Episode 58 – “She’ll fly away like the cherry on your cigarette”

Welcome to songs that don’t suck with your host Mark Bradbourne.

What is up? Welcome to episode 58 of songs that don’t suck. As always, thank you for checking out the episode.

Couple of things to talk about this week.

First, earlier this week, I was listening to a new podcast that I’ve gotten into. It’s called The Ongoing History of New Music. It’s done by a very lovely Canadian gentleman named Alan Cross. This is a podcast that the guys from Rock and Roll Autopsy have turned me on to. And the topic of this particular episode I was super interested in because it was about music bootlegging. And for everyone, I used to do that. But I didn’t really understand where the history of it came from. So Alan does this amazing job of doing the research and he gave the history of recorded music. Talked about Edison’s first patent for his talking machine, which kind of became the gramophone eventually. He talked about the first kind of documented bootleger of live music was this guy going into these symphony performances and recording them. And he actually had a clip and the sound quality is, I mean, for the time, pretty amazing that this kind of historical event was captured when nobody else was doing this. And all of this kind of led to taper culture, which, as I said, I was part of that taper culture for a small amount of time.

Back in the late 1900s, when I was very much into Moxy Fruvous, a gentleman that I have mentioned on the show before, Joe, he was a taper for Moxy Fruvous and other bands as well. And he had kind of hipped me to the other bands through tape trading or disc trading. And before the show, we were standing in line waiting to get in and he was showing me some of his gear. And I was like, this seems like a really fun thing to do. I could get into that. It’s got this techie aspect to it. It’s music. I was, I was enthralled. So I started taking notes, kind of figuring out what I needed. And I started to build my own taping rig. I went to Best Buy. And at the time, the easiest platform to record on was Minidisc. So I bought a Sharp 702 Minidisc recorder. I had mic stands. I needed some mics, an intenuator box, some other things. And I started to record Moxy Fruvous shows. And I started to record other bands who kind of ran in the same circle as Moxie Fruvas. A lot of those bands had accepted taping policy. So it was really no problem to carry in a messenger bag and a 10 foot mic stand. For other bands, I would sneak in kind of the bare minimum amount of stuff that I could. And I prayed there was no metal detectors. So you know, I recorded Moxy Fruvous, Great Big Sea, Guster, really early John Mayer, Eddie from Ohio and some others that are escaping me at the moment. My favorite one was one that I actually snuck in the rig for. And it was Ben Folds Five on the unauthorized biography of Reinhold Messner tour back in 99 or 2000. I forget when they went through Cleveland. But that’s a great show. The funny thing of that is, and I’ve mentioned it on the show before, Train opened that show and they were God awful. And I recorded that. And I never gave that recording to anybody. So I am the only holder of that God awful Train show. And I probably always will be because I don’t know that I could do that to a fellow musician to like put that performance out into the world. You know, shortly kind of after that period 2000, 2001, Moxy Fruvous went on this hiatus and I start, I stopped recording, right? And I really would only record my own bands at that point. As it was a cool way to kind of share music with people rather than, you know, I recorded stuff from the studio. You know, time, more time passed. Eventually, the Minidisc platform was discontinued. That was like 2013.

But like fast forward to today, smartphones have kind of filled and killed the space that I think a lot of tapers kind of, you know, they occupied that space. And now bands don’t have taper policies because they can’t ban people from carrying their phones in like bands like tool try and they say, don’t pull your phones out or we’re gonna throw you out and they do. But pretty much any show that you go to someone in the crowd has basically recorded the whole show in HD video. And while they’re stuck in post concert traffic, they’ve put it on YouTube. And you know, before their head hits the pillow, it’s getting views and likes. There are some bands that still do have taping cultures. A lot of jam bands are still, you know, very much into that. But back in the day, if I really start thinking about it, it was such a magical time. There was no money exchanging hands. It was just copies of burned CDs with the show on them. You were spreading music that you love from bands that you loved. And it was those simpler times that I really do miss when I think about music today. There was a human connection that was there and it wasn’t just posting stuff for likes or clout on social media.

Now, for anybody who is morbidly curious about how it used to sound and what that was like, there is a mammoth live music archive where you can download hundreds of thousands of shows from thousands of artists. If you go to archive. org, they have a live music archive and it’s fantastic. And if you search really, really, really hard, you will find one of my bands there, Lost in America. You will find four shows there to download from 2003 to 2004. And there’s one show in particular that for some reason has seven and a half thousand downloads. It was a show we did in Michigan at this place called the Grand Cafe. It completely eclipses the download numbers for the other three shows combined. So I guess that’s probably a good one to check out. So there you go, archive. org.

