Jake Mann & the Upper Hand headline the Rickshaw tonight , playing with the legendary 80s power pop songwriter Tommy Keene and our own The Bye Bye Blackbirds (9pm, $10). Jake Mann & the Upper Hand - "Days are Long" The Upper Hands' "Days are Long" was one of the songs that contributed to our signs of a strong year mixtape for 2011 . Parallel South ( Crossbill Records ) came out last year, but the [...]
A deliriously busy Tuesday: ► Wilco plays to a sold-out Palladium behind last September's release of the band's eighth album, "The Whole Love." White Denim opens. ► Few purveyors of guitar-driven pop and heavenly jangle are as adept at plastering smiles on the faces of fans as Tommy Keene . The veteran songwriter released a highly recommended career retrospective last year titles "You Hear Me," then followed it up in September with one of the brightest albums of his career, "Behind the Parade." He plays the Bootleg Bar tonight. That's his video [...]
It would be easy to dismiss Tommy Keene for rehashing the same formula with each album. But with a Ramones-like devotion to the mid 60's pop anthems championed by The Who as well as early 70's power pop, Keene's stunning lack of commercial success has freed him to crank out yet another batch of soaring tracks that make Keene sound as vital today as he did on his classic Songs from the Film album. This is album is loaded with ringing electric guitars, Keene's dry vocals and wry wordplay and thankfully not much else. Sure there [...]
I had a pretty good rapport with guitarist songwriter Tommy Keene and we talked at length about his new album Behind The Parade and his 30+ years as a performer. He also has a love-hate relationship with the term "power pop" and a great anecdote about playing on stage with Paul Westerberg (Replacements). Read the review of Behind The Parade here . Go to the audio interview here.
Tommy Keene - Deep Six Saturday mp3from 30 August releaseBehind The ParadeWe're loving it.MySpace | Artist Website | Amazon mp3 | iTunes | eMusic
As Teenage Kicks (quietly) celebrates our fifth birthday (stay tuned for a couple of contests next week), on Saturday we'll be hightailing it down to the new World Cafe in Wilmington, DE to catch Marshall Crenshaw celebrating the 30th anniversary of his stone classic debut album. A primer on creating the perfect pop song, Marshall Crenshaw has been a constant companion on every road trip for Mr. & Mrs. Teenage Kicks (speaking of Mrs. TK, happy anniversary baby!). And wait, it gets better! The Bottle Rockets, promoting their new acoustic [...]
[Tommy Keene and Doug Gillard at Church, Boston, MA 9/11/11. Photos by Michael Piantigini.]
Nearly 30 years into his career, Tommy Keene keeps on cranking out guitar pop masterworks to too little notice or acclaim. As painful as it may now be for his loyal and unjustifiably small fan base to recall, there was once a time when a new Tommy Keene album every two or three years was not a strict guarantee. Back during the now-unimaginable time when an actual major label (Geffen) spent money and resources on Keene, an artist whose name is now destined to forever be accompanied by phrases like "criminally underrated", "cult figure" or "American...
I can think of only a few people from the 802s with the talent and longevity who have remained stellar examples of power pop. Chris Stamey, Peter Holsapple, Paul Collins, Richard X. Heyman and would add Tommy Keene to that list as well. After over 30 years in the music business, Tommy Keene is still going strong. Created in his home studio, Tommy can still play that melodic guitar-based rock to perfection. It starts off with the buzz filled "Deep Six Saturday" and the jangle-fueled rocker "Already Made Up Your Mind" is another classic mid-tempo tune. The denser [...]
One of MAGNET's favorite former guest editors and guitar-pop singer/songwriting legends, Tommy Keene has returned with Behind The Parade (Second Motion), his ninth LP. Some (including Keene) are saying it's his best since 1989's Based On Happy Times; while that notion notably shortchanges 1996's Ten Years After and 2006's Crashing The Ether, Behind The Parade [...]
Longtime rock singer-guitarist Tommy Keene kicks off a September tour in Los Angeles tonight , featuring songs from his new solo LP called " Behind the Parade " and a greatest hits CD released earlier this year. JS Online writes: "His voice has stayed just about the same over the years, evoking the transitional passions of adolescence, but his songwriting, always mature for his genre, draws on all the accumulated disappointments and fading hopes of age. Keene's crisp guitar bridges the gap between teenage fantasy and adult reality, chiming with [...]
