Episode 19 –  “…if there’s smoke, then I’ll be water. If there’s fire, I’ll be rain…”

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

Welcome to episode 19 of Songs That Don’t Suck. My name is Mark, your host, Pitter Patter Let’s Get At Her. I want to start this week with a little bit of an update with the Ed Sheeran case, so if you were paying attention, last episode I was talking about his case with the Townsend estate, about Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On. Anyway, he was found not liable, which, and really starting to think about it, I think that’s the right choice. I think that’s the right decision by the jury, and I had said that my concern for Ed was that the Marvin Gaye versus Robin Thicke case focused on the vibe and the feel of the song, which in hindsight, I think the only reason that case was won was because everybody hated Robin Thicke. I feel like that’s an accurate assumption. But when you think about vibe and feel, that’s basically genre. So it was a dumb decision. But anyway, Ed’s free and clear to continue making music. He’s got a new album coming out called Subtract. You won’t hear it anywhere here on the podcast, but I just figured I’d update you since it was something I was talking about last week.

Alright, let’s jump into the brain bending cover. I am shot out of a cannon, laser focused, we’re just going to get right after it. So this week, the cover that I’m picking is from Katie Pruitt, and it’s a cover of A Crosby Stills and Nash song, Ohio, and considering we are right around the time where Northeast Ohio recognizes and kind of pays their respects to the Kent State shooting back during the Vietnam protests, I thought that this was an apropos cover to share with you. Katie resides in Nashville, she’s a transplant from Atlanta, Georgia, and honestly until I discovered this song, I had never heard of her before, but I really like what she did here. She didn’t stray too far from the original, but some of the things she did to kind of fill out the sound and modernize it a bit, I really appreciated. So bravo, Katie. Good stuff.

Alright, let’s get right into the new music. We’ve got quite a few things to talk about this week. If you are new here, welcome. I listen to a bunch of songs each week across a whole bunch of different genres. I listen to them for about 30 seconds. If they’re crap, I skip them. If they’re decent enough to listen to again, I put them in a playlist. I review those over a weekend, and I bring them here each and every week for you to hopefully discover a couple of good songs to add to your playlists.

So the first song this week comes from, the first song this week comes from Bridie Costello, and I hope I’m pronouncing that right, and the song’s called Bad Attitude. So I couldn’t really find much about Bridie Costello looking at her socials, doesn’t really have it filled out, don’t know where she’s from, don’t know who her influences are. But the thing that actually caught my ear with this song is that the guitar part sounds exactly like a song that a band that I was in called Lost in America did. The song was called Please Stop Touching Me, and it had that kind of chunky thing. If I was the Townsend Estate, I would sue Bridie on this one, I’m kidding, I’m kidding. But it was kind of that thing, I was like, oh, and I thought Tim, who’s the singer-songwriter who I was playing with at that time, had re-recorded it until I looked at the artist information. So really cool track, just very chill, I think it’s a great way to start the episode, and I hope you dig that one.

The second song this week is going to come from Wolf Mother, and it’s a new song called Stay a Little Longer. It’s weird the way that I will associate bands with events, and I just so happen to be getting ready for a trip to Las Vegas, and I always associate Wolf Mother with Las Vegas simply for the fact that they appeared on the Hangover soundtrack, and the track on there was Joker and the Thief, and I don’t know, you can always guarantee that Wolf Mother is going to have that fantastic, fuzzy, chunky guitar riff, and great lyrics, great vocals, and it’s just a vibe, I really, really dig it. I hadn’t heard anything from them in ages, so I was kind of excited to hear a bit of new music from them, and yeah, just good to hear, you know, I usually stay away from the bigger bands, but when I hear something as good as this track felt, it was kind of, it just had to happen, so I hope you dug that one.

Third song this week comes from Danielle Ponder, and it’s called Roll the Credits. Danielle Ponder has basically done what I would love to do, but I don’t have the confidence or bravery to do it. Danielle was an attorney in Rochester, very successful one, had a great job, you know, working as a public defender, and decided to devote herself to music, and thank God she did, what a waste of a talent if she was just an attorney. This is one of those songs that, again, I feel like it would be right at home on a soundtrack, but when I was doing the review, and that just bass hit, and that just kind of cool feeling that kind of runs through that track, I was like, oh, this sounds really fantastic, and then her voice just thunders in, and I’m like, oh, yes, I don’t know what it reminds me of, actually, that’s a lie, I do know what it reminds me of, it’s got a little bit of Tina Turner, like, just that really powerful soul, you know, just that mmm, so good. Side note, I actually went and saw the Tina musical, came out in Broadway in 2018, it’s here in Cleveland currently, and it is fantastic, so if it’s rolling through your town, by all means, go and see the Tina show, it is worth the price of admission, it’s a fantastic story, the music’s great, and just very well staged, anyway, back to Daniel, I get the same kind of feeling, same kind of goosebumps as I listen to it, that I got from the Tina Turner show, so fantastic stuff from Daniel Ponder.

