Episode 32 –  “I’d laugh until I’d die If it wasn’t my life”

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

Welcome to Episode 32 of Songs That Don’t Suck. My name is Mark, and as always, I appreciate you checking out the episode. I’ve got a couple of musical tidbits that I want to talk about right at the top of the episode here, so bear with me.

First things first, Iron Maiden’s drummer, Nick McBrain, revealed he suffered a stroke in January, and this was right as the band was starting to rehearse for their current tour. Now, after the initial shows, there was a lot of fans online who were talking a lot of shit, questioning his playing, suggesting that maybe he’s just gotten too old and can’t play the way he used to. I mean, he is 71, I think he’s the oldest guy in the band. But I am reminded to be curious and not judgmental. The internet is never not judgmental. Now recent shows, he is back to true form, he is killing it as normal, which is fantastic. As a drummer, as a fan of Iron Maiden, and honestly, as a huge fan of Nicki as a human being, I want to wish him all the best, celebrate his recovery, and I wish him continued health for the rest of the tour. And I look forward to seeing them when they come to the States, hopefully later this year or early next year.

A band called the Wild Feathers celebrated 10 years since their debut album, and the way they celebrated this was they basically re-recorded the album as an unplugged album, and they released it on Bandcamp. If you’re unfamiliar with the band, the Wild Feathers, think a mix of Southern Rock, Americana, and Heartland Pop. The first time I heard them, I felt like they were a modernized version of the Eagles. I actually found them by accident back in, I think it was 2015, I was working for a motorcycle company, and I was headed to Milwaukee for some meetings, and I was traveling alone so I figured I was going to be bored in the evenings, so I started looking around to see if there were any concerts that were happening that I could just go to and check out some live music. I saw that they were playing with a band called The Shelters, and I looked up on Spotify and decided to catch them live, and I’ve honestly been a fan ever since. They have a handful of albums out, as well as a live album, which if you want to get into a band, I always find that a live album is a good way to do that, but those are available on Spotify. And I think they’ve got a new album in the works, if you’re a Wild Feathers fan and you have not been keeping up, at least that’s what they’ve been teasing it feels. So check them out and let me know what you think. I’ll link the re-release, this re-recording of their debut album in the show notes.

And lastly, it looks like Paul McCartney might be gearing up for an international tour, because you know, that’s what your average 81-year-old does. I had this conversation, I guess, a few episodes back talking about older artists continuing to tour. And for me, Paul is probably one that I’m going to go try and see. I saw Ringo, I think, back when I was in college, and he was okay. But I haven’t seen Paul, and I think Paul’s going to be better than Ringo. And based on some recent videos on YouTube of him playing live, he can still get it done. So I think that’s going to be fantastic.

Alright, let’s get into music this week and let’s start with our brain bending cover. This week’s a fun one. If you remember the movie, Austin Powers, The Spy Who Shagged Me, you might remember a song from the soundtrack by Madonna that was called Beautiful Stranger. This week, a band called The Dip released a cover of it. The Dip are a Seattle-based band that can probably be best described as R&B based on some of the other songs that I started to check out from them. It reminds me of stuff like The Temptations and the Four Tops, but very modern in their sound, which was really interesting. I started to try and figure out who their contemporaries might be and I thought of acts like Shaky Graves or maybe Alabama Shakes. This is really, really good stuff. So if you digged this version of Beautiful Stranger, I’d encourage you to go check out some of their other stuff. It was pretty good.

Alright, let’s get into the new music. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the family, I’m glad you’re here. Each week, I listen to a ton of new songs, probably three to five hundred on average each week, and the high percentage of them just suck. But I find the gems, I clean them off, and I present them to you each week in this podcast.

The first song this week comes from Brenn! because it’s spelled B-R-E-N-N exclamation point, and it’s called Valpariso. Starting you off this week with a little folky pop tune for you, Bren is only eighteen from what I can find, and he’s yet another artist that appears to have gained notoriety on TikTok initially based on a random review I found as I was trying to search and find information about Brenn!, which brings me to a complaint that I have that I just feel like I need to share, and it’s a trend, it’s not just Brenn!, it’s artists all over the spectrum.

Do your audience a favor, artists, because you never know where people are going to find you. Not everyone is going to find you on TikTok and know your backstory, so if you have the opportunity on a platform to complete a biography, just add one, it’s easy. Personally, I’m curious who your influences are, I’m curious where you’re from, and an artist’s bio is so easy, I mean, I’ve done it, it’s not hard, but what I see in some of these artists, it’s a single phrase, it’s a single word, or in some cases I’ve literally seen an emoji. This does not cut it, it does not cut it for me, and I’m sure there are other people out there who agree with me, and I’m sure there are people out there going, Mark, you’re just too old, get over it. No, I’m not, it’s dumb, just a little bit of effort, that’s all I ask. All right, I’m off the soapbox.

Brenn’s got a great voice, and this song has a great feel once it gets going, definitely a summertime vibe. I was listening to a lot of music in the car, had the windows down, and this one was just a great one to drive around to, I’m not going to lie. Stylistically, he reminds me a bit of Vance Joy from a few years back, I think he had a song, it’s called Riptide, it was a decent hit, so check him out.

