Episode 13 – “No tears left to cry, I’m seeing red tonight”

Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck, with your host Mark Bradbourne.

Welcome to Episode 13 of Songs That Don’t Suck. My name is Mark and I want to thank you for listening. It is much appreciated.

Before I get into the depths of the episode, I’ve got to make a quick correction. Last episode, I pronounced a band name wrong and the band let me know. Much appreciation to the Wans (like Jauns), not the Wans (like WAAAA) as I was pronouncing it, but I want to thank them for listening and letting me know, sent me a message on Instagram and that was much appreciated. I also had another band reach out, The Lags, from last episode and The Lags were super excited because they are a completely unsigned band and they have no idea how they ended up on a US playlist for new music. So had a really cool conversation with their drummer, I think his name was Brad, so shout out to Brad from The Lags, shout out to the Wans. Really appreciate the artists actually listening to the podcast and letting me know.

So over the weekend, I went to a concert with some really close friends of mine, we’ll call them M and W, so they remain anonymous, but we went and saw They Might Be Giants down in Columbus. They were playing in an old Masonic temple, which was odd because I expected better sound from the Masonic temple, but it just wasn’t that great and I don’t know if it was the engineer or what, but it was just a very weird mix. I did remember my earplugs, so I want to thank those of you who checked in on me to make sure that I remembered them after the show. I was a good boy and I had them. Now if you know me or if you’ve kind of picked this up from episodes, I’m a big fan of live music. A lot of times I’ve become a bigger fan of a band after I’ve seen them live or when I’ve seen them live for the first time without knowing them. Sometimes live albums will be an introduction to a band for me. This show was, it was okay. They might be giants or just not a dynamic band on stage. That doesn’t make them bad. It just is what it is. Their music is not kind of rocking out complete exhaustion at the end of a concert. That’s just not what they do. This show is more of a listening event. The only time the audience really came alive was during the second set when they played Birdhouse and Your Soul. The rest of the time, it was just a lot of very controlled head bobbing, very little movement besides that, some polite applause between songs and that was it. For me, one of the best parts of a show is the energy that comes out of being part of the crowd. That energy gets fed up on the stage and the band feeds that energy back to the audience because they get really into it and you just did not have that synergy going on. I’ve never seen they might be giants before. Maybe it was that way back in the late 80s, early 90s when I was really into them. Basically they might be giants was me for high school. The Lincoln album, Flood, Apollo 18, those three albums are my favorite in their catalog. I hadn’t been to a listening show in a very, very long time. It was just kind of weird. I forgot how they felt and it’s not that they’re bad. I guess in my head, I was wanting something different from my live music experience. I will mark them off my list of bands that I want to see, but they will be a band that I probably won’t go see again. I’ll just listen to the albums when the mood strikes me.

So let’s get into some new music. We’ve got some good stuff this week. If this is your first time listening, I do like to cover how I do this. I basically dig into all of the new music playlist on Spotify. I listened to hundreds of songs from a wide range of genres kind of all over the place. I listened to about 30 seconds of a song and the ones I like, I throw them on a playlist. I review them the rest of the weekend, the new music comes out. Some of it comes out on Wednesday, some of it comes out on Friday. So I’ve actually got to spread a little bit of that workload out now. And the best of that kind of review playlist finds its way to the podcast. I limit it to five and if there’s some good ones, I end up putting those out on social media.

So the first track that I want to share this week comes from Buzzard, Buzzard, Buzzard. And the song is called Chew. Buzzard, Buzzard, Buzzard are from Cardiff, Wales. And they just put out their debut album called Backhanded Deals. Listening to the track, there’s a lot of really cool things going on musically. I love the guitar tone. It’s probably the first thing that I really picked up on. And there’s some really cool layered harmony vocals that really fill up the space. And those vocals happen all the time as far as like being layered. You don’t really have a lead singer by himself singing as there’s always, it seems like there’s this, I don’t know what the interval is, but there’s this harmony that kind of just kind of goes along the whole song, which is cool. It’s got a very seventies vibe in my ear, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel dated and I don’t know if that’s the production or what. And for the bass players in the crowd, there’s some very, very tasty playing and a really cool bass sound in regards to the effect that the bass player is using on this track. So really, really, really like this song. And I say really three times because it’s buzzard, buzzard, buzzard.

So second find this week comes from Overpass and it’s called Right Time. Overpass are from the UK as well, proving that my ear continues to lean towards the British Isles and it really makes me want to go to the UK just to go on like a live music binge because these bands aren’t coming over to the US, it seems. And there are more and more UK bands that are landing on the new music playlist and subsequently landing on the songs that don’t suck playlist for 2023. It’s a really interesting phenomenon to me. So Right Time to me is just a very groovy track to use a word that is very dated. Like if I close my eyes and I’m listening to it, I can kind of picture someone navigating their way through a very crowded club. I can’t put my finger on exactly what this reminds me of, but like the band Oasis keeps kind of popping into my head. Whatever it is, I really, really like what’s going on here and I’m definitely going to have to check out more of their music.