The fourth song this week comes from the Utopiates, and it’s called Seekers, alright, let’s start with their name, the Utopiates. I see a lot of artist names and a lot of them, I kind of roll my eyes at, they’re just silly, I don’t think they’re being creative, they’re just like, you know, making up letters and dropping vowels in an attempt to be kind of creative, this is true creativity, taking two words, putting them together, and coming up with a concept that, to me, like, I’m not sure what they were going for with their name, but for me, I hear Utopia and Opiates, and it would be very easy to become addicted to Utopia, so it made total sense to me. So name aside, when that kind of opening guitar riff first hit my ears, I was like, oh, this is very, very interesting, like the first 15 seconds, I was like, ooh, okay, and then the acoustic guitar came in, really filled that sound out, felt really, really good, I’m like, okay, I really, really like where this is going, and then the drums came in and bravo to the engineer, because the way those drums are mic’d, the way they’re processed, I don’t know what you did, but it sounds oh so good, like, I would kill for that drum sound in the recording studio, then the vocals hit and I was like, okay, this is like the complete package, I believe these guys are from the UK, but it’s irrelevant, honestly, this is just damn good. It does remind me a little bit of U2, just kind of, some of like the pop sensibilities I think are really what gets me, I mean, this is absolutely a rock song, but U2 has kind of this pop rock type thing that happens, it appeals to a mass audience, and I could totally see this doing the same thing, I thought it was fantastic, so I definitely want to check out more of this stuff, they do not have a lot of listeners, they are very new on the scene, so definitely check them out if you’d like this song.

Okay, the feature track this week comes from an artist from my childhood, basically, or kind of adolescence, teenage years, and it’s Bush with a song called All Things Must Change. I always feel like Bush got a rough kind of deal, I mean, they were huge when they came out in the early 90s, but when they were really starting to come into their own, it was the time when Limp Biscuit and Corn and like that, you know, frat, you know, rap rock thing really took off, and I feel like they could have been so much bigger than they were, and again, they were huge, glycerine, huge hit, but the one thing that Bush is consistently good at is just groove laden songs, Gavin Rosdale is a fantastic songwriter, and this is again a great example, it’s just, I don’t know, I mean, as grungy and early 90s, mid 90s, late 90s as it is, it doesn’t feel dated, like he has continued to evolve just enough for me to stay relevant today, like I could hear this on, you know, any kind of satellite radio rock radio that I was listening to, and I’d be like, oh, this is amazing, and it is, it’s a great song. Really, really enjoyed this one.

All right, that is it this week, but you’ll notice that I didn’t do any housekeeping, and it was funny because I was thinking about it. You know, obviously, I want you to share the podcast with people, and I made the connection, you know, I spent 20 plus years playing in local bands, a bunch of different local bands, and it didn’t matter how many posters we put up, or you know, when social media hit, how many Facebook posts we made, the power is in people sharing our music, or in this case, sharing the podcast. So if you enjoy the podcast, if you are a regular listener to the podcast, please have one-on-one conversation with somebody and say, hey, if you’re looking for new music, this is a great avenue to do that. If you believe that, if you don’t, don’t do it. But I’m hoping that you feel that way. If you’re continuing to listen, I’m going to assume you feel that way. But yeah, so as much as I’ll post on social media and continue to, you know, kind of share when episodes come out and songs that don’t make the podcast, I really need the one-on-one conversations to happen. I had a one-on-one conversation tonight and when I mentioned the podcast, the person I was talking to got really excited and I was like, oh, cool. And that’s when it kind of hit me that I was like, oh, you know what? It’s just like being in a local band. You’ve got to get support and it’s so hard. And I tell myself like, you know, it’s episode 19, right? 19 weeks in and I’m having a blast. I hope you’re having a blast. I’m on social media, you know that. I have a website, songsthatdontsuck.net. You can send me stuff through there. And I hope that you’re like enjoying the podcast, honestly. I will be back next week with yet another episode and until then…
Thanks for listening and until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.