December 2001 Parasol Newsletter

Issue #49

2001 Year-end wrap up...

When I started working on my December 1999 newsletter I realized that I had no new releases to cover. Instead of the usual, I composed an overview of all in house Parasol label titles released in the preceding eleven months. Last year we must have had a full slate because I skipped the 2000 wrap up. This year it's back.

Less than two weeks into 2001 we released an album by a band that was likely heard by more ears than any other Parasol artist this year. Fonda's The Strange and The Familiar contained songs that were eventually used in the MTV movie Wasted, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and was the calling card that attracted movie producers responsible for commissioning an end title theme for the hit movie Spy Kids. And we hear that the American Eagle Outfitters catalog is handing the band some disposable cameras for a future feature shoot of the band's hometown. All in all, a great year for this blissful dream pop band from LA. The movie theme continued with our next release, Jenifer Jackson's Birds. A handful of songs from Birds comprised half the soundtrack for Debra Eisenstadt's Slamdance award winning film Daydream Believer. Entertainment Weekly compared Jenifer to Mazzy Star, while the Boston Globe name checked Nick Drake and Elliott Smith. Good company all. In February we got back to Parasol Records' ground zero with the label's first tribute album, Shoe Fetish: A Tribute to Shoes. Compiled by pop scribe John Borack, Shoe Fetish paid homage to one of the pioneers in independent pop record making. Uncut magazine acknowledged that Matthew Sweet and The Shazam supplied the star power, but highlighted The Masticators and Matt Bruno for their sparkling renditions of underground Shoes classics. In early March we just squeezed in Signalmen's Falsetto Teeth before the band's South By Southwest showcase. When Signalmen returned home from Austin, Richard Milne of WXRT in Chicago became the band's biggest supporter, interviewing them on air and booking summer festival outings. In mid-March our relationship with Green Pajamas went from "big fans" to "big fans who get to release a mini album." The 5-song CD, In a Glass Darkly, began as one of Jeff Kelly's Goblin Market side-projects but morphed into a concept GP release featuring newest member Laura Weller. Our first Mud Records title of 2001 was Tractor Kings' Sunday Night, "roots music square in the eye of a psychedelic space rock hurricane" (Popmatters.com). The duo (now we're a trio, now we're a duo again) is led by the songwriting of Jacob Fleischli, and propelled by the pounding percussive work of Rebecca Rury. Parasol Mail Order's biggest seller of the year was one of our own, Parasol's Sweet Sixteen, Volume 3. This 18-song collection - including exclusive songs by Vitesse, Bettie Serveert, Very Secretary and The Beauty Shop's version of "Personal Jesus" - received a huge boost when NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday show recommended the CD and played clips of two songs on-air to a huge, loyal radio audience. Closing out the first quarter of the year was the oldest actual recording. In 1997 Castor's Jeff Garber joined forces with bandmate Derek Niedringhaus to record 11 songs under the moniker Big Bright Lights. Soon thereafter Garber fell out with Niedringhaus and joined Jeff Dimpsey's (Hum) already-in-progess National Skyline experiment. National Skyline released a mini-album on Hidden Agenda and a full-length on File 13 before we could convince Garber to release this document of the Castor-to-National Skyline transformation. In late April, local standing room only crowd pleasers Absinthe Blind rounded out the Mud Records schedule for the year. Their fourth album (first for Mud), The Everyday Separation, refined the band's anthemic soundscapes and was the first local album in over five years to gain regular rotation on Champaign's local commercial station, WPGU. It wasn't until May that the Swedish takeover of Hidden Agenda began. It started small with the release of Waltz For Debbie's Gone & Out album. We added two bonus tracks to differentiate our album from the version that was in my top 10 of 2000 as a Labrador Records import. Songwriter Martin Permer writes minor-keyed ear candy for those saddies like myself who want to hear dance-y pop music and pretend we are the protagonist in Janis Ian's "At Seventeen." Vocalist Annica Lundback intimates just the right amount of female heartbreak to make each song near perfect. Next up was Australian Joe Algeri posing as a Swede. His band, Jack And the Beanstalk, released, Cowboys in Sweden which contained 10 studio tracks and three live offerings, including The Dictators' "Who Will save Rock n' Roll?" Parasol's next release initiated what may be, album for album, the best six months worth of releases in the company's history. Autoliner followed up their well-received debut with Be, another collection of soaring pop songs emphasizing hooks and harmony. The esteemed Bucketfull of Brains proclaimed Be as a "must have" and compared the songs to "an amped-up, hyper energized Turtles or Beach Boys." Then, we slowed things down to a Benelux crawl, Bettie Serveert's Carol Van Dyk providing the drawl. Paired with Belgian Pascal Deweze, Van Dyk's Chitlin' Fooks created an album of heartfelt American county music that the Oxford American said is "the most well-crafted album you'll hear this year." The duo played a handful of summer dates in the eastern U.S. and in late October performed at the European McSweeny's literary and music show organized by author (and one-time Champaign-Urbana