September 2000 Parasol Newsletter

Issue #34

Sometimes our enthusiasm outpaces reality (Adam Schmitt's still-being-worked-on album for instance), and sometimes things just happen. George Usher has decided to re-mix his new album, Days Of Plenty, with Mitch Easter. The title song, which appeared on Parasol's Sweet 16, Volume 1, continues to receive accolades (September issue of MOJO), and is just a snapshot of the full-length to follow in 2001. The compiling of Tested Charms: A Tribute to Shoes has been nearly completed by Executive Producer John Borack. This revered Zion, Illinois, band receives the pop treatment from a long list of favorites including: Jeffrey Foskett, Matthew Sweet, Walter Clevenger, Sparkle*Jets U.K., The Shazam, DM3, Michael Carpenter, Don Dixon & Marti Jones, Astropuppees, The Tearaways With Scott McCarl, Al Chan (of the Rubinoos), Spongetones, LMNOP, Big Hello, The Masticators, Cloud 11, Matt Bruno, The Lolas, Bobby Sutliff, Doug Powell, and Shane Faubert. John's still waiting for a couple of more submissions. Also on the end-of-the-year compilation list is Parasol's first full-length holiday CD. It looks like Angie Heaton, Mark Bacino, George Usher, Matt Bruno, Elizabeth Elmore, June & the Exit Wounds, Friends of Sound, Signalmen, Shalini, White Town, Doleful Lions, Elk City, and maybe a few others will be featured. We'd love to include the tracks from Erik Voeks' X-mas single, but we can't find Erik. Anyone?

SPOTLIGHT

Doleful Lions-Song Cyclops Volume 1 CD
(PAR-CD-060) $10.00

It's album number three. The accolades showered upon the second one, The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!, could mean only one thing - Doleful Lions have weathered the shitstorm and come out smelling like roses. "A textbook example of the sophomore anti-slump!" raved The Big Takeover. People liked the first one (Motel Swim) a lot, too - so the pressure to deliver was on full steam, and deliver they did. So much in fact that by the time Rats was finished and ready to "move" some "units", DLs leader Jonathan Scott had already written, holy crap, nearly 40 more songs. From this flurry of hook-smothered and lyric-tangled activity, the Song Cyclops concept was born. And so it was decreed, not one, but TWO new albums in a year's time. Scott's home recordings proved to be the framework for the bulk of the tracks, and the result is a sound closer to that initial burst of inspiration, more immediate and intimate, than ever before. Those familiar will be pleased to learn that Doleful Lions have not abandoned the colorful and evocative themes (and appropriately eclectic instrumentation) introduced on Rats - the fantastical ("Jamie Conjures Demons", "Spacecraft Marooned in the Gorillaworld"), the ephemeral ("My Summer with Ghosts", "The Marauding Ghouls"), and the animalistic ("Breather Bulls", "Sung Swan Song", "Baptized in Bees"). Recurring characters include Liberace, Edgar Cayce, Charles Starkweather, Magnemite, and a roving horde of flesh-eating zombies. Far from whimsical or humorous (most of the time), these songs flirt with the deepest of allegories - these odes to the apocryphal, the unexplained, the supernatural are laid bare as the psychological paper tigers for our own inner struggles for understanding. Oh, and they're hummable, too. Song Cyclops Vol. 1 has twenty-two tracks and Vol. 2 will probably have just as many.

Bikeride-Raspet EP
(AHA!016) $8.50 10-inch vinyl

Another 10" vinyl to kick your late summer smile into ear-to-ear high gear, all new, all unreleased pop breeziness and West Coast attitude from Bikeride. These indie-pop chameleons are fulla surprises! "New Year's Girl" is a brilliant single-on-the-make, happiness thrives in major key, and you get a groovy piano solo then a groovier keyboard solo. There's a sweet, smiling cover of Chad & Jeremy's dreamy classic "A Summer Song" and then you'll freak when Bikeride delves into their Stiff Records boxset for inspiration. Ian Dury meets The Stranglers for the gritty, growling "Grady Moseley", a rootsy raga romp, "Fine and Dandy" is an acoustic singalong drawler about a girl with a nice bottom, among other things, "Country Driving" finds Tony taking a turn as a Woodstock folk-singer, "El Roy" is a radical new-wave/white-funk zodiac opus, unbelievably, like Steely Dan meets Led Zeppelin meets The Charlatans, "Being and Nothingness" is a spastic surf-rock instrumental, guitars turned up to eleven and the closer, "You're Coming With Me" takes root as a loungey piano ballad, the breeze on the boardwalk is nice this time of year. Sure there're frantic guitars and nimble bass lines and crazy drums and spot-on helium-boy vocals, Beach Boys harmonies and audacious home-production values, plus there's unique and antique instrumentation like the Moog Rogue, a theremin, the Hammond M-3, a Farisa Compact, real pianos and toy pianos. Plenty of ivory tinkling to go around, a certified overdose!

