Lay some Bread on Davy!

I’m finding that one unexpected part of the aging process is reliving every half-decent pop culture trend of my youth. Musically, I feel stuck in some prepubescent summer of ’74 pool jukebox rut of pleasant mediocrity. It makes sense. This is the era when major label releases of surprisingly interesting material could fly under the radar, get tossed into the cheapest bins at used record stores – you know, the ones that sit on a table in the sun, dog-eared covers and missing inner sleeves be dammed – and await the adoption of a hopeful, budget-conscious rock nerd. A lot of great albums that otherwise would have been lost to the ages have been discovered through this process, such as Big Star’s #1 Record, which beginning in 1980 or so made its way from the sun-baked bargain bins of used record stores to the vaunted wall slot, reserved for overpriced collector’s items. Today, countless bands have sprouted from the hopes of stumbling across the next 25-cent copy of a forgotten late-period Association or Roy Wood album. This brings me to the latest from The Clientele and The Polyphonic Spree.

God Save The Clientele answers the question, What would The Monkees’ Davy Jones sound like fronting an indie pop band in 2007? The album-opening “Here Comes the Phantom” must buckle the knees of modern-day Marcia Bradys. The indie pop scene has been working toward the fulfilling the wish that Bread actually released more than three great soft-pop songs for years. Think of all the quarters that have been spent at used record stores in hopes of scoring that one great Bread album. The Clientele manage to turn out an album that sounds as consistently great over the course of an album as those scant great Bread songs that make only that band’s greatest hits album worth dropping a quarter on! “I Hope I Know You” and “Isn't Life Strange” sound as if Elvis Costello spent a few weeks writing with David Gates himself to achieve this bargain-bin fantasy. Hell, I’m almost willing to think that Bread really were America’s answer to The Zombies all over again.

True believer!

The Polyphonic Spree, that 40-piece collective of brightly colored robes and Kool Aid-sipping marching band freaks, sets itself a tougher task on The Fragile Army, trying – once more – to marry the symphonic pop delights of ELO to the feel-better sentiments of landmark ‘70s self-help tome I’m OK, You’re OK. The results are as muddy and unsatisfying as the many Roy Wood and Wizzard albums I’ve dropped a quarter on in hopes of finding one more whacked-out gem like Boulders. Like the worst of George Harrison’s solo works, instrumental breaks are constructed not so much to highlight expressive flights of musicality but to allow for the shimmying and hand-raising of all those robed backing singers. Damn flutes flutter at every given opportunity! Some songs start out perfectly cool, like “Younger Yesterday”, before getting bogged down by their up-with-life platitudes. Hey, I love life as much as the guy in the chartreuse robe, but let how about giving the life of the song itself some space? Other tracks, like “We Crawl”, identify the depressingly fine line between Eno and Styx. I went back and listened to some ELO albums, a Queen album, and the one-man recordings of Wood and Todd Rundgren. Do 40 musicians really contribute to the sound and ideas of The Polyphonic Spree, or am I correct in thinking their records sound smaller and shorter on ideas than any of a half dozen Elephant 6 releases made by a 10th of musicians? “Too much of nothing,” sang Bob Dylan, “can make a man feel ill at ease.”