Power Pop From Great Britain: Jackdaw4 - Retrospectacles (Compilation - Gramophone Logic 2005 & Bipolar Diversions 2008) (2009) Flac & mp3

Jackdaw4 - Retrospectacles ( Compilation of the first two albums )

This are the first and the second album of the Power Pop project Jackdaw4. Jackdaw4 was the brainchild of Willie Dowling and the band released in the ten years lasting career four albums. As i said this are the first two and both are great Power Pop efforts at its best. Jackdaw4 was very influenced by XTC, Beatles, older 10cc and Jellyfish.

The songs 11-14 are bonus tracks and wasn't on the original album. Track 11 Violent Streak from Gramophone logic was a hide track on the original CD release.

Have fun
               Frank          mp3 part1   &   mp3 part2
                                                              Flac

Power Pop/Garage Rock: Bare Wires - Idle Dreams 2012 Vinyl (Southpaw Records) Flac & mp3

It’s impossible to listen to this album without considering the context: Bare Wires met an abrupt end at SXSW 2012 after a scary health concern kept one of the band’s members hospitalized. The rest of the band scrambled to play the shows they had booked. Frontman Matt Melton just seemed to want to move on to his next musical outlet (his current band is the more glammy Warm Soda) and concentrate on running his label, Fuzz City.
In the midst of the usual chaos of South-By, the compounding mess that Bare Wires were working through should theoretically have made their shows a disaster, but they played some of the best sets I had seen that whole week. Their last set as a band was a final, gasping explosion with a power that any band could envy.
If that was the end, then this album is the debris that remains as the dust settles. Not unlike its predecessor, Cheap Perfume, the first few tracks on Idle Dreams bring that fuzzy-glam-sound-set-to-distorted-power that typically characterizes Bare Wires on the whole.
As the album moves on, though, it marks a departure from that sound. Tracks like “Julia” and “Don’t Leave Me Here” carry a weight. They raise questions about where the band might have gone, had it survived to the present. They have a maturity about them. They don’t feel like tracks that were tailored to blow peoples respective genitals off at shows like some from the previous albums (there’s really nothing wrong with that though, they worked.) By the time the final song, “School Days” kicks in, it becomes clear that whether or not it would have happened soon anyway, Bare Wires is done. It’s a call to never settling short of ones dreams, regardless of the consequences. It causes a knee-jerky warm head-nod; it’s a great song.
As always, the production on the album is impressive–Melton has an ear for the intricacies of recording. But it’s not their best release. Most of the songs are good, some are amazing, but the album feels disjointed at times. It feels like something they did out of respect to what Bare Wires was. Regardless, it’s an essential listen. It’s not their best album, but it may be their most important.(lo-pie.com 2012)

Well done work by Matthew Melton and band. Garage meet Power Pop. A powerful album with good melody lines. To me Meltons efforts always make fun and this album is no exception.

Have fun
               Frank             Flac  &   mp3@320

V.A. - Fairytales Can Come True Vol.3 - Let's Ride (20 popsike excursions from the UK & Europe) (British Psychedelia, Psychedelic Pop, Sunshine Pop) Flac

Hello Folks, here comes Volume 3 of the 'Fairytales Can Come True' compilation. Don't miss it because it's a real recommendable compilation. The best in this kind of music i have heard for a long time. I will post the other both volumes tomorrow.

Here are the tracks:

  1    Sight & Sound - Little Jackie Monday
 2    Winston G - Riding With The Milkman
 3    Hurbert Thomas Valverde & The HT`s - We Don`t Care
 4    Royalty - Let`s Ride
 5    Les Irresistibles - My Year Is A Day
 6    Stoics - Earth, Fire, Air & Water
 7    Grand Union - Slowly But Surely
 8    Barry Benson - I Can Wait
 9    Graham Bonney - Mixed Up Baby Girl
10    Katch 22 - Don`t Bother
11   My Kind Of People - Nobody Knows Why The Butterfly Died
12    Mike Batt - Mary Goes Round
13    The Chanters - Mississippi Paddleboat
14    Des James - City Street
15    Unit 4+2 - Booby Trap
16    Tony Hazzard - The Sound Of The Candyman`s Trumpet
17    The Newmens - What Ya Doin Down There
18    Dave Christie - Love & The Brass Band
19    White Lining - Back In the Sun
20    Equipe 84 - 29th September

