Make a right on Sunrise Highway and just keep going as you are immersed in a timeless pop sound that will put a big smile on your face. A fine collection of songs inspired by 60’s AM radio & 70’s FM with influences like, The Beach Boys, Beatles, Todd Rundgren, Laura Nyro, Bacharach, Carole King, Lovin Spoonful, Mamas & Papas, Byrds, Cyrkle, Steely Dan and many others creates a wondrous sound that will always be fresh and uplifting! Before Sunrise Highway the band was called NEO. Every review compared the music to that of the Wondermints. The CD reminded others of Jellyfish. One reviewer said the vocals reminded him of Carl Wilson and the vocalist from Teenage Fanclub. Splendid songs, great musicianship, sublime vocals drenched in golden sunshine pop harmonies, now there’s a road that never ends!
It’s Out Now !
Just in, purchase your download of SUNRISE HIGHWAY from Digstation, CD Baby or iTunes, and the CD from Notlame,CD Baby and Kool Kat Musik
NOT LAME REVIEW
Every year there are a few albums that stand out as *the* one to recommend to picky Beach Boys/Brian Wilson fans. Ushering in 2010 with a bomb of a pure pop gem, Sunrise Highway is, most certainly, one of those albums. Drop that mouse of yours down below and get clicking for proper proof. Sunrise Highway is, simply, an inspired work. Influenced by the best sounds, Carole King, Pet Sounds/Surfs Up era Beach Boys, Wondermints, Beatles, Todd Rundgren`s wonderful “Something Anything,” Byrds, The Lovin` Spoonfuls infectious good vibes or Mama and Papa harmonies, Sunrise Highway pulls no punches to hide where their hearts and affection lie – most thankfully. There is a timelessness and emotion to these sounds that really resonates with folks like us, right? Well, Sunrise Highway is a celebration to them, artfully, masterfully done.
Lovely, lilting melodies glide smoothly, crisply over gentle Turtles inspired melodies. “Not only is it a trip for Beach Boys enthusiasts, it also sounds like Todd Rundgren playing cream of Glasgow pop with a little Teenage Fanclub and a lot of Pearlfisherisms in there.” – Next Big Thing. Even though this is a New York City based band, there’s a soaring injection of California pop sun on all the material here that excavates the Beach Boy/Wilson charms so many Not Lamers can’t resist. Well, don’t, this is a gem. With its layered vocals, rich production style and inspired artistic vision, Sunrise Highway harkens a bright, sunny and joy-filled new day for you, for me and for a whole army of power pop fans. MASSIVELY Highly Recommended!
KOOL KAT MUSIK REVIEW
WOW!!! No, make that a DOUBLE WOW!! This one’s practically cemented itself as a 2010 “Top Tenner” contender! We try not to gush over too many things, but it’s not often that a true, timeless, genre-defining release comes along – and THIS IS! This brilliant gem of a debut contains all of the elements that make this an instant classic – top-notch singing and songwriting, production, and playing! In fact, we’ll make the case right know (a la “Yellow Pills”) that when a compilation of this first decades’ true pop is released by Sony/Legacy (?) that they should name it “Sunrise Highway”! Bold, eh? While Brian Wilson is an obvious influence, there’s so much more going on here! Lovers of Dwight Twilley-like jangly guitars will not be disappointed. Lovers of a solid, start-to-finish hook-fest will not be disappointed! AND IF THAT AIN’T ENOUGH, IT COMES WITH AN EXCLUSIVE, 5-SONG BONUS DISC OF VERY, VERY KOOL OUTTAKES/WORKING VERSIONS OF SONGS FROM THE FINISHED RECORD! Can’t nearly say enough about this one! GREAT!!!!”