Post-holiday weekend fun: ► Only a year after releasing the double-disc retrospective "Your Hear Me," veteran power-pop maestro Tommy Keene returned last month with a new album of crisp guitar rock, "Behind the Parade." Tonight, Keene visits the Silverlake Lounge, with Exploding Flowers and Risers opening. That's Keene's video for "Deep Six Saturday," above. ► The Ladybug Transistor headlines the Satellite behind their June release "Clutching Stems," their seventh album. Red Pony Clock and Sea Lions support. ► And the Dead Ships kick off [...]
Tommy Keene Behind The Parade Second Motion Records [2011] Fire Note Says: Another must have staple in Tommy Keene's catalog! Album Review: Tommy Keene's style of power pop never tires and on his ninth studio record, Behind The Parade , he brings more of the catchy guitar rock he is known for in top notch style. Songs like "Already Made Up Your Mind" and the title [...]
While this week's Best New Releases singles mix is smaller than most other BNR posts this year, it's chock full of fantastic songs from freshly minted albums that we recommend, especially for the first six or seven bands in this mix. Even though Beirut's new album, The Rip Tide, officially dropped Tuesday, the MP3 release [...] Read more, get songs or stream the entire mix on Indie Rock Cafe
The latest - and last - album from Glen Campbell tops the list of new releases this week. And I'm not just saying that because he covered a Guided By Voices song...but that doesn't hurt, either. Other stuff worthy of your time includes the Brian Jonestown Massacre singles collection, as well as the new Male Bonding , Beirut and Hella . I'm also intrigued by the Cymbals Eat Guitars , Icarus Line and Tommy Keene records, but I haven't spent much time with [...]
A power-pop true-believer keeps plugging away Tommy Keene might have more aptly titled his latest release "One Man's Parade," as he's not so much following in anyone's footsteps as he's resolutely sticking to his own path. Those who first latched onto Keene through college radio play of his superb 1984 EP Places That Are Gone may be wondering where he'd gone, but long after the EP's incandescent closing cover of Alex Chilton's "Hey! Little Child" faded, Keene was still making records. Good records. Good records filled with sweet [...]
The calm before the storm. Literally. New York is bracing for the biggest hurricane it's ever faced (named after Irene Ryan, Granny Clampett was one tough cookie) and I'm just hoping my 100 year-old building will survive the winds. (It survived the earthquake on Monday... what a week!) Until then, or if you're somewhere not on the East Coast of the United States, please enjoy the collection of mostly jangly pop. This week mostly ping-pongs between now and the mid-'80s (hey, that's new for me!), with a few stops in the '90s as well. Cover art this week [...]
Seems like it was just last week that I was singing the praises of one Tommy Keene , the undisputed yet unheralded king of power pop. I have no idea if the man's latest, Behind the Parade , is making the cash registers ring, but the record finds its way into my workday rotation practically every afternoon, typically immediately after lunch as a strategy for warding off a carb coma. Something about those opening chords of Deep Six Saturday that set digestion into motion, I reckon. [...]
well, ill be gosh-darned-damned, my man tommy keene as a new record coming out on 8.20 entitled behind the parade . if you arent familiar with mr keene's work, you need to be, 4 realz! the man, in my opinion, has crafted some of the best pop/rock and cant-get-those-damn-songs-out- of-your-head infested records of the past 10-15 years. i havent heard it as of yet, but i am definitely loving the first single. if youre curious definitely start with ten years after, which is best, or at least thats my opinion. buy it via amazon [...]
One of these days someone is going to get around to creating a Mount Rushmore-esque monument for under-appreciated musicians, and there's a good chance that Tommy Keene's visage will be included. Hard at it since 1984, the current Los Angeles resident has whittled out a career's worth of 3-minute power-pop masterpieces that have earned him critical accolades, a cult following and little else. Not that Keene has ever let on that he's in the slightest bit discouraged. Standing at the convergence of The Beatles, Beach Boys and Big Star, Keene practically [...]
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