Tonight we rock for Janine!
Janine- The V.I.P.'S I Need Somebody To Love EP
The Ghost At Number One- Jellyfish Spilt Milk
Best Friends- The Outlets The Outlets Rock' 1980
No Chance- The Screaming Tribesmen High Time
Blow- The Powerchords ...Think I'm Gonna
Tonight Tonight- Speedometors Day In The Lights
The Strange Boutique- Monochrome Set The Strange Boutique
Streets Are Paved With Tarmac- Silver Sun You Are Here
^My Favorite Game- The Cardigans Gran Turismo
Once Upon A Time- The Fevers Love Always Wins
Different Kind Of Girl- The Beat The Beat
Keep Your Dress On- Loaded Dice No Sweat
Hot For You- The Blades Hot For You 7"
Nothing You Can Do- Manual Scan Plan Of Action EP
*Sister Surround- The Soundtrack of Our Lives Behind The Music
*A Fine Line- The Merrymakers Bubblegun
*Wolf n' the Lamb- Hawaii Mud Bombers Mondo Primo
*A Different Sunday- Beagle Sound on Sound
As The Rain Goes- Stryker Stryker 7"
I Don't Wanna Lose You- Rooney Eureka
Gonna Get Better- The Freshies Wrap Up The Rockets 7"
Pen Pal- Screams Paper Dolls 7"
Geraldine I Need Money (More Than I Need You)- Classic Ruins Lassie Eats Chickens
That's Not Enough- Another Pretty Face All The Boys Love Carrie 7"
>Waterloo- ABBA The Best Of (The Millennium Collection)
Gate 49- Stiff Little Fingers Go For It
You're So Funny- Fast Cars The Kids Just Wanna Dance 7"
No Such Thing- The Vipers I've Got You 7"
With My Face On The Floor- Emitt Rhodes Emitt Rhodes
Carl Perkins' Cadillac- Drive-By Truckers The Dirty South
Something for You- Pernice Brothers Goodbye, Killer
Cynicsm- The Bandables Cynicism 45
Zavelow House- Owsley Owsley
^Power Pop Peak: #16 Billboard Modern Rock Tracks 10/10/98
*SacroSet: Swedish Power Pop of the 90's and 00's
>Power Pop Prototype: 1974
One of the things I love about Power Pop is its international appeal- all over the world you'll find bands writing and playing upbeat rock & roll songs about girls. Case in point, I'd been planning a SacroSet of Scandanavian Power Pop for a while now but when I finally got down to putting it together I had way too much great music for one show. So, I decided to split the countries up and start with Sweden.
While Power Pop's zenith in America and the U.K. was in 1979, the genre's high point in Sweden was arguably in the mid-90's. Groups like Beagle and The Merrymakers (who I played tonight) along with Popsicle, The Drowners and Atomic Swing drove a full fledged Power Pop renaissance. Even trippy psychedelic band Soundtrack of Our Lives fell under the spell of 90's Swedish Power Pop, releasing their most accessible record to date, Behind The Music, in 2001. The scene is still going strong too with groups like Hawaii Mud Bombers, The Zoo and The Genuine Fakes.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that Sweden has produced so much great Power Pop when you consider that it is the birthplace of the most successful pure pop group of all time. Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid, better known as ABBA, have sold more than 370 million records worldwide. As a huge Kiss fan in the mid-70's, I had nothing but scorn for ABBA and when I started listening to punk rock I hated them outright. In fact, after about 1978 my friend Franzi was the only person I knew who would admit to liking them. That was an interesting time because our music tastes were in transition. Coming from hard rock, my favorite groups were AC/DC, Rush and The Ramones, while Franzi was and always will be a pop guy, so his favorites were ABBA, Olivia Newton-John and Elvis Costello. I of course mocked him mercilessly but to his credit Franzi (now Frank) never renounced ABBA and I will always respect him for that. Especially since I went on to publicly disavow Kiss, AC/DC, Rush and other non-punk/new wave bands, even though, like a coward, I still listened to them in secret.
Since those days I've come full circle with ABBA for a couple of reasons. First, on a trip to Massachusetts a few years back I got to see the movie Mamma Mia with all the important ladies in my life (wife Jaime, daughter Veronica, sister Sarah and mother Ann) and we all loved it. Those songs truly stand the test of time, so much so that I was able to forget that it was a one time James Bond struggling through "SOS." Even my son Jack begrudgingly admitted to liking the film. Second, last year Nica was in a production called "How Can I Resist Ya!" at the Sebastiani Theater here in Sonoma (a "Mamma Mia" knockoff to be sure but Bjorn and Benny already have enough money). Seeing those young men and women bring those ABBA songs to life with colorful costumes and dance was really fun. And I defy anyone who has a daughter to resist getting choked up during "Slipping Through My Fingers:"
Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile
I watch her go with a surge of that well-known sadness
And I have to sit down for a while
The feeling that I'm losing her forever
And without really entering her world
I'm glad whenever I can share her laughter, that funny little girl
Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute, the feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Do I really see what's in her mind
Each time I think I'm close to knowing, she keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Sleep in our eyes, her and me at the breakfast table
Barely awake, I let precious time go by
Then when she's gone there's that odd melancholy feeling
And a sense of guilt I can't deny
What happened to the wonderful adventures
The places I had planned for us to go
Well, some of that we did but most we didn't, and why I just don't know
Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture
And save it from the funny tricks of time
Slipping through my fingers...
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Schoolbag in hand she leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile
That song just kills me- every time. I've probably said this before, but the older I get it seems that the act loving something is more important than what it is you love. Passion is the key- everything else is just a matter of taste. This helps me better understand my son's love of gangsta rap or a certain portion of the electorate's love of Sarah Palin. The cool thing is that passion is contagious. Admittedly, I probably won't ever like .50 Cent or Mrs. Palin, but thanks to Frank and Nica I have come to appreciate ABBA and their influence on the Power Pop music I love and play every week on All Kindsa Girls.
Here's Hour 1 of tonight's show (Right Click and "Save Target As"):
http://sunfmtv.com/fm/showarchive/public/2010-08-07__20_59_57.mp3
And Here's Hour 2: http://sunfmtv.com/fm/showarchive/public/2010-08-07__21_59_57.mp3
