JANE AIRE & THE BELVEDERES - "Jane Aire & The Belvederes" Virgin Records V 2134 (1979)
(Not released on cd)

Out of Akron, Ohio Jane Aire showed up during the heyday of punk, singing pure pop with a nearly punky energy. Before this album was recorded she appeared on the famous Akron Compilation with one track. This led to a single release on Stiff Records (I think) before Virgin picked her up. The Belvederes was the same band as The Edge only renamed for this project here. They were a competent quartet consisted of guitarist Lu Edmunds, Gavin Povey on keyboards, Glyn Havard on bass and drummer Jon Moss. Later these guys turned up as session musicians and in bands as diverse as Mekons, PiL and Culture Club (!). The album opens with tough horns on the powerful "Breaking The Wall Of Heartache" which makes you wanna get up and dance. Pure fun! "No More Cherry Icing" is a muscular guitar riffing tune on the border of being tiresome but with a contagious refrain. "When You Can't Be Loved" is a ballad starting up with just a piano backing Jane's voice before the whole band joins. Strings are added as well here. And Jane's voice shows it's full potential, she's that kind of singer, which expresses herself, best on the slow and mellower tracks. But she sings relatively well all the time just to inform you about that. "Take It To The Next Wave" is a speedy track with one-finger piano and fat rolling bass. The famous Kirsty MacColl (R.I.P.) and the not so famous Rachel Sweet are contributing with backing vocals here to a great effect. One of the albums killer tracks! The same has to be said about "Duke Of Love", but this song is a ballad with wonderful guitar from Lu Edmunds together with strings. "Come See About Me" is a classic Dozier/Holland/Dozier song and stands out here for sure. "Life After You" is another speedy track with strings (!) and is another goodie. The album closes with "Love Is A Fire" with riffing horns and great hook-lines. Jane Aire has not written any of the material herself, it's the producer Liam Sternberg who has written most of the songs here with a few exceptions. This is a great pop album and deserves far more recognition than it really has.

THE BATS - "Silverbeet" Flying Nun D 30938 (FNCD 260) (1993)

New Zealand may not be the most known country when it comes to pop and rock music among the ignorant hordes. But there is a few bands who really should have been more widely known, and The Bats is one of them. I don't know much about the band, and this release is the only one I've heard with them. But I do know that got several releases on their back. To write good pop-songs is really an art. Lots of people get lucky writing a hit...once. And they never succeed again. Robert Scott who writes all the lyrics here seems to be capable of writing hits all the time. This album is full of hits in my opinion. He also sings and plays guitar in the band. And this is definitely a guitar album. There are some keyboards here, but only on four tracks. So what does it sound like? First of all good! When you start playing it you'll hear a ringing acoustic guitar playing a nice riff, topped by an intense electric riffing and soloing. The bass played by Paul Kean sounding warm and heavy at the same time and the drumming of Malcolm Grant is excellent. Nice simple rhythm patterns which drives the music forward. The guitars here are played by the earlier mentioned Robert Scott together with Kaye Woodward. But the cover leaves no information on who 's playing what, it doesn't really matter, it's bloody good anyhow. Kaye also contributes on some harmony-vocals from time to time together with Paul Kean. Well, I think it's hard to pick out tracks here that is more outstanding than the others. Let me put this another way. If you like good guitar-based pop you should try this one out. And if you like REM (in the early days), The Chills, The Feelies, The Sunnyboys and Luna this is a must!