 Enjoy it
             Frank     Flac Part1 (Vol.3)    &  Flac Part2 (Vol.3)

mp3 Vol.3

V.A. - Fairytales Can Come True Vol.4 - We All Love The Human Race (British Psychedelia, Psychedelic Pop, Sunshine Pop) Flac

V.A. - Fairytales Can Come True (4 Disc Compilation)

The idea of this compilation is to present obscure British recordings from the late '60s that had a definite psychedelic feel, but also had a lot of harmony pop influence
at work as well. Often this led to a particularly precious branch of psychedelia dubbed (long after the fact) by some collectors as "toytown" music,
in part because of a preoccupation with British character sketches, childhood nostalgia, and fantasy that was largely absent from American psychedelic rock.There's some of that here, but fortunately this largely steers clear of excessively precious and twee material, though some of it does have the good-time bounce
that leaked down to so many bands from the circa-1967 Beatles and Kinks. None of these were hits or anything close to it, of course, but some general '60s collectors
might actually recognize some of the musicians, particularly the Searchers (represented by a fairly respectable, and seldom anthologized, late-'60s 45, "Umbrella Man");Jackie Lomax, as leader of the Lomax Alliance; Los Bravos, of "Black Is Black" fame (here heard covering the Easybeats' song "Bring a Little Lovin'"); Ian Matthews,
heard on the Pyramid's breezy "Summer of Last Year," recorded shortly before he joined Fairport Convention; and Hedgehoppers Anonymous and the Roulettes,
both of whom had a little U.K. success on record in the '60s. What's most impressive about this compilation, however, is that there's a fair amount of variety in the selections,
encompassing an obscure Troggs cover (Barry Benson's "Cousin Jane"), almost raw folk-rock (Hedgehoppers Anonymous' "Daytime"), sub-Walker Brothers balladeering
(the Virgil Brothers' "Look Away"), and nearly baroque moodiness with influence from both classical music and Beach Boys harmonies
(Fred Lloyd's "Kissed Him," Dreams' "A Boy Needs a Girl," and Dave Christie's "Penelope Breedlove"). If you want more singsongy sugary stuff, that's here, too, but not so
much so that listening to the CD gets to be an overly sickly sweet experience. It's definitely an anthology for deep U.K. psych specialists, but likely one of the better ones
in this subgenre to ever be compiled.(allmusic.com)

This is a compilation of four discs i will post one by one. The first disc is called 'We All Love The Human Race'' and is volume four. I start with the last and will end with the first volume. Why? Just for fun. I will post the series in mp3 a few days later but as fast as ... Okay here is the track list and i hope you will enjoy because this is no second class psychedelic pop and a lot of very fine songs are gathered here.

Tracks: (Vol 4) - We All Love the Human Race
  
   

       1  The Blue Sound of Love  Alan Dell  5:00 
       2  Changes in Our Time  Colin Giffin  3:18 
       3  The Maze of Yesterday  Projection  2:27 
       4  Lonely Man  Justin's Timepiece  2:28 
       5  Hiding Behind My Smile  Iberos  2:46 
       6  Little Maid's Song  Sasha Caro  2:54 
       7  Makin' Love to Him  Tim Andrews, Paul Korda  2:10 
       8  Letter to Josephine  Haystack  2:49 
       9  Heart Trouble  Eyes Of Blue  2:33 
       10  I Feel No Pain  Newby  2:34 
       11  Movie Star  Cherry Smash  3:14 
       12  We've Got a Groovy Thing Going  Ola & The Janglers  2:15 
       13  Latisha  Dave Berry  2:31 
       14  Maker of Mistakes  Chris Andrews  2:37 
       15  Wish You Were Here  Darlings  3:03 
       16  Six Angels & Three Girls  Modus Vivendi  2:34 
       17  We All Love the Human Race  Wayne Fontana  2:02 
       18  She Does  Plastic Penny  3:05 
       19  I Don't Want You (Any More)  John Burness  2:06 
       20  Morning  Jack Carter  2:17

Have fun
              Frank                   Flac part1 (Vol.4)   &   Flac part2 (Vol.4)
                                                                       mp3 Vol.4

The Tuneful Trolley: Flac Files Added!

Hello Folks, yesterday i posted The Tuneful Trolley in mp3@320. Today a real nice guy and friend of the blog, Geoff from the UK, send me the Trolleys in FLAC. I really appreciate that and i hope you who prefer FLAC files will do, too. Thanks again, Geoff!
I put the links in the Trolley post of yesterday.

Enjoy
         Frank 

ModPopGarage by The E-Types! ‎– Teen Trash Vol. 8 (Primitive Rock'n'Roll Performed By Today's Teens)

HEY YOU PRIMITIVES -- UNITE !!!! - may I introduce myself ?

