Pop Geek Heaven

LOST TREASURES by Peter Marston D.L. BYRON This Day and Age In the early 1970s, D.L. Byron began his professional music career as a staff writer for music publisher E.H. Morris, but as the decade wore on, he became better known as a performer in his own right. He was ultimately signed to a recording [...]

LOST TREASURES by Peter Marston John Randolph Marr John Randolph Marr   Fans of Harry Nilsson may remember the small graphic of a simple house and shining sun that appeared on many of his records along with the script, “A Nilsson House Production.” Few are likely to recall, however, records by other artists bearing this [...]

  Lost Treasures Sky Don’t Hold Back and Sailor’s Delight  by Peter Marston Undoubtedly, one of the most successful power pop bands of all time is the Knack. Their debut single, “My Sharona,” sat atop the Billboard singles chart for six weeks and was the best-selling single of 1979. The accompanying album, Get the Knack, [...]

Lost Treasures Julianna Raye Something Peculiar   Signed to Warner Brothers by Lenny Waronker, produced by Jeff Lynne, supported by Richard Tandy and Mike Campbell.  You’d think with credentials like that, Julianna Raye’s Something Peculiar would be a well-known debut and the start of a successful recording career, rather than merely a footnote in Jeff [...]

LOST TREASURES The Keys – “The Keys Album” Sometime around 2005, my good friend Stefan Johannson sent me a copy of a power pop compilation called Shake Some Action, Vol. 1 UK, and while there was a lot of great music on the CD, one track stood out well above the others: “I Don’t Wanna [...]

LAXTON’S SUPERB by Ray Gianchetti (Kool Kat Musik)   The British band Laxton’s Superb released several singles in the UK and Japan between 1995-96 and could be counted among the better (though somewhat obscure) of the many guitar ‘n hook heavy, “Britpop” bands (ie, Oasis, Blur, Stone Roses, The Bluetones, Whiteout, et al) treading the [...]

THE CONTENTS ARE: Note From Bruce:  this “Lost Treasure” submission is from fellow Pop Pioneer, Mick Orton whose 70s band, SILVER LAUGHTER appeared in the Surprise Box last year.  THE CONTENTS ARE:  were a band out of Davenport, Iowa.   They only released one album and 2 singles, but a German rerelease has turned up with [...]

LOST TREASURES: D, B, M & T – “Fresh Ear” Only released in Great Britain, Germany and New Zealand in October, 1970, “FRESH EAR” from D, B, M & T was their one and only albums.  So off the beaten path is this, that in over 20 years of living and breathing power pop, this [...]

THE PENCILS by Ray Gianchetti (Kool Kat Musik) Brief Background: Released three singles for Next Records (distributed by UK Sony). “Watching The Tears”/”You Say You” (1982) “If You Really Wanna Hurt Somebody”/”Till Your Luck Runs Out” (1982) “Pictures Of Paris”/”Steal Your Love” (1983) The Story Behind The Band:  I became aware of The Pencils in [...]

POP GEEK HEAVEN PODCAST Podcast #6 – 90s Swedish Power Pop   The 6th and final podcast of 2012, this one is another themed show.  Show #6 is all about 90s Swedish power pop because…well, it was an awesome time for power pop and I own hundreds of CDs from this era so there’s a [...]