The second song this week comes from Wilco, and it’s called Evicted. Wilco was a band for years and years, my friend and bandmate James always wanted me to get into, but I could just never catch the vibe of Wilco, just could not get into it for the life of me. That was until one night I was randomly bouncing around YouTube, and I found a live performance of a song of theirs called The Art of Almost, I think they did it on one of the late night shows, and that song for some reason clicked for me and I got it. And I’m not going to say that I’m a huge Wilco fan, but I can definitely listen to them and appreciate what they’re doing. They are back with a new album, I think their last one was 2021, but this one will be out in September. This first single from the album is classic Wilco, it’s just Alt Country at its finest, and it’s got a nice little hook to it, and I feel like it’s got a little bit of familiarity, at least to me. You see, I have this weird gift, and depending on who you talk to, they might call it a curse, but when I hear a song, I nearly immediately can run through my mental rolodex of songs and find another song that shares traits. Might be a chord progression, it might be a vocal melody, might be a phrase, but without a doubt, more often than not, I can be like, oh yeah, that sounds totally like X, and I did that with Evicted. As I was listening to it, the first part of the verse has the same rhythm as Raspberry Beret from Prince, it might actually have the same chord progression too, just at the beginning of the verse, not the whole verse, and now when I hear it, I can’t unhear it. I’m curious, does anybody else hear Raspberry Beret, or is it just me? If I’m wrong, please tell me I’m wrong.

The third song this week comes from The Pale White, and it’s called Validate Me. The Pale White are from Newcastle, in the UK, and this is just really listenable rock, it’s just good, it’s all there is to it. Crunchy guitars, great vocals, and there’s this fun little lead guitar part that kind of drones through the song, it goes up and down in pitch, and it’s not like a blistering lead, but it adds a bit of texture, which is really nice, it fills in the wall of sound a bit. Now I will say, at the end of the song, if I was the producer, I probably would have told the guys that they need to tighten it up a little bit, maybe shorten the bridge section. It starts to meander a bit for me, and the song loses a little bit of energy. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still like the song, but it’s a stylistic choice that I would have chosen, I would have taken it in a different direction. And partially, I wonder if they do something different in a live setting, maybe they jam on it a bit, or who knows. Anyway, after the bridge, it slams back into the chorus, and it finishes in a very satisfying way, so nice job there.

Alright, a bit of housekeeping, I’ve been very inconsistent with the housekeeping in the last few episodes, so I want to thank you for sharing and spreading the word of the podcast. I’ve been watching the stats, and the stats have been steadily moving up, so I appreciate everything you’re doing to share the podcast. If you can review it, rate it, whatever, it is all, all appreciated. We have a website, songsthatdontsuck.net, there you can find show transcripts and summaries, you can find links to all the social media stuff, all the social media stuff, I’m on Twitter mainly, I do have Instagram, I do have Facebook, I’m also on Threads if you’re out there, you can follow me there. So as always, thank you for all you do, I appreciate the engagement.

Alright, the fourth song this week comes from Mom Rock, and it’s called Close Your Eyes. Mom Rock is guilty of a lackluster bio on Spotify as well, but at least they had some links that led me to other places where I could learn about them, they had a great website, so that’s enough complaining about that. It irks me, anyway. They are Boston based, I think, or at least they’re from Boston originally, they are an indie rock band, and they’re quite a lot of fun to listen to, and it reminded me kind of back in my band days, probably around the turn of the millennium in 2000, there was a service where you could send your songs to and you’d send them a check, and they would review your music and tell you ways for it to get better, they were producers from the industry and whatnot, and the comment that we always seemed to get was, our songs needed a pre-chorus, which is kind of the hook before the main hook, it kind of sets up the chorus. This song, Close Your Eyes, has a fantastic pre-chorus, and it sets up that chorus really well. I am starting to envision what a crowd would do in this audience, as this song was getting set up into that chorus, I feel like it’s right that point where the crowd is just going to really start slamming, and yeah, it’s good stuff, it got me. There is nothing overly sophisticated here, it’s just great rock, which is honestly always nice to hear.

The fifth song this week comes from The Rolling People, and it’s called Disguise. The Rolling People are another group of youngins, they are just 18 years old, but they sound so seasoned. They have really tight songwriting, they have great composition, I don’t know who’s producing them, but man, they have got it together, let me tell you. They are also from the UK, and I am not sure what’s going on over there, but we need to import some of that goodness, and get some of our bands just a little bit more. We’ve got great bands coming out over here, don’t get me wrong, but man, I want rock to take over the musical landscape again, and we need lots and lots of great rock bands to do that, because that’s the only way we are going to get away from the current state of music that just kind of permeates the airwaves, so let’s do it people.

Alright, hey, not a bad week overall for songs that don’t suck. I actually had a few songs that I had to cut, which is rare from week to week, so until next episode. Thanks for listening, and until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.