My name is:

'TEEN TRASH'

I'm a series within the MUSIC MANIAC catalogue. a series full of independent newcomer-bands from all over the world with one foot in the 60's and the other in the year 2000. we are easy to recognize: our numbering starts with 88001 etc, and our cover artwork has been drawn by RUDI 'ACTION' PROTRUDI of the 'fabulous' FUZZTONES; the first eleven releases show you a typical drive-in movie theater in the usa out of the best days of rock 'n' roll, the second TEEN TRASH cover will scare you with a monstereous cover out of the best days of 50's B-movies. A tribute to a cult that refuses to die. my aim is to support all those local new acts, so they are able to present some vinyl or CD's to a much wider audience, than just the area where they come from. please find below a listing of all available TEEN TRASH products so far, hopefully to be continued..........

This is Vol. 8 with the real fantastic The E-Types from San Francisco. The guys make a fine mix of Mod/Pop/Garage/Power Pop. They really have a sixties sound that remembers me to the 2000s,  lol. Give it a try. Jangly guitars  and catchy melodies.

For more information of the whole series go here.

Enjoy  Frank      Flac part1  &  Flac part2

                                           mp3@320

 

 

Ed James - In The 21st Century - Jam Records 2006 - Flac & mp3

Ed James...just a guy on a mission to write the perfect song. He loves a hook...and believes that great melodies and harmonies make the world go 'round.

Mr. James began his music career at the age of 2, beating the crap out of pots and pans on the kitchen floor. He became the drummer of his first rock band when he was in the 5th grade. Fast forward to the present...and somewhere along the way, Ed earned degree in music, released several solo records, and has been featured on more than 2 dozen compilation and tribute CDs. Also, you may have recently heard Ed's songs on NBC, VH1, and MTV. "Ed James...in the 21st Century" is his brand-new solo record.
Ed's songwriting style is heavily inspired by his heroes, The PSWS - Perfect Song Writers Society: the Beatles, Jellyfish, Fountains Of Wayne, Jason Falkner, and Roger Joseph Manning, Jr.

Also a dynamic live performer, Ed has thrilled audiences at International Pop Overthrow music festivals in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, as well as Sparklefest, a NC-based rock music event.(CD Baby)

Ed James make great pop music but it seems that a big part of the audience don't understand it. I have no clue but to me he's a great power pop artist. If you like power pop you should give it a try.

Cheers 

           Frank      Flac part1  &   Flac part2

                                                                             mp3@320

British sixties pop; Tony Hazzard - Tony Hazzard Sings Tony Hazzard 1969 (Rev-Ola 2007) Flac & mp3

The name Tony Hazzard may not ring a bell, but the English singer/songwriter has written hits for everyone from the Hollies, Manfred Mann, and Herman's Hermits to Gene Pitney and Andy Williams. Born and raised in Liverpool, Hazzard picked up the guitar and ukulele at a young age. A formidable student, he managed to miss out on the Merseybeat skiffle scene that engulfed the region in the early '60s, focusing instead on his education at Durham University.

Music soon got the best of him, though, and through a mutual friend he was introduced to BBC story editor Tony Garnett. Garnett persuaded Hazzard to move to London to pursue his songwriting ambitions, advice that was heeded by the young musician. He signed with music publisher/Manfred Mann manager Gerry Bron, who put him on a retainer. Hits followed for numerous groups, and Hazzard began work on a record of his own.
While Tony Hazzard Sings was released in 1969 to little or no fanfare, his sophomore effort (Loudwater House) helped establish the artist as a potential soft rock superstar. Many of the musicians who played on the record (Chris Spedding, Mike Batt, and B.J. Cole) were touring with Elton John at the time, and Hazzard soon found himself providing backing vocals on John's Tumbleweed Connection and Honky Chateau. His third and final album, the country-tinged Was That Alright Then, arrived in 1973, but failed to generate much public support.

In 2005, both Loudwater House and Was That Alright Then, along with some rarities and unissued outtakes, were remastered and compiled on the two-disc Go North: The Bronze Anthology. Hazzard continues to write music at his home in Cornwall, and plans to release a new record in the very near future.

A very gifted songwriter who wrotes so much charting songs and some that topped the charts. He supplied the half of the british popstars with potentially hits material then in the sixties. This album shows what a good recording artist Tony Hazzard himself was. Hope you will enjoy this guy, too.