The third song this week comes from Big Wreck and it’s called Full Display. Big Wreck are from Toronto, Canada. And if you listened a couple of episodes ago, you’ll recognize the name Big Wreck. This was the band that made me get religion when it came to wearing earplugs at live shows. Now vocally, if you’re listening very intently, Ian Thornley reminds me of Chris Cornell in all the right ways. I love his voice and I really have since I discovered them in 1997 when I saw them at that show when they opened for Dream Theater. I mentioned that they continue to put out good music when I was talking about them and I guess it’s a little bit of kismet that they just so happen to be releasing new music in the very near future. This is just another one of the great songs that they have put out and it’s funny because in the U. S. I feel like very few people know who they are. I don’t remember ever seeing them kind of come through the U. S. on a tour since I saw them back in 97. I’m sure it’s happened and I’m sure it’s just been a timing thing where I just haven’t seen it or wasn’t able to go and my memory is just a little bit Swiss cheesy when it comes to that. But in Canada they’re huge. Ian can do no wrong apparently. So if you are new to Big Wreck and dig this song I encourage you to go back through their catalog. They released their first album back in 1997 and that first album is a banger. So there you go.

All right we’ve reached that point where I do a little bit of housekeeping. So I just want to remind you please continue to like follow and share the podcast. Depending on the platform everything is a little bit different so if you’re listening on Good Pods you’re only getting the Cliff Note version so you can rate every episode. On Spotify you can rate the show and I think you can rate the episodes. It’s all different. So whatever your platform is please take a moment to kind of do whatever you can to support the show. On Mondays the full version comes out that has the music embedded. Wednesdays you get the Cliff Notes version that’s just me talking about it. We have a website that is kind of central to everything we’re doing. It is songsthatdontsuck.net. You can send me artist recommendations or song recommendations. You can submit songs for our songs that don’tsucktop5. Right now we’re talking about songs that mention color. You can find show transcripts there. You can find links to all the things and all the social media. Social media I am everywhere. Twitter is the main place I am but I do post on Instagram and on Facebook as well. So definitely have more activity happening on Twitter though.

The fourth song this week is from Rina Sawayama and the song is called Eye for an Eye. This song is coming off the John Wick 4 soundtrack and it’s just one of those reminders and it never ceases to amaze me when I discover a killer song coming off of a soundtrack. So Rina is from London and seems pretty well known in pop circles from what I can tell and this song just feels perfect for the John Wick franchise. It’s got this dark feel and while I haven’t seen the movie as of the recording of this episode I can totally picture the mise en scene that would accompany this track in the visual sense. And when I was listening to it it caught my ear and it caught my imagination immediately. For the John Wick franchise which has become like my go to movies like I can’t turn them off whenever I see them playing on TV like it’s perfect and like it’s totally going to be in my rotation the same way the movies are when they’re playing on whatever cable channel they are at any given day during a week. Good stuff.

The fifth and final track this week the feature track comes from MammothWVH and the song is called Another Celebration at the End of the World. For those that are not in the know MammothWVH is Wolfgang Van Halen’s band Wolfgang is the son of Eddie Van Halen and the genetics are a bit undeniable aren’t they? Add to that that in the same footprints as Prince and Dave Grohl he’s playing every instrument on the album. The guitar playing as you would expect or at least as I expect is just pure unindulterated badassness. This is the only way I can put it he just he sounds great and I’ve heard a couple of other tracks from Wolfie and this is like the first one that I’m just like oh yeah he’s coming into his own now and it makes me want to go back and re-listen to some of that stuff because the first time I actually saw Wolfgang Van Halen was on a tour he was playing bass for Van Halen when David Lee Roth was back with them for that short period like right at the end. And I’m okay I’m a very I don’t even know how to put this I liked Michael Anthony as a bass player and a vocalist I thought he added a lot to Van Halen and and Wolfie filled the shoes like he played all the great bass lines he can actually sing his ass off as his you know a parent on this track and yeah it was just it was weird so I think I had like a weird kind of mental block about liking his music but but this one like he got me good job Wolfie. This track has everything I want in a rock song.

That is it for this week I want to thank you again for listening I much appreciate it and stay tuned next episode we’ll be looking at the top five songs that mention color so you have one week to get your final votes cast you can respond to me on social media or go to the website songs that don’t suck net and fill out the form there. So until next time thanks for listening and until next week keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.