Titled EP
Junior Varsity Arson is the musical project of four long-time New England rock stalwarts, Guy Benoit (Thee Hydrogen Terrors), Kraig Jordan (The Masons), Dave Narcizo (Throwing Muses), and Don Sanders (Medicine Ball, The Masons). What do you get when you throw these four guys in a room together? Not exactly what you would expect. Instead of heavy art punk, you’ll find something more akin to Devo or They Might Be Giants, as spoken/ sung by an odd combination of the guy from Cake and William S. Burroughs. If you have any taste at all you will agree that this is an oddly appealing recipe. The five songs that comprise JVA’s self-titled, debut EP roll by like some strange beat poet’s LSD-induced hallucination. “Her Parents Love Me” starts off quirkily with, “Her parents love me/ I’m such a big improvement/ over the white supremacist. Her parents hated him/ He ruined every holiday,” and continues on with a strange, American gothic love story. “Brown Jacket and Purple Keds” is a song about… actually, I have no idea what this song is about. There are references to shopping at Target, a museum, a Volvo, and shit-stains on the floor. I have to admit that I lost the story line pretty quickly. And so it goes for another three tracks of stream-of-consciousness lyrics spoken and sung over kitschy keyboards, guitars, and drums. Junior Varsity Arson’s debut sounds spontaneous—like a gang of accomplished musicians getting together on a Saturday night, simply enjoying playing together, all wondering what will come out on the other side. Thankfully, what came out the other side is utterly entertaining.
Matt Fraza – Let Trouble Go
As I’m driving down Storrow Drive one fall morning, I slide Matt Fraza’s new album into my player. The opening track is mellow folk melody that puts me in mind of a quiet house concert with a cup of coffee in hand, resting on a couch and surrounded by friends. It’s familiar, relaxing, like a stroll down the quiet roads I grew up on. Much of the lyrics lack a regular format, and have a more stream of consciousness feel to them, reinforcing the casual feeling I get when listening to songs like “Forever.” At first I was a little put off by this, but on the second third runs through the album, I think I get it—Matt, Kraig Jordan (bass, lead guitar), and Tom Chace (drums, keyboards, vocals, bass) have some stories they want to share, and it’s about the telling of the tale, not making sure it fits into a certain mold.
Sick Pills – Sickening
Classic-era punk, particularly of the UK variety, presented us with a lively alternative to bloated arena rock, and the best of its purveyors, particularly the Buzzcocks and The Jam, also offered up some pretty snappy tunes to go with the attitude. This propensity carried forth into the so-called college rock of the ’80s (aka indie rock), and we find plenty of that attitude and tunefulness here, particularly on the opening track, “Wormfood.” But the same opening gambit tropes which seemed so refreshing and new a generation ago have now become cliches: telepathic guitar lines; anti-love songs; stop and start dynamics; brawly Pistols-like chaos; sludgy intros; machine-gun staccato; cinematic whangdoodle; abrasive textures; pounding clamor; grudging grindoramas; feedback-laden echoplex tunings, and so forth. No bad, all in all—just lacking in anything genuinely novel.