Power Pop Through A Series of Tubes
I like to imagine that there's a country somewhere where everyone loves power pop, where melodic guitars and great harmonies thrive like flowers in the sun. But whenever I try to book travel to that country, I can't find the nearest airport. So maybe it's not a country, maybe it's a city. Or a valley, nestled between mountains. And maybe I don't get there by plane, but by pontoon boat. Or through a few clicks on the internet.
I was reading Peter's Power Pop blog today and he posted a couple of songs by the Wellingtons (as he frequently does). It's hard not to like the Wellingtons and I was going to write about them. And while clicking through their YouTube videos, I found one where they talked about playing with the band Farah. And that band name sounded familiar, but I couldn't think of why.
But there on the "related videos" box of the Wellingtons video I was watching was this video by Farah:
You may want to listen to that song five or six times. Go ahead; I'll wait.
Click. One of the guys from Farrah produced a Wellingtons album. Click. Critics compare them to Squeeze and XTC and Fountains of Wayne. Click. Several Wellingtons appear in this cool video, which (like the Nines) channels the best of Paul McCartney, XTC, ELO, Fountains of Wayne, Marshall Crenshaw, Ben Folds, and just about every band I love:
Listening to Farrah, I had no idea where they were from. England? Australia? Sweden? Brooklyn? In the end it doesn't really matter. They live in that place where power pop thrives in the wild... and you don't even need a pontoon boat to get there.
The new Farrah album is out now in England and will be out in the U.S. in a couple weeks. In the meantime, visit their site or listen to the whole thing here on their super-cool widget thing:
The Emerald Mile
8 hours ago
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2 comments:
I will somewhat shamefully admit that I like power pop. That song by Farrah kicks some major ass. I also like XTC and Squeeze to a certain extent. I will check out the Wellingtons. I have never heard of them, either.
Very nice inDEED!!! Time to do a little shopping. You had with the Ben Folds / Fountains of Wayne comparisons -- which tell me not only that this is tuneful power pop but that it is SMART tuneful power pop.
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