What I liked about the album by the Wolff boys was that it was simple pop made by a few boys that are not overstepping their own reality, and what I like about this album is that Calhoun is writing straight ahead pop tunes about real relationship problems without making a huge fuss.  He isn’t writing about idolizing some girl he can’t have or anything, he writes about breaking up or promising to make himself a better person to keep something alive.  To be honest, I think he is overstepping a little when he states that he’d take down Mike Tyson if a girl would give him a chance.  I have no doubt he’d try, but the Champ would chew his ear off before knocking him out.

Calhoun has made a name for himself in the last few years with songs on many TV shows: Men of a Certain Age, One Tree Hill, So You Think You Can Dance, Cougar Town, Real World, MTV True Life, A&E, E! and ABC Family to name a few.  With this new project, The Heaven Switch, he seems to be breaking from his usual formula and crafting better material for himself.  You can pick up pieces of Toad the Wet Sprocket, Blessid Union of Souls, Howie Day or Stephen Kellogg as he spins tales of love lost and trying for redemption.

You can stream the first four tracks to give you a great sample of the album: “Raise a Flag” is a solid opener to draw you in, “Stolen Car” will keep you moving, then lead single “Trainwrecks” is a great way to tell someone you love them no matter what, and “Fault Lines” is a good breakup tune.  Later tracks like “Surface” and “Best of Times” are also ones to watch for.

If you are in the market for something that is not run of the mill pop, then I would give this fellow a shot.  It may not be my cup of tea but that does not mean you won’t enjoy some of these tunes.

In 2007 Brien released his first album of acoustic original songs and has been consistent with letting more material out each year since then, consisting of originals and demos.  In preparation for his newest album, titled Through the Darkness, We Will Find the Light, there are two songs that he has let me check out and share with you, Avid Reader.  As he explains it: the music is a journey through all of our trials and triumphs in life.  Citing some of his influences for this ongoing project as The Cure, The Smiths and Depeche Mode, you can feel the emotional qualities not just in the lyrics but through the instrumentation.

“Mistakes” reflects upon how we pay for wrong turns we make on the road leading to now.  Sometimes we are left cold and by ourselves, yet if we decide to open up to others, then we don’t have to be alone.  Maybe there is some light at the end of each wrong tunnel or choice we make.

“Winter Solstice” takes to task the greyest of seasons and how it affects the mentality of many people.  Being stuck indoors is taxing and, unless you hibernate, those months are not easy.  By holding on to memories that made you happy earlier in the year, and realizing that this will pass, everything gets brighter after the solstice.

If you’d like to hear these songs and more, then check the website or catch him live.  Whether he’s accompanied by a full band or just his acoustic guitar, all of the songs take on a different life when performed live.  He’s come a long way since his time in Antimony – and if you get a chance to talk with him, tell him Fizz says hello.

That being said, I saw something recently that had me in awe. A 15-year-old  South Korean girl named Park Ji Min, on the Korean show KPop Star (imagine a Korean version of American Idol), performed Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” in near perfect English. For those of you unfamiliar with K-Pop, it’s simply a shortening of the term Korean pop music. Korean pop is an interesting genre in that it’s very much manufactured in the same way American pop music is, which is to say, a whole lot. But I digress…

There are a number of things that make Park Ji Min’s performance amazing. First of all, the Korean age system is a complicated mess. What I mean by that is that Koreans don’t calculate age in the same way us westerners do. There’s a WikiPedia article that goes into this, however, the simplest explanation I’ve found so far has come from Yahoo! Answers (go figure). The long and short of it is that this girl is not 15 at all. In fact she’s either 13 or 14 when you calculate her age based on our system, making Park Ji Min’s feat all the more impressive when you consider just how much difference a year or two makes to a child’s discipline and ability at that age.

The second thing that makes this so amazing is that she’s not phonetically singing. As someone who’s been known to sing German industrial metal from time to time, I can tell you that there is a clear difference in how a song sounds if you know the actual words and are singing them as opposed to “sounding it out”. The latter tends to make you sound like this (warning: painfully embarrassing video).

Third (among other things not mentioned, I’m sure), is the sheer ease with which this girl sang the tune. Adele is no slouch, and the fact that this young girl can match the most talented western pop star (in my opinion) in both tone and pitch is astonishing. Like the judges during the performance, I was awestruck while watching the video. And did you see the looks on the other contestants’ faces? That’s the look of defeat if ever I saw one.

If it were me standing up there with the other contestants, I would have shaken her hand and walked off the stage.