Now, the second thing I want to talk about is I went to Brite Winter this weekend. Last year, this time, I talked about Brite Winter. And Brite Winter, for me, is the preeminent music and art festival in Cleveland. And because Cleveland is a bunch of tough son of a bitches, we do it in February when you’re outside for eight hours huddled around fire pits enjoying more coffee than you probably should in a day. And there’s food trucks and there’s a ton of great music, a ton of great art. And this year, because I’m pushing 50, I made a donation to become a Brite Backer, which gave me access to a much needed warming tent. Because while I’m a tough son of a bitch, I do have my limits and it was cold. Thankfully, it wasn’t windy, but it was cold. So I would go check out a couple of bands, I’d grab a cappuccino, I’d head to the warming tent, and then wash rinse repeat all night long. And it was fantastic.

There are 30 bands that kind of performed bands and DJs, right? Mostly from Cleveland, but there are some regional and even some larger kind of beyond that, you know, range as well. This year, I think I saw about ten ish bands, including the Cleveland School of Rock, which honestly made me really happy to see some teens like leaning into rock music, playing real instruments. It was a real moment of hope. So that was really cool. The first band that I saw was the Baker’s Basement, which I hadn’t seen them in, oh man, probably seven or eight years, they opened for the Singular at one of our shows, which was really cool. Their drummer has an amazing drum kit set up. She’s really cool. And I unfortunately did not get a chance to talk to her, but Baker’s Basement should check them out. Other bands that I saw, Hello 3D, Locanti, Cultures, Radarall and Mookie. And then my two favorite acts that I caught, one I was familiar with and one I was not, Wynton Existing from Nashville and then Ray Flanagan and the Mean Machines from Cleveland, both of which I’m going to talk about later in this episode.

In non-music related stuff that happened at Brite Winter, I’m pretty sure I nearly killed a small child. It was dark and he ran in front of me and I’m pretty sure I stood directly on him, brought me crashing to the ground, him crashing to the ground, crying. I think it was so dark, the mother did not see me on the ground. She’s just kind of dealing with him, which was fine because I was really angry at that point because I’m like, put a bell or light on him because it’s dark and you’re just having him run around in the crowd. But I was like afterwards, I was like, I need to do something nice for somebody. So I was in line for some fresh made donuts because nothing is better on a really cold night than fresh made donuts. And these two girls were behind me talking and the one was saying how she would rather be at home on her couch watching Netflix. I’m like, yeah, but you can’t have really cool experiences alone on your couch watching Netflix. And she’s like, yeah, but I’m home. And I’m like, yeah, but you can’t have like random acts of kindness happen. Like I’m going to buy you and your friends donuts. And I think she was kind of shocked. I don’t know if she thought I was hitting on her. But whatever. So I bought them donuts, we enjoyed our donuts together, had a lovely conversation and then parted ways, which, you know, was fantastic. But I made everything right with the world after trying to kill a small child. So if you’re in Cleveland, or if you decide to come to Cleveland in February, go to Brite Winner because it is an amazing institution here in the music world in Cleveland.

All right, let’s get into some new music. It’s why we’re here, right? If this is your first time listening to the podcast, welcome. If it is not your first time, welcome back. Basically what happens each week, I listen to hundreds of new songs. Most of them suck. The ones that don’t suck. I share here on the podcast. So let’s get into it.

The first song this week is Circles by the Snuts. This is coming off their new album called Millennials. And this track falls really safely in the indie alternative genre. There’s some great pop sensibilities to it as well. Stylistically and musically, they remind me a little bit of early Radiohead, like Ben’s era, and maybe a little bit of early Coldplay too, kind of pre-Rush of Blood to the Head. Chorus on this song, fantastically catchy. And it’s made super powerful, honestly, by this small little pre-chorus buildup that has, and then there’s like this little pause before the chorus slams down, and it’s just like, it’s so satisfying. It’s really, really good. There’s a great little sing-along moment with the crowd, kind of in a live show setting, kind of at the end. And with the album just coming out, I kind of gave the rest of it a sampling. And noted that there’s only 10 songs on the album, and it clocks under 30 minutes, so they do not drag their songs out any longer than they have to most, if not all, are under that three minute mark. So everything’s ready already. It’s all really catchy. So if you give this track a listen and you enjoy it, go check out the rest of the album from the Snuts.

