No Bargain Or Reprieve Price: $10.00 Artist: A Band Called Mithras Description: PILLBUGS/ROGER KLUG/PSYCH POP ALERT!!! WOW!! A big shout out to Mick Dillingham for hipping us to Detroit-based Bob Wilson (vocals/bass), the man behind the name, who recorded this 2010 release in his basement studio with the help of some friends! In fact, we'll let the Mr. Dillingham himself take over in describing this amazing, full of interesting twists and turns, pop gem! "Like a blissful collision between The Pillbugs and Roger Klug, it's a joy-stuffed, thrill ride adventure in hi-fi that will knock your socks clean off from the get go. A dazzling psychedelic power pop wonderland drenched in a profound production the type of which can only be realised by either a big label recording budget, or the luxury of time afforded by having your own top-class studio, and boundless creative curiousity with talent to match. The finished creative results of Wilson's labours are impressive, at times breathtaking, and surprisingly eclectic, with stabbing guitar riffs slamming into proceedings and the 60's template smashed open with more contemporary songs and ideas when you least expect it. The songs are without exception uniformly excellent, easily as strong as the kaleidoscope of musical landscapes they each come lovingly wrapped in, rich with the sweetest melodic invention, lodge-in-your-brain hooks, and classy lyrical playfulness. As a showcase for Wilson's considerable talents, the album is a stone cold success, as a creative acheivement it is even more so!" - Bucketfull Of Brains Very well stated Mick! Includes a terrific cover of Left Banke's "Walk Away Renee"! "Bad Seed" could've been a Jellyfish song! Simply superb! GREAT!! ... read more » Quantity in Basket: none

No More Nights On The Roof Price: $12.00 Artist: Anchor & Bear Description: Anchor & Bear perform original folk/rock/pop songs layered with lush harmonies and solid musicianship. The duo features the songwriting and vocal talents of Katy Pearson and Brian Bringelson (who pop trainspotters may also recognize as Paul Starling). Their music is full of melodic hooks and indie rock twists, that pay musical homage to their greatest influences while cultivating a sound that's all their own. Written and recorded the summer of 2020 into the winter of 2021, “No More Nights On The Roof” is Anchor & Bear's third full length release. Pearson and Bringelson co-wrote all 12 songs on this new collection. Continuing their experimentation in co-lead vocals and layered harmonies, the duo found inspiration from the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Paul & Linda McCartney's “Ram”, Neko Case, and many more. The album features drummer/engineer Gabe Dulek, who previously worked with Brian on his 2020 solo album “Desperate Days”. Along with the melodic bass lines from Zeke Berkley, the rhythm section shines like never before on a Anchor & Bear album. Crafted to play as one continuous piece of music, the album also works as 12 songs that stand on their own. GREAT!! ... read more » Quantity in Basket: none

Wall To Wall Jive (An Anthology 1965-2020) (2CD) Price: $18.00 Artist: Andy Ellison Description: A brilliant career spanning 6 decades is something exceptional for a musician that is still playing and recording - especially considering the crazy and insane performances Andy Ellison would deliver and the hundreds of injuries he’d receive while performing (including a broken back). From the mid-60’s Mod beat of The Silence to recent recordings in the last couple of years by way of psychedelic popsters, the reformed John’s Children (being thrown off The Who tour in Germany in the 60’s for being too wild, and according to legend, upstaging Pete, Roger, John and Keith!). Glamsters Jet. Punk rockers Radio Stars on to a heavier rock sound with the same band in later years. Mixed in with totally unreleased material and over a dozen singles and sprinkled with some famous names adding to the music such as Rod Stewart, Maggie Bell and Marc Bolan. The 2CD anthology coincides with Andy’s long awaited and “can’t put down” autobiography of his tales over these years entitled “Stunt Rocker”, a non-stop tale of mayhem and anarchy, deserving of a place on the bookshelf of any music fan who cares about the origins of the music we love. Housed in deluxe card sleeve with liner notes from Andy himself all the tracks have been remastered. A terrific introduction to those who don’t know Andy, and a certainly a must for completists! GREAT!! ... read more » Quantity in Basket: none

