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Cover Feature
NO POWER SHORTAGE
WHEN IT COMES TO POP!
by Tom Lounges
In the last year...
a huge buzz has been happening about the new explosion of highly melodic
rock bands coming out of Chicago.
Helping to spark this
current wave of pop now hitting the scene like a musical tsunami, were a
punkish pop emo collective called, The Alkaline Trio.
Following in their
wake is the infectious music of the Windy City’s latest chart-bound
exports –– Fall Out Boy, OKGO, The Academy Is..., Sunday Runners, The
Redwalls and others –– which has caught the ears of a nation weary
of plodding ‘nu-metal’ sludge.
The popular catch
phrase getting bantered about by record industry folks via their press
releases and media blitzes in regards to this recent rash of nationally
successful Chi-Town groups is –– “Power Pop!”
Hmmmmm....where
have I heard that before?
Old School rockers
from the Chicagoland area may feel a touch of deja’ vu as this new batch
of area bands take their turn in climbing up the ladder to fame.
“Pop”
and “Power Pop” are musical terms almost as synonymous with our
Great Lakes Region as “The Blues.”
Pop music thrived
here for decades thanks to Chicago being home to the nation’s most
far-reaching and influential radio station of the 1960s –– WLS-AM.
Thanks to on air
jocks like Dick Biondi, Clark Webber, Gerry G. Bishop, Ron Britton,
Dex Card and others, Chicago soon became America’s answer to
Liverpool following the first wave of the British Invasion in 1964.
“After seeing the
Beatles on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’, every kid in America went out and
bought a guitar,” recalled Jim Peterik, guitarist of one of Chicago’s
first nationally signed pop bands, The Ides of March.
Between 1965 and
1969, Chicago bands were all over the national charts with hit singles.
Joining the Ides were groups like – The Shadows Of Knight, New
Colony Six, American Breed, The Mauds, The Cryan’ Shames and The
Buckinghams.
The Buckinghams were
even voted “America’s Most Popular Band of 1967” in a nationwide
survey of glossy teen magazine readers. Most of these bands landed on
“American Bandstand” and became pin-up idols for a brief time.
“We were living in a
whirlwind. It was a really crazy time for us,”
remembered Buckingham’s guitarist/vocalist, Carl
Giammarese of those days.
Almost overnight,
psychedelic and arena rock displaced pop music on radio playlists.
After a while, people began to tire of the incessant jamming, distortion
pedals and long drum solos. They longed for something that would make
them want to once again tap their toes and shake their asses.
A decade after the
Buckinghams reigned as the country’s top group, another Midwest band
stepped up to change the face of music once again. This time, adding a
slightly harder edge and a bit more guitar to the mix.
The band was
Rockford’s Cheap Trick. And as always happens when there is a
new flavor enjoying favor, others soon began climbing on the bandwagon.
Before we knew it,
words like “harmonies” and “hooks” once again became part
of a music journalist’s vocabulary.
Well Chicago music
fans... Once again, our hometown bands are in the forefront of the
scene, revitalizing and reinventing the “pop” music scene.
Back in February of
this year, Midwest BEAT did a full issue dedicated to
“The New Pop Sound of Chicago” with features on most of the
bands now at the forefront of the re-emerging scene.
For the benefit of
our younger readers, who may want to backtrack a bit and retrace the
proud “power pop” history that begot their current heroes’ sound,
we will suggest a few worthy region bands that would be a starting point
for such an historical sojourn.
POP POWERS UP...
The phrase “Power
Pop” first came up in 1966, in an interview between Pete Townshend
of The Who and “Hit Parader” magazine.
But it did not become
a part of the musical lexicon until the late 1970s, when peppy,
hook-laden, jangly-guitar driven tunes became the latest rage on both
sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
In the U.K., Nick
Lowe was perfecting the “power pop” sound with his album, Pure Pop
for Now People, while Stateside, Chicago was way ahead of the
British curve with Cheap Trick and Pezband, and a horde of
shaggy-haired groups who would soon follow.
By the early 1980s,
the more generic term “New Wave” had largely replaced that of
“Power Pop” in most places, except here in the Windy City, where
clubs were hopping and bopping to the music of acts like –– Shoes,
Kevin Lee & The Heartbeat, Gambler, The Kind, Off Broadway, U.S.S.A.,
and so many others.
