Hear It Now: Johnny Foreigner's "Tru Punx"

It's not available for sale until Nov. 15 (and we've learned it will be available digitally via Amazon here, likely elsewhere obvs too). But the lovely folks at Alcopop! just posted "Tru Punx," one of two Johnny Foreigner tracks gracing that band's forthcoming split single with Stagecoach. The song is awesome. You should listen to it over and over again until you get dizzy from not eating or breathing. We've heard pre-orders are booking fast, so if you have not yet given Alcopop! your money for this thing, you'd best do so soon. Here's the link.

Tru Punx - Johnny Foreigner by alcopop

Today's Hotness: Satellite Stories, The Texas Governor

>> For reasons we don't fully understand, bands that arrive on the scene playing excellent spiky guitar-pop tend to quickly discard the style like it was an embarrasing childhood toy. Bloc Party, The Answering Machine and others wasted little time changing the formula that broke them into the consciousness of indie cognoscenti. Well, news flash, rock bands: we happen to like excellent spiky guitar pop, and when you discard the style, it makes us sad. Thankfully, there is a hot young Finnish quartet named Satellite Stories that is currently delivering the goods. The Oulu-based foursome formed only this year, if the rudimentary timeline at its MySpace tent is to be believed (we'll also point out to noone in particular that our college freshman year roommate once went to Oulu and to our knowledge has never returned -- maybe it's the hot rock that keeps him there?). The song "Helsinki Art Scene" is driven by a textbook new wave beat (sixteenth notes on the hi-hat and stuttering blasts of snare), delicious guitars and well-proportioned dynamics. "Mexico" doesn't sound Mexican at all, but instead approximates the jittery pop sound of British wonder-where-they-are-nows Look See Proof, but with dreamier vocals. It's all fantastic, and we recommend hitting Satellite Stories' Soundcloud streams below. The band plays a record release show for its debut EP Nov. 12 in Oulu. No word on how those outside Finland can get the EP, but full show information is posted at the band's MySpace dojo right here.

Satellite Stories' "Helsinki Art Scene"

Satellite Stories' "Mexico"

>> Indie rock savant David Goolkasian has apparently resuscitated his The Texas Governor project, at least based on the evidence of a new digital single bearing the act's name that is now on offer at EMusic and ITunes. For those of you who say "so what," we'll remind you that Mr. Goolkasian once fronted the astonishingly good indie rock trio The Elevator Drops. A new single attributed to The Texas Governor & The Starlight Orchestra, "Angels To Sleep," is 108 seconds of glistening pop swirl pinned to delay-pedaled reggae guitar chords. A quick jaunt over the The Texas Governor's web hacienda turns up news that a third Texas Governor CD, the combo's first since 2005's The Experiment, is being "casually finalized." This is welcome news; the set may or may not be called 13 Totally Broken-Hearted Love Songs. No release as of yet.

YouTube Rodeo: Tellison's "Collarbone"

London-based emo standouts Tellison first popped onto our radar when it was announced they would be touring alongside Johnny Foreigner in October 2009. However, by that time the seven-year-old quartet had already issued a full length and numerous singles. Tellison's forthcoming vinyl single "Collarbone" b/w "Mountain" will be released by the increasingly formidable British indie Big Scary Monsters Nov. 22. The single -- available for pre-order here right now -- comes with a digital EP that includes three additional tracks, "Experience," "Edith Wharton (2XL Remix)" and "Collarbone (Rolo Tomassi Remix)." All that for four pounds, although for a bit more BSM will sell you a t-shirt bundle. Tellison recorded its sophomore full-length record from June to August 2010, and "Collarbone" is included on the set, but we haven't turned up any release information -- or even a title -- to share as of yet. If "Collarbone" is any indication, the collection will be a barnburner.

YouTube Rodeo: Wrapping Paper's "You Don't Hold Back Anything"

Sometimes it is just nice to see people sticking with it. We downloaded Wrapping Paper's jaunty lo-fi gem "Hold Up The Neon Sign" from the band's MySpace casa way back in 2006, and played the track a fair amount over the last four years. The Sioux Falls-based act, as far as we recollect, is a one-man affair (the man being a dude named Tim, according to an email we received recently) that notably wrote personalized songs for anyone who purchased the Hold Up The Neon Sign EP when it was finally released in 2008. The new news is that Wrapping Paper released late last month a 10-song, digital-only set called Superhero, and those who purchase the collection may once again avail themselves of the customized song offer. Pretty ace, right? Equally cool is the band's new tune "You Don't Hold Back Anything," a delightful, instantly hummable piece of sunny power pop with Beach Boys harmonies and dense guitars. We think we like it even more than "Hold Up The Neon Sign." Dig the video above. Superhero is available through Wrapping Paper's label Giantship Records right here; the entire record can be previewed here.

Rock Over Boston: Bettie Serveert | TT's | 11.02.2010

[Bettie Serveert at TT the Bear's Place, Cambridge, MA 11/2/2010. Photos by Michael Piantigini.]

Fantastic.