This set of tunes comes from Vancouver, British Columbia instead of someplace in New Zealand.  We should be happy that Shalini Kumar is pursuing her dream of recording music rather than becoming a successful accountant living on a farm on the opposite side of the world.  I’ll never know how her number crunching skills are, so I’ll just have to tell you that she can sing very well.

I’ve stated before that I’m a sucker for well crafted pop songs, and this EP has five great examples.  When a sad subject can make you tap your feet and bounce, you know someone is doing their job; which is why I like “Feeling Lonely”.  Another interesting piece is how she incorporates other instrumentation into her music that reaches further than guitars and drums.  Piano and string arrangements intertwine to help create a soothing backdrop, and you can hear the complexity grooving underneath the sweet vocals that want to whisk you someplace far away or take you somewhere dark and personal.

There are not a lot of songs on this EP, and my favorites are “Feeling Lonely”, “Freeze Up” and her best track, “Book of Dreams”.  She has lofty ambitions to make it into the world of music, and you can’t help but cheer her on as she races toward her goal.  It is refreshing to hear and see artists that don’t rely on costume changes, skimpy clothing and bad reputations in a tabloid to bolster their careers.  For more information on Shalini check her website.  Anyone that likes pomegranates, Mozart and violent video games can’t be all bad.

Right off the bat, what I liked about this album is that these boys seem to be singing from their hearts and experiences.  We aren’t talking Justin Bieber-sized anthems here, so don’t get the wrong impression.  These songs don’t sound naïve; rather these are two boys confronting growing up and being at those awkward ages many of us grew to detest.  When they sing about having a crush on a girl, you can hear the sincerity that sounds much better than some older dude trying to score.

Each of the boys has a chance to sing, while younger brother Alex plays solid drums and older brother Nat can play a good guitar.  Matter of fact, the boys played all the instrumental duties and vocals on this album which is very impressive for a band of their genre.  This is what pop music should sound like; enough sugar with some edge that you can sing along to and not feel too guilty about.  These boys aren’t selling themselves as deities and have the craftsmanship to make it in the industry as they grow older.

Check out: “18″, “Colorful Raindrops”, single “Thump Thump Thump”, “I Won’t Love You Any Less’” or rousing opener “Illuminated”.  If you are shy about exposing your kids to something as huge as Biebs, Lady Gaga or the like, then you might want to give these boys a try.  They seem to hit issues kids can relate to, and that is what matters most.

“Abducted” earned the band the award for “Best New Music” from Pitchfork Media, and compares falling in love to being kidnapped. Brian Oblivion, the male portion of Cults, plays the abductor. Much like the other songs on the album, it sounds both lighthearted and fun, but is about the trepidations and struggles of relationships, freedom, and daily life. This gets into the theme that flows flawlessly through the whole album: independence. Even the song title “Never Saw the Point” suggests that the female lead, Madeline Follin, does not need a man in her life. The line “I don’t need anyone else” seems like a minor idea, but examples can be found throughout the album. “I think I want to live my life and you’re just in my way,” is even the first line found in “Go Outside.”

Although some may view this as a kind of juvenile theme of trying to figure out what kind of person you are going to be, everyone has been there, and this album, in all of its haunting beauty, has the ability to bring you back to those moments as if it had just happened. Cults makes use of one of the largest varieties of musical elements I have ever heard, many of which are from traditional teen inspired music. From the classic girl groups, to 50′s prom pop, as found so appropriately in “You Know What I Mean,” and even the “bedroom indie pop”of today. This gives the album a sense of teenage innocence and angst.

In “Never Heal Myself,” my favorite song on the album, Follin sings a backhanded and almost random “**** you.” Teen melodrama is consistently and undoubtedly at the heart of  Cults, and that, in my opinion, is why it appeals to such a wide audience.

Columbia Records signed this group in its first year of existence. It was even started as a side project while Oblivion and Follin were students at New York University. This speaks volumes of the duo’s musical talents. If you are looking for a short listen (only 35 minutes long), or are in the need of a quick burst of energy and happiness, Cults is the perfect album.

“The other band canceled” is what the text from my guitarist read. I was stunned.

“What? Why?” I asked.

“They can’t find their singer.”

This is the kind of craziness you can’t even make up. Like, what happened? Did they lose him in the ball pit at Chuck E Cheese? Did he go for a three hour tour on the S.S. Minnow? Was he delivering packages for FedEx with Tom Hanks? You don’t just lose someone like that, especially with the technology we have today. Nah. To me it sounds like someone who simply didn’t want to be found.