Young “power pop”
fans today who are looking for the roots of the music being played by
FallOut Boy and their contemporaries, would be best to start here...
CHICAGO’S TOP CLASSIC
POWER POPSTERS
• CHEAP
TRICK are arguably the world’s most successful “Power Pop”
band, and certainly the most successful to ever sprout from the Midwest.
“It’s been a very long and interesting road to get here,” mused
Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson, during an interview for the band’s
25th anniversary celebration.
A curious little
quartet from the outset, Cheap Trick went on to dominate the 1970s with
lyrically twisted tales. A trip to Japan resulted in a roughly made live
album, At Budokon, that sold in excess of 4 million
copies, escalating them from mid-size theaters to headlining stadiums
and arenas. Trick released their fifteenth album last year and were back
on the radio with yet another hit single, “Scent Of A Woman.” A
brand new Trick album and another national tour are forthcoming
• SHOES
was formed in 1976 by the brothers Jeff Murphy and John Murphy,
who played guitar and bass, respectively. Rounding out the line-up were
schoolmates Skip Meyer (drums) and Gary Klebe (guitar).
“The name came before
anything,”
explained John in a 1981 interview. “I said, ‘I’d just call it
Shoes,’ just like looking down and seeing your shoes.” The others
embraced the odd name.
Unlike other power
pop bands, who became famous for their stage shows, Shoes found success
in the Murphy’s living room in Zion, Illinois. It was there they
recorded their early local tapes –– One In Versailles and
Bazooka –– and the first full length album that would land
them a contract with Elektra Records, Black Vinyl Shoes.
Several other albums
followed. While Shoes never became a household name, they were an
underground sensation thanks to songs like “Mayday”, “Too Late”
and “Tore A Hole.”
• PEZBAND
formed in 1976. Guitarist/vocalist Mimi Betinis, drummer Mick
Rain and bassist Mike Gorman all attended the same high
school and began doing the standard school dance/night club gigs.
After guitarist Tommy Gawenda joined them, a live recording,
Thirty Seconds Over Schaumberg was recorded. The limited
edition pressing of 10,000 copies on red vinyl quickly sold out after
“Trouser Press” favorably reviewed it.
Pezband played
prestigious joints like Max’s Kansas City, the Los Angeles Starwood, and
New York’s CBGB’s. They signed with Passport Records and named one of
“Record World” magazine’s “most promising bands of 1978”.
They released a series of effervescent albums chock full of
Beatlesque harmonies filtered through their earthy Midwest roots.
“I’m still very proud
of what Pezband accomplished and the music we left behind,”
said Betinis, who in the 1990s teamed up with Off Broadway’s Cliff
Johnson to form the short-lived band, Black & Blonde.
Gawenda spent the
1980s in the short-lived “power pop super group” U.S.S.A along with
former Cheap Trick bassist Pete Comita. Gawenda later co-founded
Wild Blue, who released one pop-rock album for Chrysalis Records.
• OFF
BROADWAY, usa at first glance, seemed to be merely a Cheap Trick
knock-off masterminded and handled by Trick’s then-manager, Ken
Adamany.
But they were not so
easily dismissed, thanks to vocalist/guitarist Cliff Johnson (ex-D’Thumbs)
a remarkably animated frontman and thorough entertainer.
The band landed an
Atlantic Records contract and released two powerful albums. Their debut
LP – On! – spawned the smash hits “Full Moon Turn My
Head Around” and “Stay In Time”, which are still heard on
radio stations today.
Off Broadway’s
sophomore LP, Automatic, sadly fell between the cracks.
The band was promoted and marketed all wrong.
“The record label
dropped the ball,” Johnson said with hindsight. “The put us out in
front of the wrong people. We were out on tours with metal bands and
hard rock bands. Indeed, Off Broadway was opening shows for the likes
of Judas Priest, instead of in front of more pop-friendly audiences.
Most “Power Pop”
fans still regard Off Broadway,usa as the best band this side of Cheap
Trick to ever come out of Chicago.
• THE KIND
were probably the finest example of pure “Power Pop” on the local
club circuit circa 1980, when they released their classic double-sided
hit single –– “When You Rock” b/w “Total Insanity” –– for
360 Records.
The group –
vocalist/rhythm guitarist Frank Jalovec, lead guitarist Frank
Capek, bassist Mark Gardner and drummer Frank Sberno
–– flourished for a few years thanks to their penchant for writing
muscular, adrenal songs that were instantly memorable.
