Episode 68

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

Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck. I am your host, Mark, and every week you know that I listen to hundreds and hundreds of newly released songs so that I can find a small handful to share with you and your ears. Why do I do this? Because I love you. I love each and every one of you who was listening to this podcast. So if you’re listening to this podcast, thank you for listening. I really appreciate you. Now before we get into the new music, I got to talk to you about something.

So last week was a strange and wonderful week. It was wonderful in the fact that I spent it in San Diego, California. I had not been to San Diego in a very, very, very, very, very long time, but it just so happened that my place of employment’s annual customer conference was there at the San Diego Convention Center. Now I have been going to this particular conference since 2015 as a customer up until 2019 and then 2019 through now as an employee.

Now one of the cool things that I get to do at this conference is I’m part of a keynote event and I spend a lot of time doing kind of preparation and rehearsals for this, but I have some free time. So I do get to catch up with some old friends, meet some new ones. And if the stars align, I do catch a session or two. Now through the years, I have amassed what I can scientifically describe as a metric buttload of friends who are basically family at this point. So it is my favorite week of the year, honestly, like the amount of hugs and funny stories and just cool moments that happen, it’s amazing.

On the weird side of things, two things happened. I ended up having to record the podcast on my iPad and a small lapel microphone in my hotel room because my laptop died, which I normally record the podcast on. So that was fun. That was a new and different experience, but I did prove to myself that in a pinch, I can record pretty much anywhere, which was cool. Now the other weird thing that happened was there are very few moments in my life where I’m not listening to music. And this week, every year is one of those weeks where I just don’t listen to a lot of music. I don’t wake up to it. I don’t play it while I’m getting ready. I don’t listen to it as I’m walking around. It’s just a very quiet period. Now during the conference, like in the halls and stuff, there is what I will call kind of royalty free corporate noise, which is kind of like just beats and melodies, like no lyrics or anything, but it just kind of fills the air to kind of keep the crowd moving. Very rarely will it be something you actually recognize. So the week for me becomes a bit of a musical detox. And then I don’t really listen to music again until I’m back on an airplane. I think it’s a good thing to like disconnect and kind of change your patterns every once in a while, just because it kind of reminds you how much you enjoy something when you don’t have it for a bit. So it was very cool.

Now the other interesting thing from last week is one of my friends who I’ve known for a very long time at this point, brought his wife to the conference and I had not met her before. So I got to meet her and she’s absolutely charming. And we shared breakfast on the last day, which was great. This place called The Breakfast Company in San Diego does a breakfast flight and you can mix and match waffles, pancakes, and French toast. And they’ve got all these amazingly decadent choices and it was fantastic and we bonded over this breakfast. But as we were bonding over the breakfast, we were kind of talking about the things that we like to do and how, you know, kids and our age have kind of changed and morph these things. And through this process, I mentioned to her that, you know, I used to play a lot of live music. I used to be in bands for the last 25 years and I’m kind of retired from it and she questioned me as to why. And I said, well, you know, I’m getting older and I have the podcast now, which kind of scratches that musical itch. So I think I’m okay. And she’s like, well, if you really love playing music, I don’t think you can replace that. And I was like, well, you’re not wrong. But you know, at 48 and a half years old, it’s difficult to find people who want to play with a musical dinosaur because I don’t want to play in cover bands. And most people my age are just content to play in cover bands. I still want to create original music. And she was like, well, we’ll just go do it. And I was like, oh, yeah, that’s not how it works. But she, every one of my excuses, she’s like, just shooting them down left and right. And like, she missed her calling as a motivational speaker because like I tried to explain them like it’s hard to find the right situation, you know, but I do peruse the online sites that have music wanted ads or musician wanted ads, I should say. And it’s just, it’s hard to find the right situation. So I’ve decided based on this whole conversation with her that I’m going to leave it to fate and I’m just going to try something here on the podcast. So if you are willing to play with someone who’s 48 and a half years old, you live in Northeast Ohio and you have a band or want to start a band that is not metal or country. So I’m looking for like indie pop folk rock alternative kind of things. Those are my sweet spots. That’s where I want to be. So let’s see if fate and karma can bring us together and make something happen. Reach out to me through the website, songs that don’t suck. net. And who knows if it happens, that would be amazing. So we’ll see.

Okay, before I get into the new music, I got one more thing I want to talk to you about. I found a really cool app and it’s called PodBeat. So if you guys are listening while you work out or maybe you’re running or walking or whatever and you might want to have a little beat underneath, I used to have a beat kind of playing underneath, but I kind of took it away. If you like that, this app does that and it’s free. PodBeat is available for Apple and Android. It’s a free mobile app that will let you add a beat of any musical style underneath any podcast or audiobook. It’s actually really cool. Like sometimes I know when I’m walking and stuff, like I want to listen to a podcast or when I’m mowing the yard, that kind of stuff. It actually works beautifully, super easy to use. So go check out PodBeat in your mobile app store today.