Enjoy it
             Frank    Flac part1  &  Flac part2
                                                                           mp3@320 

The Tuneful Trolley - Island in the Sky 1968 ( 2008 Now Sounds) mp3@320 & Flac

The Tuneful Trolley were six high school kids from Suffolk County, Long Island who went from playing dances and restaurant gigs to a brush with the big time when they were discovered by Sandy Yaguda of Jay & the Americans. Yaguda took the band under his wing, gave them their name (they had been "The Mark of Quality" when Yaguda first heard them), got them a deal with Capitol Records, and produced their first and only album, 1969's Island in the Sky.

After the record sank in the marketplace, the Tuneful Trolley split up, and most of the members did little or nothing in music afterward, which is surprising when you hear the album -- Island in the Sky is hardly a masterpiece, but given the group's age and inexperience, it's impressive stuff, full of engaging pop tunes (most written by the group), solid vocal harmonies, and tasteful arrangements well-executed by the band. Most of the material on Island in the Sky falls into the category of East Coast sunshine pop, which means the outlook is a bit cloudier and more attitudinal than similar West Coast product, and tunes like "Uncle Joe's Armada" and "M.A.C.K. (Mother's Authoritative Collection of Knowledge)" suggest the musical and lyrical influence of Sgt. Pepper's without the same level of skill or grand vision.

But "Lovely Day" and "Georgianna Peach Pie" are great pop tunes that benefit from the muscular drumming of Jack Riolo, there's a folk rock undertow to "Apple Pie" that's clever and effective, and "The Tuneful Trolley Theme" is a better-than-expected bit of self-promotion. Island in the Sky sounds like the promising debut album from a group likely to do something even better once they had some more experience under their belts, and it's too bad the Tuneful Trolley's sophomore effort never happened, but for fans of '60s pop, there are a few hidden gems to be found on this disc.

(In 2008, Cherry Red's Now Sounds division reissued Island in the Sky with mono mixes of four tunes that appeared on singles added as a bonus; the CD collects everything the band released, and it's the definitive document of their short career.) (allmusic.com)

Wonderful sunshine pop album here. I love it really much. Here comes the bad news: I can't find my Flac copy so i only can offer it in mp3@320cbr. But like my mother said: ''Better a sparrow in your hand than a dove...''
I highly recommend this album for sunshine/popsike lovers. And by the way...if some kind soul have a Flac or any other lossless copy please contact me. It would be much appreciated!

Enjoy it
             Frank         mp3@320
                                                Flac part1  &  Flac part2

Popincourt - A New Dimension to Modern Love 2016 - Flac & mp3

A New Dimension to Modern Love is the full-length debut of Popincourt, the performance nickname of singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Olivier Popincourt. Counting Paul Weller among his primary influences, Popincourt is a Frenchman with an English musical persona partial to '80s-veneered sophisti-pop that straddles Prefab Sprout and Weller's Style Council. Far from a D.I.Y. effort, the album features a roster of guest musicians, with Popincourt covering an array of keyboard instruments, guitars, and percussion.

It was produced by film composer Sébastien Souchois and mixed by Souchois and Ken Stringfellow of the Posies, both of whom also contributed performances. Sultry brass, syncopated rhythm guitar, expanded guitar chords, and airy vocal harmonies by Gabriela Giacoman of French Boutik grace the title track, which evokes both of the aforementioned jazz-hued English bands. "Off Track" delves into the more wistful end of that spectrum until invigorated by a trumpet, drums, and rhythm guitar break that fades out to end the song. Complementing more than contrasting, the bouncy jangle and stylized chord progressions of "I Found Out" recalls Roddy Frame's Aztec Camera as well as Frame disciple Johnny Marr.

The variety here includes the campy, '60s sunshine pop entry "Happy Town" and two instrumental interludes consisting of a brief, rhythm section-enhanced trumpet solo and a reprise that swaps out trumpet for synths. As indicated by the title, lyrics reflect on love, relationships, and their inherent complications, altogether making for a nostalgic but above all affectionate debut(allmusic.com)

Very good pop album with different influences. As i listened the first time i was pleased that it wasn't an album for cocktail partys or well practical for use as 'Muzak' in  supermarkets because i must confess that was my thoughts before i had heard the album and only had read some reviews. It's full of  real good songs. Top notch musicians here and in my opinion a refreshing and brave album for the pop market. If you don't know give it a try.