(See my review of their excellent 2010 album Pharmacy of Love here.)

Bettie Serveert - "Deny All" - Pharmacy of Love
[right click and save as]
[buy Pharmacy Of Love from Newbury Comics right here]

Bettie Serveert: Intertubes | MySpace | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Reader Rewards: Got The Dead Crow Blues... Again

[UPDATED: Congrats to reader Kevin, he's getting the Blues. -- Ed.] Rising London indie label Records Records Records released Superman Revenge Squad's latest EP Dead Crow Blues a couple weeks back, and we were thrilled when our copy of the wonderfully dour duo's short set arrived early last week. And then we were thrilled again when a second copy showed up. The label's belt-and-suspenders approach to ensuring our order got to clicky clicky HQ resulted in the duplication, and after conferring with the label we have decided to offer up the spare copy of Dead Crow Blues for free giveaway to anyone in North America (if you are in the UK, you know, just buy the record from Records Records Records right here). So here's the deal: the first North American to email us via the address linked in the sidebar with an email titled "I Got The Dead Crow Blues" will win the disc -- we'll update this site as soon as we have identified a winner.

We posted the video for the title track here last month. The more we listen to it the more we feel like it is Superman Revenge Squad's answer to Geto Boys' "Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster." Something about the understated, spoken lyrics and the key, we suppose. We found the track posted on Soundcloud, so check out the embed below, but also make sure to listen to Wombat Army's remixes of the tune at this Soundcloud page.

Superman Revenge Squad's "Dead Crow Blues"

Review: Johnny Foreigner | You Thought You Saw A Shooting Star But Yr Eyes Were Blurred With Tears And That Lighthouse Can Be Pretty Deceiving...

Johnny Foreigner's guitarist and primary songwriter Alexei Berrow in September summed up the Birmingham, England-based noise pop titans' forthcoming, six-track EP as containing the loudest and quietest songs it has ever recorded. This may be true, but Mr. Berrow's mild description minimizes the completely enveloping moods the music evokes, downplays the exciting developments in songwriting captured in the collection, and only hints at the aural and stylistic variety of You Thought You Saw A Shooting Star But Yr Eyes Were Blurred With Tears And That Lighthouse Can Be Pretty Deceiving With The Sky So Clear And Sea So Calm. The second half of "The Wind And The Weathervanes" is towering and anthemic and atmospheric, weaving together feedback, strings and crashing percussion. The aggressive "Who Needs Comment Boxes When You've Got Knives" points affirmatively in the direction of scene contemporaries Calories as well as hardcore legends Texas Is The Reason. The beautiful, droning closer "Yr Loved" flickers futilely, like a candle drowning in a pool of its own wax, and recalls earlier Smog. "Elegy For Post-Teenage Living (Parts 1 and 2)" is two different songs sewn together, opening as a familiar Johnny Foreigner guitar pop anthem but ending as a light, Dismemberment Plan-referencing dance pop nodder.

Despite Berrow's assertion here in September that the release lacks a theme, the lyrics persistently reflect narratives about letting go and trying to move on (or, pretending to let go and pretending to try to move on). While it perhaps incorrectly posits linearly chronological songwriting, the theme fits nicely, actually, at the end of the sequence comprised by Johnny Foreigner's two full-length recordings: Waited Up Til It Was Light was generally about Birmingham, and Grace And The Bigger Picture was generally about being away from Birmingham and the personal joys and fractures that result. You Thought You Saw... would seem to more closely examine the fractures and contextualize them in a world that has kept going in spite of it all.

It says something about the unchecked creativity and prolificness of Johnny Foreigner that the EP (which at one point carried the working title There When You Need It) doesn't contain what are arguably the best tracks it has released this year to date: the stunning demo version of "With Who, Who And What I've Got" has been freely available for download since May, and the bottomlessly poignant "199x" was given to only the couple dozen fans who ordered plush ghosts as part of the Exorcism Project. That the threesome didn't feel the need to include the two as-yet-unalbumed tracks on the EP underscores that Johnny Foreigner continues to somehow perfect more songs than it has the time and energy to market via what is the (largely dying) traditional music business model. And there is still more unalbumed songs waiting in the wings: fans who submit photos for use as part of the unique, crowdsourced sleeve art for the EP will receive a download code for the track "JFNV" (according to the band "it's pronounced nihonjin no tame no yakei"). Two more tracks grace a split single with labelmates Stagecoach; Alcopop is already taking orders for the single here, and it contains Johnny Foreigner's new "True Punx" and the band's cover of Stagecoach's "45."

Alcopop releases You Thought You Saw A Shooting Star But Yr Eyes Were Blurred With Tears And That Lighthouse Can Be Pretty Deceiving With The Sky So Clear And Sea So Calm as a 12" later this month, but the collection has been available for weeks via digital music storefronts serving North America in an effort to capitalize on Johnny Foreigner's just-ended tour here supporting incendiary Cardiff collective Los Campesinos!

[buy the EP from EMusic | ITunes]

Johnny Foreigner: Internerds | Facebook | YouTube | Flickr