Various Artists-Sweet Sixteen, Volume 2
(Par-Promo-002) $5.00

Following the unexpected mega-support of Volume 1 (thank you), we have big grooves to follow. And what better way to launch Volume 2 than a single edit of a song from the new Bettie Serveert album? "Unsound" will have you scrambling to order this Dutch band's latest album, Private Suit. Angie Heaton & Bob Kimbell follow with a cover of The Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen In Love," Sarge contributes "Detroit Star-lite" from Distant, and Diamond Star Halo (Adam Schmitt, Bob Kimbell, Brian Leach) debut with a song from their forthcoming album (we mean it this time, though Bob's living in Montana around those wildfires…). Mike Levy's "Away from My Head" gives you a preview of this former Sneetch's solo album Fireflies, National Skyline offers the unreleased "Eurorak," followed by Elk City's "Love's Like a Bomb ("…bake bread and take it to your father's grave"), and the lead-off track from Vitesse's new one, Chelsea 27099. Get a glimpse of Doleful Lions' latest with "Breather Bulls," which leads into Friends of Sound's indie-pop stunner, "Manhattan." Bikeride and Autoliner recorded Sweet Sixteen exclusive covers, "Look Out, Here Comes Tomorrow" and "Outdoor Miner" respectively, and Shalini sings the self-penned "Pandora At Sea" from her solo album We Want Jelly Donuts. Joe & Amanda from Busytoby let us include a non-album commercial exclusive, "The Loneliest Life," before we introduce you to a dark tale, "Death March," from Beauty Shop's forthcoming debut. Closing the album is Philo's "Last Dart Leaving (Down)" and a Toothpaste 2000 (disco!) remix. New discovery starts here.

Coming Soon...

Friends of Sound-Rock-Ola (Hidden Agenda) CD due in September
Mike Levy-Fireflies (Parasol) CD due in September
St. Christopher-Golden Blue (Parasol) CD due in October
The Beauty Shop-Yr $ or Yr Life (Mud) CD due in October
Various Artists-Tested Charms: A Tribute to Shoes (Parasol) CD due in the autumn 2000
Various Artists-Holiday sampler to be titled (Parasol) CD due Christmas 2000
Mezzanines-Break It Up Now! (Mud) CD due TBA
George Usher Group-Days of Plenty (Parasol) CD TBA

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

…the September 2000 issue of MOJO just gave a hearty endorsement to Matt Bruno's Punch & Beauty album, describing Matt as a "multi-instrumentalist with a hankering for the Fabs and all things melodic." Dave Henderson, MOJO's creative director (and publisher of his own fine fanzine Happenstance), says, "each and every song is a three-minute symphony that would have flooded the charts back when we was fab." As I recall, the words Brian, Wilson, harmonies, Rickenbacker, and jangle were sprinkled in there somewhere. Henderson also reviewed Parasol's Sweet Sixteen, Volume 1, picking out Bikeride ("Jeff Buckley fronting Herman's Hermits"), Elk City ("Mama Cass on vocals in a jug band setting"), and George Usher ("Buffalo Springfield paced tune") for special mention.

SOME PARASOL RELATED ARTIST ANSWERS SOME QUESTIONS

Parasol Distribution's Jim Kelly (aka Chunklet's rock'n'roll asshole #83)

1. Mixing session you wish you could have attended-
"This week it's Pink Floyd The Wall, 'Comfortably Numb' anyone? But I bet The Soundtrack Of Our Lives guys have 'fun' in the studio, if you're into mushrooms."

2. Songs you think you probably shouldn't like but just can't help yourself-
"Alternative Radio Heavy Rotators like Third Eye Blind, Perfect Circle, Stone Temple Pilots, make my mohawk stand on end, I don't know the names of the songs though."

3. Favorite record that you can't find on CD (or CD you can't find on vinyl)-
"TV21 A Thin Red Line LP from 1981, sob…"

4. First Concert-
"Andy Gibb 'Shadow Dancing' tour at The Illinois State Fair with my Aunt Eileen, then a month later I saw Rush on the 2112 tour at an icerink, brrr."

5. Favorite Bass Player-
"Ginger Baker, Neil Peart, Keith Moon, Mick Fleetwood, Rey Washam, Mac McNeilly, Kevin Haskins, The Comsat Angels' drummer…"

Jim Kelly has been the head buyer for Parasol Distribution since its inception in 1996. He drums for Centaur (w/Hum's Matt Talbott and Castor's Derek Niedringhaus), used to drum for 16 Tons back in the day (a comp. coming on Mud/Parasol sometime?) and is a Soundtrack of Our Lives FREAK.

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