“We’re hoping that
things keep going as they are for the band and that we get the chance to
show the world who we are,”
said Jalovec in a 1982 interview backstage at the Pointe East concert
club in Lynwood, IL.
That never came to be
though. For some reason, The Kind were steadily overlooked by major
labels, while other lesser talented songwriters and pop crafters, signed
on the dotted line
Still, The Kind
managed to release one solid album –– Pain & Pleasure –– and their early
singles still find their way on to Chicago airwaves from time to time.
HONORARY MENTIONS:
• THE ELVIS
BROTHERS –– Brad, Graham and Rob Elvis –– blended
their hometown Chicago “Power Pop” with Memphis rockabilly and
wound up touring with the likes of Carl Perkins and recording albums for
Epic Records.
The Elvis Brothers
were eventually lost in the cracks for not being rockabilly enough in
the wake of the Stray Cats and The Blasters and not being pop enough to
fit in with the others.
Drummer Brad Elvis
is still very active on the Chicago scene and most recently released CDs
with the band, Big Hello.
• GAMBLER
was a South Side band that once bore the sissy name, Buster Brown,
as in the popular kiddie shoes of the 1950s and 1960s.
They thankfully
changed their name, signed with EMI/America Records and released
Love & Other Crimes in 1980. Gambler was a little more rock
edged than most of their Chi-Town pop peers. They were the link between
the pop scene and the burgeoning rock scene in Chicago that gave birth
to bands like The Hounds and The Boyzz From Illinoiz.
Gambler suffered less
for their music than for never having quite mastered “the pretty boy
look” that was inherent to “Power Pop.” Simply put, the guys in
Gambler were not pin-up boys at a time when all the Chicago pop bands
were sporting cute singers and tight pants.
• KEVIN LEE
& THE HEARTBEAT were a huge club attraction and Lee was probably one
of the most consistently solid pop writers of the 1980s and 1990s.
Though he too was
sadly overlooked the during the 1980s “power pop” siege, Lee did manage
to sign with MCA Records after forming his follow up group, Kevin Lee
& The Lonesome City Kings.
Not nearly as solid
or entertaining as his earlier efforts with The Heartbeat, Lee’s L.C.
Kings did manage to squeak out one LP, Restless, during
his time at MCA. They toured for nearly a year behind that release,
opening dates for Material Issue, Cheap Trick and Matthew
Sweet.
Lee continues to
write and record today as an indie artist, releasing his last solo CD
three years ago.
• U.S.S.A.
was heralded as a “super group” by booking agents when they first
emerged in 1982.
The line-up was
in fact, quite formidable. It featured bassist Pete Comita (who
spent time in Cheap Trick while C.T.’s Tom Petersson was M.I.A. for a
short time), guitarist Tommy Gawenda (ex-Pezband) and former
Montrose vocalist, Bob James.
After just a few
months, James was replaced by Off Broadway, usa’s Cliff Johnson.
But the group still did not ignite. In the case of U.S.S.A., the parts
were evidently greater than the sum.
Though they never
released any official recordings, U.S.S.A. deserves a shout out for the
powerful live show which they brought to clubs during their short-lived
career.
The level of talent
in this band makes a fan wonder “what might have been” had egos
not imploded the project.
If history continues
to repeat itself and rock continues to recycle itself every decade or
so, I will likely be writing a piece similar to this in the future
highlighting the accomplishments of Fall Out Boy, OKGO, The
Academy Is… and others who are yet to follow those current trend
leaders in today’s “power pop” revival.
Having covered the
local music beat for the last three decades, of one thing I am certain,
Chicago will surely be leading the way again at that point with a new
crop of talented kids, some of whom may be reading these very words
right now.
Because to quote The
Kind ––– “Ohhhh, when we rock, well, we knock you out!”
ATTENTION POWER POP FANS!
Night Rock Radio will salute Chicago’s early Power Pop
Bands on their JUNE 19 broadcast from 6 to 9pm on X-ROCK 103.9FM
Playing –– Cheap Trick, Off Broadway usa, The Kind, Kevin Lee, Pezband,
Gambler, Shoes, M&R Rush and many others!
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