Napoleon Price: $13.00 Artist: Ballard Description: Darren Riley (Ballard) is a rather prolific bloke. Darren writes the songs, sings same, plays all the instruments, produces, and records in what he describes as "your usual one-man bedroom pop group with an ego problem." We're not sure if those last two words mean "big" or "little" because in our back and forthing so far he has been quite a courteous, even self-effacing bloke. He needn't be the latter, for this is primo lo-fi power pop. "His songs arte typically rough and ready pill-eyed adrenaline ruses written, recorded and released quicker than it takes the Rolling Stones to assemble their stage set." - Monkey-Picks.com “Napoleon” is Ballard's third full-length release - eleven songs packed with the usual melodies, trashy guitars and nonsense lyrics and clock in at just under thirty minutes, it’s the longest Ballard album yet, almost an epic! "Riley's music should highly please devotees of The Beatles, The Kinks (very much so on 'Napoleon'), The Who, The Move, Small Faces, and perhaps other of your favorites." - Powerpopulist.com While it's still rather lo-fi, Darren's production and sonic results are improving with each release! His "Sophisicated Means" is his unabashed answer to The Kinks' "Dedicated Follower Of Fashion"! We LOVE Ballard! GREAT!! ... read more » Quantity in Basket: none

Lagoon Price: $15.00 Artist: Bird Streets Description: On his 2018 project dubbed Bird Streets, John Brodeur brought along power pop great Jason Faulkner to help create a fantastic album of smart pop songs. Four years later, John is back with “Lagoon”, sans Faulkner, but the result is just as powerful as that debut, an album about separation, rumination, regret, and recurrence. For his second album under the Bird Streets name, John has widely expanded on the project's collaborative foundation, enlisting production by Patrick Sansone (Wilco), Michael Lockwood (Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple), and Zach Jones (Sting) and Oscar Albis Rodriguez (A Great Big World), plus guest appearances from the likes of Aimee Mann, Ed Harcourt, John Davis (Superdrag), Jody Stephens (Big Star), and an array of top-shelf session players. “The vibe is a little darker but the writing and performance still make for a highly compelling listen. With his marriage ending around the time the first record came out, the song topics here tend to focus on themes of separation and regret, and nowhere is that melancholy more obvious than on tracks like ‘The Document’ or the stark opening song ‘Sleeper Agent’. Written during the 2020 lockdown, the song is about imposter syndrome, and the fear it causes. Much more than just another breakup record, ‘Lagoon’ is an emotional tour de force that covers self-pity, regret, anger, depression and ultimately peace. The album ends on an optimistic note with the Big Star-esque ‘Go Free,’ proving self-reflection can lead to better things. It’s hard to listen to someone’s heartbreak laid out so starkly, but it’s just as hard to deny how powerful the result can be.” – GlideMagazine.com EXCELLENT!! ... read more » Quantity in Basket: none

Basement Beat Price: $11.00 Artist: Brad Marino Description: With the downtime of the past 2 years Brad Marino’s been writing a lot. As sort of a little songwriting challenge every once in a while he’d write some Ramonescore tunes. “Basement Beat” is almost a concept album in that sense. Most of these songs were written in 2020/2021 but a couple are some of Brad’s first attempts at songwriting circa 2004! He was originally going to release this under an alias but decided to just make it a Brad Marino album on the advice of some people whose opinions he trusts. It's different than "Looking for Trouble" and "Extra Credit" but it's all rock and roll to him... "This album is causing me the kind of problems I don't mind. This is the first LP I've heard this year that doesn't have a weak song on it." - Bill Kelly's Blackhole Bandstand "Marino whacks out dumb/brilliant pastiches like ‘Communist Creep,’ ‘Nancy Is Narcoleptic,’ ‘Sick Sick Sick Sick’ and, inevitably, ‘Brain Gone Dead.’ Given his own melodic instincts, which lead him to add sweet harmonies to ‘That Girl’ (but hey, the Beach Boys were a Ramones influence, right?), it’s not a perfect replica, but straight copies wouldn’t be as much fun as the real thing anyway. In keeping with the spirit of the Ramones, ‘Basement Beat’ is only 23 minutes long in any case. ‘I don’t wanna go down to the basement,’ Joey Ramone once sang, but this basement proves an exception." - Big Takeover Magazine "Marino has done something different with ‘Basement Beat’. He’s already proved that he can deliver a quality pop/punk/garage album at will. ‘Basement Beat’ is his version of a Ramone’s album. It says right on the cover that ‘no upstrokes were used in the making of this record’. That’s step one, and you can hear it’s true. Then alliteration in the song titles, he’s done that with: ‘Rubber Room’, ‘Communist Creep’, ‘Nancy is a Narcoleptic’ and over the top with ‘Sick Sick Sick Sick’ and ‘Talk Talk Talk Talk’." - Boston Groupie News "The sound, melodies and the chord changes are all spot on. It’s so obviously a labor of love. There’s not a false note figuratively or literally in the whole project. It does its job by reviving your love of the Ramones again as it serves up its replica Ramones tunes." - Paul Blowfish GREAT!! ... read more » Quantity in Basket: none