Second song this week is Bernadette from Jason Scott. This one in the initial listening of it was just screaming Tom Petty to me. Absolutely screaming Tom Petty. It’s Jangly Alt Country Roots Rock. Reminds me, honestly, of another band that I’m a big fan of, Wild Feathers. And if you’ve listened to any of the other episodes where I’ve happened to talk about country music, you know that I’m very picky. I’m extremely picky when it comes to country music. But this one is ticking all of the right boxes, right? There’s some pedal steel work, which is fantastic. A lot of great backing vocals and harmonies, a lot of acoustic and electric guitars layered. And there’s just really nice stylistically appropriate solo towards the end of the song. It’s got real drums, not a drum loop. And lyrically, it’s telling a story, right? Which is always what I want. Like I want it to go deeper than Bud Light big trucks and the rest of the lame shitty cliches that run rampant in bro country. I like this song so much that I went out and checked out a couple of the other tracks. And if country music is your wheelhouse, this might be one worth checking out. Jason Scott and the track is Bernadette.

Third song this week is Come Up For Air from We The Commas. Although they have absolutely no rockabilly in them at all, as I’m listening to it, I keep referencing back to the Stray Cats. And particularly the song Stray Cats Strut. There’s a rhythm in moments in the guitar strum pattern that I’m just like, oh man, this feels like Stray Cats, but it’s not. Anyway, We The Commas are three brothers from California. And their bio, they mark influences that are varied, right? Which is great. They’ve got the Beach Boys, John Mayer, Bob Marley, Young the Giant, just to name a few that they listed. They call their genre surf alternative R&B. And I’m like, sure, let’s roll with it. This song honestly kind of defies genre, but I can totally get behind that. I really dig that. I did have to go and listen to a few other tracks because I was really curious about their influences and what they listed as a genre. The first one I grabbed was a track called Custom Made. And I can completely hear the Beach Boys influence here. Totally different feel from Come Up For Air. But it’s a Beach Boys kind of feel, but it’s got a real deep R&B slant, which is super cool. So go check out We The Commas. I think it’s got something everybody would enjoy musically.

The fourth song is Juicy Prevalence from Wynton Existing. So I mentioned Wynton Existing as one of the bands I really enjoyed from Brightwinner this year. These guys were amazing live, like just completely blown away. It was so good. I bought a CD and I do not have an active CD player. I just wanted to support this band. And while they sound nothing like the doors, there is an attitude and feel that just brings a lot of the same energy. They’re moving around in different genres. They’re experimenting. They’ve got an amazing stage presence. Just their overall energy on stage was crazy. It’s a bit avant-garde. Like in the lyrical department, kind of as I scanned the rest of the album, this track comes from, there’s one song on the album called Sexual Death that is over 11 minutes long. And it’s like this sonic exploration of a jam that’s happening. It’s got some kind of guttural yelling vocals. It’s very experimental in the ways that if the doors existed today, I feel like this would be some of the stuff they’d be doing. But again, they don’t sound anything like the doors. It’s rock music. It’s kind of on the edge of alternative, heavy… I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. You got to go listen to it. Of all the acts that I saw at Brite, they were the best stage show by far. They are coming back to Cleveland in August and I’m hoping that I’m in town so that I could catch them when they roll through. So go check out Wynton Existing.

The fifth song this week is Dying on the Vine from Ray Flanagan. Ray is one of the more prolific Cleveland musicians that I know of. He’s an amazing songwriter. He’s been on the scene forever. And I haven’t seen him in years. I’m pretty sure we played a show together at one point in one of the bands I was in. And it was honestly great to see him again at Brite Winter. He had his full band in tow, which was fantastic. They were incredible. He opened his set with Dying on the Vine. And I really enjoy this stripped down version of the song. But the full band version is killer. But this, along with a whole bunch of other music, Ray recorded during the pandemic shutdown. He was releasing music every month. And it’s all fantastic. So if you are a high quality singer, songwriter fan, go check out Ray Flanagan. If you’re in Cleveland, he’s pretty much at the Winchester every Monday night. So you can always catch Ray live.

Alright, that is it for this week. As always, spread the word to your fellow music fans. If you have someone who struggles to find new music, point them to the podcast. It is the best way to support the show. You can follow it on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, threads. We’ve got a website, songsthatdon’tsuck. net. You can share music recommendations. You can send me feedback, whatever. If you check out the show notes, you will find all the music that I talked about this week, as well as a playlist that has all the music from the podcast this year. So go out and support these artists. And thanks for listening. And until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.