Cheers
           Frank          Flac part1    &    Flac part2
                                                                                     mp3@320

West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - Volume One 1965-67 (Sundazed 1997) Flac & mp3

Raw, sometimes sloppy material by this enigmatic, psychedelic cult band appeared on an extremely rare debut album in 1966 (their first LP for Reprise, Part One, is usually considered their first recording). The West Coast Pop Art were always a strange act, and this collection does nothing to tarnish that perception. It's not so much the weirdness of the sound -- they could be plenty weird per se on Zappaesque freak-outs like "Insanity" (co-penned by Kim Fowley), but only occasionally.

It's more the sheer unpredictable range of the material. One minute they're attacking "Louie, Louie" and the classic jazz instrumental "Work Song" with all the finesse of teenagers in their bedroom; the next they're doing pretty psych-pop tunes with a bizarre edge, like "I Won't Hurt You"; then there are the Dylan covers, which are approached as if they are Yardbirds' tunes, with splashes of feedback and hard rock/R&B arrangements. And then there's an original baroque pop number worthy of the Left Banke or late-period Zombies ("She Surely Must Know"), a sharp, witty, country-tinged rocker ("Sassafras"), and covers of the Left Banke's "She May Call You Up Tonight," and the mawkish "Funny How Love Can Be."

No stylistic consistency whatsoever, in other words, but plenty of wacky energy, and occasional actual inspiration. Which makes this hard to recommend to anyone other than psychedelic junkies. But if you fit under that umbrella, it's not bad at all, though wildly erratic.(allmusic.com)

Psychedelic pop cult band from the sixties .
Enjoy
          Frank         
                         Flac link1 &  Flac link2
                                                                       mp3

Let's Go Down and Blow Our Minds - The British Psychedelic Sounds Of 1967 (2016 Grapefruit Records/Cherry Red Records Ltd) Flac & mp3

As that noted hipster Plato once observed, when the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake. And there was certainly a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on in 1967. A distended Summer of Love saw psychedelic pop emerging from the underground clubs to infiltrate the home-grown music scene mainstream, with the vast majority following in the footsteps of perennial market leaders The Beatles in surrendering to the new genre.

• As the year progressed, it seemed that more or less every element of the British pop world had been swept up in the blissed-out UFOria. Beat boom survivors, R&B stalwarts, sharp-suited mods, Swinging London soul revues, earnest acoustic folkies, Denmark Street hustlers, traditional pop acts… all abandoned or refined their previous identities to make music that reflected the ubiquitous influence of psychedelia in its myriad paisley-patterned guises.

• Across four hours and eighty tracks, the all-singing, not-much-dancing Let’s Go Down And Blow Our Minds anticipates the fiftieth anniversary of the Summer of Love to chronicle a tumultuous twelve-month period of music-making within the British Isles. The dizzying breadth of the set incorporates everything from key names such as The Move and Procol Harum, both represented with less obvious choices (surely nobody needs to hear ‘I Can Hear The Grass Grow’ or ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’ yet again?!), to the likes of mondo obscuro West Country quintet T. J. Assembly, who pressed a mere 25 copies of their self-penned November 1967 album as a strictly personal memento of their time together.

• Along the way, we encounter all aspects of the scene, from the first generation psychedelic bands that took part in subterranean London ‘happenings’ to the shameless bandwagon-jumpers who were nevertheless an integral part of psychedelic pop’s rich and varied tapestry. We also feature a clutch of previously unreleased nuggets, alternative versions, pseudonymous releases, first-ever CD appearances, a couple of inspired novelty discs and even a football supporters freak-out.

• Housed in a clambox that includes a lavishly annotated and illustrated 44-page booklet, Let’s Go Down And Blow Our Minds is nothing less than the story of the British rock and pop scene of 1967: music made half-a-century ago that, as can be seen from the number of hitherto unknown recordings featured, is still slowly revealing its secrets. As some righteously obscure band confidently promised during that epochal year, a splendid time is guaranteed for all…

This is really a wonderful view on the psychedelic pop scene of Britain  in 1967 the climax of british psychedelia, sunshine pop. 80 tracks of known and not so well known artists are gathered here. I don't post it in mp3 because i think it is no problem to find this on the web quite easy. And it's no fun to create and load up 7 or eight files. I hope you mp3 lovers will understand it. Nevertheless i hope all of you who are interested will have fun with this nice box. Artwork is complete here.

Enjoy it
Frank            Flac 1 (Art & Disc 1)  & Flac 2 (Disc 2)   & Flac 3 (Disc 3)

mp3 part1  &  mp3 part2  &  mp3 part3  & mp3 part4