All right, let’s get into the new music, shall we? It’s not a bad week actually. So the first song this week is Peppermint Roses from the Lemon Twigs. Now close your eyes and imagine that the doors and the Beatles had a baby. But the Beatles DNA was way stronger, but you could tell the doors were involved. And then boom, you have Peppermint Roses from the Lemon Twigs. All the markers are there. You’ve got prototypical Beatle harmonies. You’ve got what I’m going to describe as a Beatles bounce rhythmically. And then there’s like these moments in the breaks where there’s a whirlitzer organ and some cool syncopation that you’d swear Ray Manzarek kind of came back from the dead and composed. If you are a fan of the Sergeant Pepper era of the Beatles, this song is going to be your next meal and you are going to eat it up. It’ll be on repeat, I promise. I am a huge fan of that era of the Beatles, so I obviously had to go check out the album. The album is called A Dream Is All We Know, and it’s fantastic. There’s echoes of Jellyfish on this album a bit. So like if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you know that Jellyfish is one of my favorite bands, so anytime I hear any kind of influence like that, I’m immediately going to become a fan of this. There’s a lot of other amazing influences here, and you will honestly kind of go crazy spotting them all. They do a really nice job of like creating this musical melting pot of a bunch of different things that are just classic and timeless. The album, again, it’s fantastic, it’s rock solid, and I was looking and they are currently on tour, so now I’m plotting to figure out when I can go see them. So go check out the lemon twigs, I promise you will not be disappointed.

The second song this week is Too Much of a Good Thing from NIKI. Now NIKI has that cool laid back sound that makes me love early Sheryl Crow, but she’s got a much more alt indie vibe versus kind of the Americana country rock thing going on. There’s moments where she reminds me of Ani DeFranco a bit, lyrically there’s some moments where kind of classic Beck comes in, she’s got a really beautiful way of putting kind of words and phrases together that make your ears stand up and listen a bit deeper. I love the instrumentation on this track, it’s not overdone, there’s a really nice drum groove that’s happening, that’s kind of a this light shuffle, and the drums sound fantastic, they’re just recorded really well, it’s like this really open huge room and it just lets the drums breathe, they’re not compressed at all, it’s really nice. The bass lays down this really solid foundation and the guitars and keys just kind of fill the gaps, it’s a really beautiful listen, so definitely go check out Too Much of a Good Thing from NIKI.

The third song this week is Fading Lights from Writers of the Canyon. I’ve spent a couple of episodes this year talking about traveling Wilburys, and honestly if you like that sound and feel, Writers of the Canyon is for you. They are folk rock troubadours at their finest, rich harmonies that are just steeped in classic Americana sound. It also reminds me a bit of a more current band that I’m a big fan of, Wild Feathers, I think I’ve talked about them a few times, they’re out of Nashville. And as much music as I listen to, I’m sure that there is more stuff like this that is coming out, but I’ll be damned if I can find it. So to me, this feels like such a unique find in the musical ecosystem that is 2024 that I’m really excited to have found it. It’s on a 10 track album that just came out. Not much else to say about it, other than just kind of go give it a listen if you dig this kind of traveling Wilburys style of music, Tom Petty comes to mind, those types of things. You will love it, I promise.

The fourth song this week is I Wish for the Rain by Liana Flores. Now, if you like jazzy, loungy female vocals, you’re welcome. That’s all I can say about this. She has the perfect voice for this song, the way that it is orchestrated. It’s angelic and she’s really got amazing control of her vocal instrument. The underlying track, simple bass, a little scattered jazz guitars, and then some jazzy brushwork on the drums, which is really cool. If you close your eyes and kind of picture what the sound is, you’ll picture a table for two in a very smoky club like you would only see in old movies, right? It’s perfectly composed for a romance story and it honestly belongs in a movie truly. The song clocks in at about two and a half minutes and in that two and a half minutes it gives you everything you want out of this song and it leaves you wanting just a little bit more. So enjoy Liana Flores and I Wish for the Rain.

The fifth and final song this week is Why Can’t You Hear Me from Fever? The heaviest selection by far this week as I’m looking back at the songs that I’ve found. Why Can’t You Hear Me and Fever joined the long line of amazing bands that I found coming out of the UK. They feel like they have the cornered market for, you know, alt rock, indie rock stuff that is coming out. The guitar tone gives me a little bit of a feeling of muse, like very recent muse, not the older muse stuff, but that’s honestly where the comparison ends. This is one of those bands, one of those cases where I feel like I’m hearing a lot of different elements, a lot of different influences, but I cannot put my finger on the one and say, oh yeah, they are absolutely like channeling, you know, this band. Like a lot of the bands from Manchester sound like Oasis. That’s not the case here. Like, I don’t know like who I could say, oh yeah, they completely remind me of X. It’s just not there. So here’s the challenge this week. Tell me what you hear. I want to hear like who you think their influences are, drop it on the social platforms, get in touch with me through the website, songsthatdontsuck.net, because honestly, it’s driving me a little bit nuts. So yeah, why can’t you hear me from Fever? Check it out.

All right.

That is it. As always, spread the word to your fellow music fans. Social media doesn’t get me any traction. The website doesn’t get me any traction. So you’ve got to take your friends who love music and say, hey, you need to go listen to Mark on songs that don’t suck because he’s going to help you find new music. I promise that that’s what we do here. Follow the show on social media regardless of what I just said because that’s kind of where I send some interesting things out from time to time. So Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and threads. You can check out the website at songsthatdontsuck.net. There are show transcripts there and links to where you can find the podcast. And then in the show notes for every podcast are links to all of the songs that I talk about. Those links will take you to a website called Songwhip and it links to all of the music platforms. So if you subscribe to Spotify or Apple Music or Title or YouTube Music or Bandcamp, all of those links are there for you making it very easy for you to go support those artists. So go do just that. Go support those artists and… Thanks for listening and until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don’t suck.