Live At The Whisky 1977 (45th Anniversary Edition) (4CD) Price: $62.00 Artist: Cheap Trick Description: IMITED TO 2,000 COPIES!! RELEASED DATE IS DECEMBER 16 – ACCEPTING PRE-ORDERS NOW!! DUE TO THE LIMITED NATURE OF THIS RELEASE, WE’RE GOING TO TRY AND FILL AS MANY ORDERS AS POSSIBLE. ORDERS WILL BE FILLED IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY ARE RECEIVED – SO DON’T HESITATE!! You wanna hear a band about to explode? In June 1977, Cheap Trick was in Los Angeles to record their second album, “In Color”. To get the band in shape for the record, they booked 5 gigs at the Whisky a Go Go the weekend of June 3. The result: a series of fire-breathing shows that you can still hear reverberating on the Sunset Strip to this day. KROQ DJ Rodney Bingenheimer introduced the band at the shows, and his memories are clear: ““The Whisky was packed for every show. A lot of girls showed up. It was like the ‘new’ Beatles had arrived.” Indeed, this concert stand takes its place alongside The Doors in 1966, Led Zeppelin in 1969, and Van Halen in 1977 as among the most notorious shows hosted by the venerable venue. As drummer Bun E. Carlos puts it, “The Whisky shows capture a hungry band. It's right before we went on tour with KISS and became much more famous than we were at this point. It was two nights where we did all our cool stuff from our first couple of records and it's chock-full of goodies.” All of this would be mere legend, witnessed by only a couple of hundred Cheap Trick fans each night, but for the fact that the tapes were rolling courtesy of the Record Plant’s Mobile Unit One for four out of the five shows (and the fidelity and immediacy of these recordings are AMAZING). But when “At Budokan” hit 18 months later and propelled the band to superstar status, the tapes were shelved. Now, 45 years later, the whole world can discover what those lucky souls witnessed those nights at the Whisky: that this quartet from Rockford, IL was on its way to making rock history. This 4-CD set contains all four shows in their entirety (well over half completely unreleased), complete with often hilarious on-stage patter largely from guitarist Rick Nielsen, and includes notes from Ken Sharp featuring quotes from Nielsen, Carlos, and Robin Zander. Packaging is “Live at Leeds” style, and these shows rock every bit as hard as that legendary live gig. If you are a real Cheap Trick fan, ORDER NOW or forever hold your peace! GREAT!! ... read more » Quantity in Basket: none

Indian Summer Price: $15.00 Artist: Chris Lund Description: The second solo outing from one-half of The Lund Brothers is a flat-out ROCKER!! “Chris's first solo album, ‘Great Event Syndrome’ was great so this follow up had a lot to live up to, raising the bar even higher. More noted for a long career in the Lund Bros with brother, Sean, he has fashioned up a solo record in every sense of the word. He plays everything on the record and the biggest compliment you could pay ‘Indian Summer’ is that you wouldn't be able to tell. This sounds like a group album, essentially pop rock, but leans towards ‘classic rock’, although there are so many twists and turns that it would be churlish to describe it as such. The genre is normally noted for being formulaic and this album is no such thing. Songs take unusual directions, sometimes there are three songs in one. Take for instance, ‘Guarantee’ is very Paul Rodgers in the verse, but turns in a psych pop section, then goes all glam rock and this is just one song of 11. ‘Everything Is Fine’ is more than a little Cheap Trick, the title track is glam rock, but at times it reminds me a little of a more straight ahead Chris Church. ‘Down The Line’ sounds more 70’s, but there is an overriding hair glam feel too. It is so good that it gets a deserved reprise at the end. ‘Killing Kindness’ would grace any 70’s pop rock album and you are reminded what a great guitarist, Lund is. The guitar intro to ‘Mary Jane’ just rocks your socks off you and dominates a wonderfully noisy affair even adding a Van Halen-esque solo. ‘Indian Summer’ is the type of album that doesn't seem to be made any more, a sort of update of those splendid rock albums of the 70’s and 80’s. There seems to be a waning of people listening to albums now, playlists are the preference. This offering underlines the joy of listening to the format. Highly Recommended!” – HearASingleblog GREAT!! ... read more » Quantity in Basket: none