At any rate, we were able to scrape it together and put on an entertaining and energetic show even though we didn’t have nearly enough material ready to fill it all in. We made do with a DJ friend of ours who gave us a good break in the middle and a good way to end the night. All things considered, the night was a success. It’s interesting to me, however, at how easily it could’ve been scrapped. These things happen, I suppose.

You know what’s fantastic, though? Doing three encore songs when you were already scraping the material together off the bottom of the barrel.

As everyone’s good friend Bill O’Reilly would say… **** IT! WE’LL DO IT LIVE!!!

The bar was serving up Natty Boh like it was going out of style (it never will, but that’s beside the point). The bar was dimly lit, save for the stage, which was at a heavy and exposed contrast to the surrounding darkness. Drummer Jon Caplan (of Neutron Bomb) took a seat behind a small drum kit and after a few moments, Brandon Fratini, in all of his tall and imposing might, plodded onto the stage, guitar in hand. They then proceeded to perform what can only be described as grunge rock gymnastics as they went back and forth with widely varying styles of play.

After a few songs, Jon Caplan took a break due to his right hand seizing up and on came rioLinda’s previous drummer, Jeremy Conte, to make the save. Jeremy’s wild drum style makes for an even more entertaining show than it was already. Combined with Fratini’s fantastic vocals and slick guitar (not to mention his Super Mario Bros. shirt), it was just simply an awesome and enjoyable set.

This was my second time watching rioLinda perform and though I still can’t remember the names of any of their songs, save for “Locked & Loaded”, I’m gonna make certain to take every opportunity to see them play. If you’re down with a group whose influences include Nirvana and Local H, you’d do well to check them out sometime.

J Roddy Walston and the Business is a four-piece rock outfit with a southern flare. Combining awesome piano jams, slick, 70′s guitar grooves and fun and boisterous drum beats, along with Walston’s wild vocals, The Business has something truly special on their hands. A Baltimore-based band originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee, J Roddy Walston and the Business left the countryside for Charm City in an effort to explore their music without interruption and, as we all know, Baltimore is about as peaceful and without interruption as can be.

Though they set up shop in one of the most bizarre cities in America, The Business managed to put out a fantastic self-titled album earlier this year, available on both iTunes and Amazon. The ten track album starts off hard and ends in much the same fashion – it’s like a brilliant roller coaster of sound the entire way. The band demonstrates that southern charm in much the same way rock darlings Cage the Elephant have, but with (dare I say it) a tad more style. These guys do their own thing and don’t care much for pleasing everybody, which is fine by me because if they did that, well then they’d be no better than Nickelback. Thank God these guys haven’t decided to go that route.

The band is currently on tour, with a show in Cockeysville, MD on August 20th and the next in Charlotte, NC. Check out their tour page for information and try not to miss them – they’re one Hell of an act to see live. While you’re at it, you may as well pick up their album. It’s only nine dollars and that’s like what, two drinks at Starbucks?

Do it. Your eardrums will thank you.

(Photo: Glynnis McDaris)

Taking the normal rock music ingredients of guitars and drums, ditching verse-chorus-verse style writing, and blending in elements of free jazz improvisation is the easiest explanation of post-rock and TFATD that I can come up with.  This is instrumental music with big nods to Tortoise, Slint, Mogwai, Pink Floyd and King Crimson all over.  Their 2010 EP Part 1, featured one track clocking in less than 19 minutes long that brought to mind Tortoise’s epic jam “Djed”.

This outing sees the boys with a post-punk aesthetic floating around; stripping out all the garbage, focusing on the instruments and crafting shorter songs.  My biggest gripe is that the songs are almost too short and I wish a few were at least twice as long.  Album opener “Flint” will get you moving as it transitions to ‘Part 2’ that explodes around the midway point.  Middle tracks “Landcrab” and “H.R.” keep the record going at a steady pace.  There are a few melodic moments throughout “The Wait”, “Hotel No. 6″, yet for the most part this album keeps you on your toes.  Post-rock is not an easy genre to listen to at times and it can’t be easy to break into but these lads are off to an excellent start.

Aside from the tracks I mentioned above you should also try “10×10″,”Daddies Little Helper” and epic closer “Andy Fox” both featuring some solid saxophone work from Terry Edwards.  You can check out TFATD at their site, listen to their albums and download them.  I have a feeling I’ll spring for a physical copy at some point and you should too.