Bonus Modcast: Partying with The Parties

One of my favorite bands over the past couple years has been The Parties out of San Francisco. Their sound is rooted in sixties pop music and incorporates heavily from the mod/freakbeat part of that catalog. The Parties latest album Coast Garde is no departure, but rather like a jetliner on a standard rate of incline, ever since taking off the band just keeps climbing higher and higher.

So, I got a chance to interview the band while they were putting the final touches on the album and that has lead to this special bonus modcast. You'll hear from all the band about the album, about their journey to this pioint and where they're headed from here, as well as their thoughts on what mod means today, what the state of music is like and what they're listening to for inspiration.

The band has a sort of sweetness to their sound, something I previously described as "a nice warm, beach like feeling," which maybe is a reflection of their California locale. This time around the music is richer, more lush, more perfectly honed to accent the lyrics.

On first listen I thought maybe there was an intentional theme here, but lead singer Jeremy Powers says that is just a happy coincidence. No matter, the songs are all about girls, and there seems to me to be an arc from the swaggering opening tracks about new love, to the middle tracks about deep love, to the final more sober tracks where love's mountain top high disappears.

The album's single, "Lets Call It Love" opens with an easy, breezy feeling, and a soft psychadelic undercurrent that gives it a bit of an ephemeral quality that nicely compliments the lyrics. It's an excellent mix of jangly guitars, tight rythyms, and more harmonies than you can shake a tambourine at. Along with the second track, "Can't Seem To Get My Mind Off Of You", it gets the album off to a pretty upbeat start.

The sound and the songs mature with the swirly, psychadelic "Twenty-Four", a song that could have come right out of the Pretty Things sessions in the late sixties as easily as it could have stood alongside Rain Parade's paisly underground tracks in the eighties. By the time you get to the last couple of tracks, "When The Weekend's Over", the love is lost and the sobering lonliness is all that's left. At last there's only the catchy vocal harmonies of You Ruined Me, a shorty, jaunty tune that has an infectious rhthym and melody and is fast becoming one of my favorites.

The band's love affair with sixties bands like The Who and The Creation are clear, especially in the guitar driven bridges of "Let's Call It Love" and "Twenty-Four". There's also a real sense of melody throught not unlike that of The Zombies and The Kinks.

For all that Coast Garde is a big step forward for The Parties, it also finds the band firmly, and comfortably, settled into the sound of the sixties. Which, at least for me, is a great place to be.

• Let's Call It Love (2010)
• Interview Pt. I
• She's Gone Away (2009)
• Cold Life (2008)
• Interview Pt. II
• You Ruined Me (2010)
• Download

I want to thank The Parties for taking the time talk with me, I think you'll enjoy the itnerview. Their new album, Coast Garde is due out on November 2nd on the Rainbow Quartz label. More info and purchase here.

Mod-A-Day: The Parties

The best $.95 I ever spent got me the new EP from San Francisco mod combo The Parties. The EP, Cryin Shame, wasn't supposed to be out until next week, but you can get it right now at Amie Street. This new release picks up right where their 2008 record Can't Come Down left off. The title track is a great bit of sixties sounding pop music blending jangling, at times twanging, guitar hooks with bluesy harmonica and some great vocal harmonies. While all five tracks are great, I was particularly entranced by "Kensington Avenue" which with it's psychadelic overtones sets it a bit apart from the soft sixties feel of the rest of the EP. Overall it's a tightly produced release with nice, tight musicianship. The whole thing gave me a nice warm, beach like feeling, which is nice when you're listening to it in Seattle at the bus stop during a typical November downpour.

The Parties -- Kensington Avenue

Mod-A-Day: The Parties

San Francisco modsters The Parties last year produced an excellent album of sixties infused power pop, garage rock. The hook all the songs hang on is their sixties vibe, created with solid drums and bass, 12 string guitar, and shared vocals. There's the folksy, twangy, jangle of the Byrds-like "Much Better", and more than a few of the songs -- "Yours and Mine", "Breaking Hearts", are stand outs -- drip with the mod and freakbeat influences of The Who and The Creation, which isn't a bad thing at all. The song here, "Gotta Get Out", is slow burner with some nice shakey g-verb. The best thing about The Parties is that they're making great music right now, and hopefully for a long time to come.


The Parties -- Gotta Get Out

Modcast #123: It Came From California

This week it comes from California, the it being some great mod bands down through the years. California has always been the nation's defacto leader for the mod scene. Not that there aren't great scenes and bands from around the country, but in California you have three scenes in San Francisco, Los Angeles/Orange County, and San Diego, and each has its own distinct personality -- which you'll get a taste of on this show. Some new mod bands like The Parties and The New Fidelity, some mod legends like The Odd Numbers, The Pandoras and Manual Scan, and some lesser known mod bands like The Idea and The New Breed.

If you're interested in more about mods in the golden state checkout the excellent California Mod Scene website complete with history, photos, and flyers.

Listen Now
Download

The Parties -- Radio
The Idea -- You Remind Me Of You
Sidewalk Society -- Night Owl
The New Breed -- Blessing in Disguise
The Pandoras -- Hot Generation
Manual Scan -- For Those
The Shambles -- She Said It's Late
The Eddies -- 65 Film Show
The Hi-Fives -- Hypnotizer
The Odd Numbers -- All Worked Up
The New Fidelity -- Right Track

The Parties -- Gotta Get Out


Manual Scan -- Come See Me