Good evening internet. My name is Austin, and I like a lot of weird records. I don't write particularly well, and have bad spelling and grammar (I not even sure I spelled particularly right). However, I hope both you and I can work through all that and a good, educational time can be had by all. I'm sure you and I, in the fullness of time will become fast friends. Now then:
In the humble state of North Carolina, in the even humbler city of Raleigh, there exists a fantastic independent record store by the name of Schoolkids Records. In fact, as I write this very article I am currently wearing a shirt advertising said establishment. When I first became interested in music in a fairly intense way, this store quickly became my main haunt for vinyl music records. However, being a poor middle-upper-middle class highschool student with no job or safecracking skills, my lack of spending money was a serious inhibitor to my acquisition of said vinyl records. I don't know if you've been to your local record store lately, but the average oh, say...Pains of Being Pure at Heart LP will run you about $70. Now I had a decision to make. I could acquire the aforementioned job (or safecracking skills), OR I could buy cheap records. We both know there was no way I was getting a job.
And lo, my eyes and wallet both shifted their gaze towards that barren wasteland that has become a second home to me ever since: THE USED RECORD BIN, where this very record was found and purchased, as well as many I will be reviewing in the future. And that second home has become an integral part of my musical development, and in making my taste so omnivorous. I became fascinated not only with the "groundbreaking", but also with the "forgotten" (and this record falls into both categories, I would say). I became obsessed with all manner of music that nobody currently gives even the slightest shit about. This obsession never manifested itself better than it did with power pop.
Now, when I say the word power pop, what I've found usually comes to peoples minds is pop punk bands i.e. Blink 182, Green Day and the like, I think the term "easycore" is used to describe it nowadays. But what true power pop is goes a whole lot deeper and is a hell of a lot more nebulous than just "pop punk". It's really a very complex genre, it's multi-faceted (I know I didn't spell that right, and it really takes a lot of research and expansive listening to get a good idea of what power pop truly is (for the beginner, here would probably a good chronological list of the origins of power pop). What makes it so hard to define is how many different sounds it can be applied to. The best example, to me, is a band called The Rubinoos.
Take early Beatles-esque pop, add in some straight hard drum beats, some crunchy guitar, sweet vocal harmonies, relentlessly catchy melodies and POOF: instant power pop. Just at Rickenbackers. As you can tell from that description, it describes a pretty broad range of music. However, to make the term even more indefinable, there was no small amount of power pop bands in the late 70s who incorporated punk rock into their catchy, poppy songs. And lemme tell ya: the effect is intoxicating. Some great power-pop-punk bands to check out: the Real Kids, the Vibrators, and the Jam (and of course The Ramones would be included here: they're pretty much a bubblegum band).
Bram Tchaikovsky is in an interesting position in comparison to those more overtly punky power pop bands. I first heard about Bram Tchaikovsky through a comedy sketch about power pop, on the radio show The Best Show on WFMU. I heard the name Bram Tchaikovsky in a long list of power pop bands, and for a long time I assumed that it was a fictional band. However, the name stuck with me, and imagine my surprise and delight when, while shuffling through those bins at Schoolkids, I found a bright, beautifully illustrated LP by none other than Bram Tchaikovsky! I was happy to say the least. I immediately went and paid my $3.99 (marginally less than the Pains album) and went on my happy way home, to slap it on the turntable.
And imagine my surprise when it sounded as good as it looked. Even from the first song, "Robber" (which remains my favorite Bram Tchaikovsky song to this day), you can tell that this is a much more mature power pop than the fluff you normally hear. It was excellently produced, catchy as all get out, and the songs didn't sound like they were written for 14 year old girls (which, in fact, most power pop songs are)! It had a feeling of adult self awareness that most power pop lacks. That isn't always a fault, but it tends to drag on your nerves after extended listening. You could compare them to Big Star in a way actually: all of the songs are undoubtedly pop song, and a good portion of them are goofy love songs, but they're so well written and presented in such a professional manner that don't have any cheese or novelty to them.
I think the overall sound on this album achieves a nice sweetspot between a more bubblegum sound (something like the Bay City Rollers) and a more aggressive punky sound (something like the Undertones. To make a band-to-band comparison, they sound kind of like a punchier, Anglo version of the Nerves (Paul Collins first band). But more than just comparisons to a band, they sound like a fairly accurate prototype of 80s/90s indie pop/rock, Guided by Voices for example. And while they do make use of slicker production, and are more reliant on traditional melodies and the occasional I-IV-V chord change, I think Ol' Man Pollard is an apt comparison. And a lot like a lot of more modern indie pop, it can be enjoyed as just a pure pop album, or as a foreshadowing of music to come in the future. I think Bram Tchaikovsky is similar, again, to Big Star in that sense. All of America can sing along to "In The Street" in the opening credits to That 70s Show, and the most cerebral music nerd can listen to Third/Sister Lovers as one of the great forgotten albums of all time. Both The Replacements and the Bangles, polar opposites, were influenced by them equally. And Strange Man, Changed Man plays off that dichotomy, very well in my opinion. One minute there's be a catchy, jumping, indie pop song, and then Monkees cover ("I'm a Believer"), and then cowbell-driven hard rock (though that's admittedly not my favorite part).
It's an interesting historical artifact as much as it is an interesting, ahead of it's time album, and it really makes you reevaluate your views on new wave and power pop as credible genres.
And it only cost $3.99!
--Austin K.
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