resident!) Dave Eggers. Another duo followed, again from Sweden. We'd always been fans of Club 8 but were floored by the band's still accessible but more somber mood making of their self-titled third CD. A month after release leader Johan told us they had another album nearly finished and asked if we could put it out in early 2002. Ja! Just after America's Independence Day we had the privilege of bringing the world Jeff Kelly's first solo album since his Rolling Stone endorsed Melancholy Sun box set. As the guiding force in Seattle's Green Pajamas Jeff has had many different outlets for his psychedelic pop music making and we're pleased to be part of that group. The All Music Guide wrote that Indiscretion is "Kelly's most straightforward solo record, (and) also one of his best albums period, including his Green Pajamas records." Soon thereafter more than one correspondent pointed out that hell must have frozen over due to the appearance of Adam Schmitt's long-awaited, much talked about, almost never seen Demolition CD. Adam's first CD since 1993's Illiterature, Demolition prompted Schmitt fan and Bucketfull of Brains writer Bill Holmes to type "Adam, if you're scoring at home…I liked 9 out of 10…get back in the studio and start getting more product out, please. I'm not getting any younger." I think I'll drop that review in Adam's mailbox on my way home tonight. In late July, concurrent with Parasol's move to a larger space, the house lights went down and I think Pink Floyd's lighting director circa 1967 must have turned on the lava lamp-esque oil-based screen projection system because our next unveiling was Orange Alabaster Mushroom's Space & Time: A Compendium of the Orange Alabaster Mushroom. Recorded throughout the '90s, and mostly released on vinyl by Earworm Records in 2000, Space & Time sound like a Nuggets worthy tryp back in tyme. The Swedish takeover was solidified when Hidden Agenda obtained the rights (permission?) to distribute three full-length titles by The Soundtrack of Our Lives. Accolades are still pouring in but this is some of what we've been able to collect so far: "...this onslaught on Nordic psychedelia is a valuable ticket to a weird new world…"-Time Out New York; "When a band comes out of nowhere like this with so many vibrant, irresistible songs in its arsenal, it's usually too good to be true. Not so with TSOOL; there are no gimmicks or sordid back story, just a wellspring of perfect rock."-Tower Pulse; "Swedish psych-pop outfit The Soundtrack Of Our Lives specialize in the type of bohemian narcotic-rock vibe that informed the late -'60s recordings of the Rolling Stones, the Who and Led Zeppelin."-Alternative Press; "Some of the most extraordinary rock music you're likely to hear this year..."-Billboard. Extraordinary indeed! Sneaking out in time for end-of-the-year Top 10 list consideration were two albums that we'd been anticipating for nearly a year. Following up the self-released Odds Against Tomorrow CD, The Melody Unit delivered Choose Your Own Adventure, a collection of space-pop-folksongs with four of the nine clocking in at over 6 minutes. And, The Witch Hazel Sound, influenced by Morricone, Bacharach and The Notorious Byrd Brothers, turned in their latest orchestrated pop pronouncement, This World, Then the Fireworks… Closing out the year are two holiday releases and another Sweet Sixteen sampler. Volume 4 is our longest yet, containing 20 songs and exclusive or advance contributions by White Town, Adam Schmitt, Lasse Lindh, Neilson Hubbard, Starlet, June & the Exit Wounds, Angie Heaton, Mark Bacino, Fonda, Jack Logan & Bob Kimbell, and Jenifer Jackson. The Soundtrack of Our Lives' "Nevermore," solidifies its status. It's appropriate that our last two releases of the year have a holiday theme. The Green Pajamas' The Carolers' Song includes seven songs that merge the timbre of a GP release with the darkening skies of December and the small colored lights that try to make it brighter. And, closing out 2001 is our second annual Christmas CD, Stuck in the Chimney. The festivities start with "Jingle Hell" by The Soundtrack of Our Lives and end with Joe Algeri's "Computer Christmas." In between you'll hear White Town covering Teenage Fanclub, Doleful Lions covering Big Star, Fonda covering Wham, and eleven other in-the-spirit-of-the-season offerings. With new albums on the way from Club 8, Doleful Lions, Chitlin' Fooks, June & the Exit Wounds, and Logan/Kimbell, we're anticipating a great start to 2002.

SOME PARASOL RELATED ARTIST ANSWERS SOME QUESTIONS

The Melody Unit's Peter Lynch

1. Mixing session you wish you could have attended-
" It's so darn obvious, but The White Album will probably always be the first thing that comes to mind. It was so far ahead of its time, I think each song spawned an entire genre of music that we still haven't quite caught up to."

2. Songs you think you probably shouldn't like but just can't help yourself-
"Well, I watched the Michael Jackson 30th anniversary last night and I can't deny the strength of the entire Thriller album. I kinda can't help hoping for a Madonna 30th anniversary in another 5 years (although I don't quite understand what it would be an anniversary of?!)."

3. Favorite record that you can't find on CD (or CD you can't find on vinyl)-
"Pere Ubu's Dub Housing (need the Rough Trade CD)."

4. First Concert-
"Kiss - 1980ish - 8 or 9 years old."

5. Favorite Bass Player-
"Naomi Yang or Peter Hook."

Peter Lynch is the keyboard player in Seattle's The Melody Unit. The band's second CD, Choose Your Own Adventure, was just released on Hidden Agenda.

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