Pressed & Ironed Price: $13.00 Artist: Crossword Smiles Description: Crossword Smiles is a new band, and even a new sound for the deeply respected Michigan-based guitar-pop stalwarts at its core. The band was quietly formed two years ago by Tom Curless, formerly of Your Gracious Host and currently enjoying solo success, and Chip Saam, best known as the bassist for The Hangabouts and Curless's backing band The 46% . A pure and simple wish from a pair of like-minded music fans to hear something different. The shape of that “something” was suggested by (but not limited to) the thrillingly diverse sounds of 80’s college radio. Think of the endlessly inventive ways in which the pop form was twisted into new forms of stark, clean-guitar beauty by the likes of XTC, Aztec Camera, the dB's, or R.E.M. at their early peak. That's not the full story, though: Crossword Smiles is born not of genre purism, but rather the unerring instincts of Curless and Saam for drawing on their mutually encyclopedic and eclectic knowledge of rock's full and rich history to create something new, just as those bands had done. And so while the overall sound and evocatively conversational lyrical approach of the record might suggest a great lost Crowded House album – particularly on the gorgeous “Parallel Lines” and the eerily angular-yet-lush shuffle “October Leaves” - there's much more at work beneath the surface. When discussing the songs of the record, the duo will cite inspirations as diverse as Steely Dan (Curless's guitar solo on “Lines”), Rockpile (the whole of the deceptively direct “Where's The Sense”) and The Replacements on both the opening “Feet On The Ground” and closing “Take It On The Chin”. You can hear textures evoking everyone from The Modern Lovers to Talk Talk rubbing shoulders from track to track, or even within the same song. EXCELLENT!! ... read more » Quantity in Basket: none

Dream Mountain Dream Price: $13.00 Artist: Dale Murray Description: LIMITED STOCK!! In August 2011, Dale left Cuff The Duke to focus on producing and recording projects at his studio in rural Nova Scotia, including delivering this, his latest solo offering, in 2013. "His newest is certainly a dreamy one, a musical journey that can only be described as damn pleasant. With its mixture of folk, rock, and country sounds, his solo tunes feel much softer with their delivery than those of his former band. The 70s’ style title track has to be the strongest from the album. With a smoothness and catchiness that’s undeniable, it is already one of my favourite songs from 2013. Beginning with a lush string section, 'Assess The Mess' quickly turns into a full on, guitar-heavy, rock outfit." - GrayOwlPoint.com "An impressive outing that showcases his strengths as a writer, as well as the guitar skills for which he has long been recognised. His sound effectively mixes jangly power pop with rootsier fare, and this is a very appealing hybrid." - Exclaim.ca "An excellent 'Popicana' record chock full of Wilburyesque jangle." - Absolutepowerpop.com "He delivers some gorgeous jangle rock and folk pop sounds. The title track opens like a Traveling Wilburys single, with a very Harrison-like melodic hook. The majestic 'Assess The Mess' is another highlight, as his haunting vocal reaches its dramatic peak in the chorus. The songwriting is also superb. The stunning 'Now You’ve Been Warned' has both intensely personal lyrics and a great arrangement. Fans of a great love song need look no further than the strumming on 'You Are My Girl' to make a moving proposal. 'Grove' and 'Life Moves' both have solid Byrdsian jangle. Alt country fans will not want to miss this one." - Powerpopaholic.com EXCELLENT!! ... read more » Quantity in Basket: none