The year was ’91, and the Norwegian music magazine BEAT was still bloody good. Later the magazine got much weaker in both creativity and quality, before it was laid down for good. But that’s another story. Well, Nadja Petrick was given a good review in the magazine, which I read and became pretty curious about it. But soon I forgot the whole thing……….
Months later, I was raiding the bargain bins in some music shops in my area and stumbled across the cd of Nadja Petrick at a ridiculously low price. I bought it of course and since that day I’ve played it nearly to pieces ! And I’ve introduced it to friends who got the same experience as me.
Judging by her heavy accent when she sings, and her name, Nadja Petrick is probably of Eastern Europe origin. I usually respond a bit negative to accents in when it comes to the English language. And believe me, when you’re Norwegian as me, you’ve heard a lot of it !
But something’s different with Nadja’s vocal chords and singing style. It got loads of charm, nearly naive sounding at times and has got this wonderful husky expression. Besides writing all the lyrics and music, she plays guitar as well. Joey Balin, the producer is responsible for the clever arrangements.
“You Are The Only One” is a catchy mid-tempo tune with clever keyboard-work from Simon Clarke and some great soul filled backing vocals from a quintet behind Nadja. A marked, steady, rhythm pushed forward by drummer Manny Elias is the core of the great “Borderline” with some distant screaming guitar, probably delivered by David Rhodes. It’s his kind of style. The title track “April Fool”, is a beautiful song, pretty quiet and again with more guitar from David Rhodes, excellent keyboard-work and Pino Palladino’s warm bass. Makes me think of David Bowie, for some reason. A really outstanding song ! “Don’t Beg Me No More” has this easy acoustic riff, some light drumming and with no other than Danny Thompson on contra bass. A lovely song which makes me think of Lou Reed, it could easily have fitted in on his great “Transformer” album” !! Things get more funky on “Jumping So High”, one of the tracks I don’t care that much about, but the follower “Darlin’” is just great ! It’s catchy as hell with the earlier mentioned backing vocalist doing a great job, lifts the track with their gospel-choir style and makes it hard to sit still. “Ain’t No Road” is more melancholy with it’s acoustic expression, strengthen by a distant cello and accordion in the background. Goodie ! On “When The Wave Rolls In” the power increases considerably and is a catchy sing-along track. “Turn Out The Light” is a beautiful ballad with some nice piano and slide guitar and the overall sound is pretty grandiose. Nice album closer !
The voice of Nadja Petrick is probably not everybody’s cup of tea, with it’s accent and rather special expression, but I just love this album, I can tell you that ! It’s an album full of good pop songs done with feeling and respect from a bunch of good musicians. I only wish that Nadja would have done more albums like this one. But as far as I know this is her only one.
Just recently, a good friend of mine (Hi Christian !), who have this album and loves it just as much as me, told me that she’s fronting a band called The Wildflowers nowadays and has a site on the net, but I’ve not had the chance to check them out yet.

SUNNYBOYS - "Sunnyboys" Mushroom Records L-37696 (1981)
(Released on cd)

Sunnyboys were an Australian band (which sadly are disbanded by now) who played catchy, straight guitarbased pop with an edge. A two guitars, bass and drums quartet. I was convinced by a friend of mine (Hi, Bjarne!) to buy this album, he was going apeshit over this band! But it is a little classic in the genre, that's a fact. As far as I know they released six albums before the fun was over. And I think the most of them are available on cd these days. This album "Sunnyboys" was their debut and saw the light of the day in 1981. The band line-up was Jeremy Oxley who sang and played guitar, his brother Peter Oxley on bass, Rickard Burgman on guitar and Bil Bilson on drums. And friend Steve Harris on keyboards on a few tracks. This line-up remained constant through their first four albums, but when "Wildcat" came in 1989 only Jeremy Oxley was left. But then again he was the main-man in Sunnyboys writing all the songs with a few exceptions. "I Can't Talk To You" sets the standard from the beginning with a powerful riff and a catchy rocking refrain. On "My Only Friend" the sound are enrichened with acoustic guitar in addition to the usual electric ones. Beautiful harmony vocals too and one of the killer tracks on this album. An even fuller sound we get in "Trouble In My Brain" when Steve Harris contributes on some distant electric piano. Excellent twangy, slightly distorted guitar-solo on this one. Steve Harris is at present with some organ on "Gone", a mellower track where the vocals of Jeremy Oxley are just brilliant. He sounds absolutely best when he sings in a more relaxed mode. To underline the funky "It's not me" they use handclaps to a great effect, a rather fast tune with a sticky refrain. A powerful rocker shows up on "Tunnel Of Love", rough and tough, before another killer pop-tune comes next with "Liar". "I'm Shakin' " rocks good with handclaps and whistling (!) and is the last song on this exceptionally good pop album. Most of Sunnyboys' albums are really good, but this is a perfect place to start.