You can also purchase your copy of the SUNRISE HIGHWAY CD from KOOL KAT MUSIK
POWERPOPAHOLIC REVIEW
On this site, we make a big deal about groups that follow the classic power pop influences, like The Beach Boys, Beatles, Todd Rundgren, The Byrds, etc. However it’s not enough to just have an influence, or be a sound-alike… it’s what you make of it. I am happy to say Marc Silvert has created a great album that honors these past greats with excellent songwriting and brilliant musicianship. He also gets support from a stellar band, including Gary Feldman of Radio City. Opening with “Life On Mars” it has a classic Rundgrenesque storyline and rich arrangement that carries the melodies along, it’s an instant classic. And it’s followed by one of the best Beach songs ever with “Endless Summer” full of soaring harmonies and jangling chords. Lead vocalist Greg Schlotthauer does an excellent job with Silvert, singing in tandem. The Beach Boys cadence continues on several songs here including “Baby Be Good” and “Roundabout.” The style varies enough on songs like “Big Brown Eyes” and “Magic” with it’s shimmering Rickenbacker chords to keep things from getting predictable. Almost every song has a great hook and pop structure similar to those 60’s/70’s adult radio favorites. If you have been looking for an album to lift your spirits with sunshine, then look no further. For fans of Jeff Larson, Jamie Hoover, Richard Snow and Nelson Bragg this truly is manna from heaven, and my first top ten recommendation for 2010. Go to POWERPOPAHOLIC
BUCKET FULL OF BRAINS REVIEW BY DAVID BASH
Sunrise Highway Self-Released
Man, there sure are a lot of Brian Wilson homages out there (see reviews of The Passports and The Sunchymes), but hey, there’s nothing wrong with that as long as they’re well done, as is Sunrise Highway, essentially the teaming of Marc Silvert’s sunshine-oriented songwriting with the classic pop vocals of Greg Schlotthauer. Don’t let titles like ‘Life on Mars’, ‘Endless Summer’, ‘Baby Be Good’, ‘Magic’ and ‘Roundabout’ fool you; all the songs on the album are Silvert originals. Though the Brian-isms are ever present, ‘Life On Mars’ and ‘Jerry In The Skies’ offer some jazzy chords not unlike The Pearlfishers, while ‘Big Brown Eyes’ and ‘Magic’ have a bit more of a power pop bent. Nothing particularly original here, but if ’60s-inspired Sunshine Pop is your cup of tea, then Sunrise Highway will taste mighty fine. David Bash
Well, I’ve spent some time with the songs that Marc sent, and I can safely say this: if you want to listen to them you’ll need to put on sunglasses first. This music is so bright, and the songs so dazzling, that it won’t matter what time of the day, week or year you play it – when you play it, it’ll be summer. You may also find yourself squinting while the music’s playing and wondering if you turned on too many lights where you are. (If you live on the beach, however, then you won’t notice much difference.)
The music of Sunrise Highway sounds to me as if it lives in the world of 70’s AM radio – a world full of sunny tunes, sunny harmonies, and just a few more sunny harmonies thrown in for good measure.
I am going to take a wild guess that the studio Sunrise Highway used to record their self-titled CD is full of windows that let in generous amounts of sunlight. I make this assumption because “Sunrise Highway” just sparkles with sunshine. It radiates a warm, feel-good vibe that makes you feel like you are chillin’ under the sun with an ice cold lemonade by your side and no cares in the world.
The Sun gods have been appeased, and Greg Schlotthauer and company have recorded a gem of pop genius. Sunrise Highway sounds remarkably like the Beach Boys for a new generation – breezy riffs, shimmering guitar tones, bouncy piano, and loads of amazing harmonies. It makes for a great mellow listen the whole way through, but standouts for me included “Endless Summer”, “Baby Be Good”, and “Lonely Guy”. If you dig classic pop from the era of the Beach Boys, or if you just want a good spring and summer record to lift your spirits, you cannot miss Sunrise Highway.
Lou Read Jr. likes to play and record real loud for like ten hours non stop. At some point we eat food. Then we play some more. Meditate some. Then we Listen to The Move and The Young Rascals for a while. Some days Lou Read Jr. just watches film noir, or cheesy horror or sci fi movies. Afternoons are always bathed in reverb. Feedback is like our mantra.The hypnotic effect of the steady rock beat is understood. Power chords warm the brain as we turn up the overdrive. We seek out the cool rock and roll, examining and fully experiencing it. Then we extract the essence and create real rock & roll . We used to rehearse in the garage but now we have the garage in our computer. We also like fuzz boxes a whole lot.
Radio Citys “Class of ‘77″ is my favorite album of 2009!”>>> Frank Secich/Blue Ash/Deadbeat Poets The previously unreleased full album from this amazing New York band! Hunkered in the studio in the late ’70s, these guys made a beautiful testament to the power of pop! Before the skinny ties, these guys followed the path laid out by BIG STAR, THE RASPBERRIES, BLUE ASH and BADFINGER, mixed with their own raw sound, to dizzying results! A mandatory purchase for powerpop fans everywhere-Soundflat-Germany
In the 70s, a handful of bands would not give in to the pressures of the music industry and produced music from their hearts that would last forever because of its honesty and integrity. Given the climate of the industry in those years, this was, in hindsight, heroic action. Radio City tops this list and due credit may finally be given to them. They picked up where bands like The Beatles and Badfinger left off; gave us back our innocence in their fun, imaginative music that held us to what we thought we could be and would be in our minds and in our hearts. Where other bands crumbled to industry pressure, Radio City stayed true to their beliefs and gave us melodies and song crafting that makes one want to go out to buy a guitar and learn how to play. Radio City should have made it big but instead are now legendary. We need them now more than ever >>> Danny Shonerd, The Boys(USA) BUY CD NOW Continue reading Radio City Class Of 77
It’s hard to believe that it’s a little known fact
that two of the biggest bands in rock history made thier American debut perfoming in a weird series of concerts at a NYC movie theatre for promoter Murry The K. This was during a transitional period in the career of popular disc jockey and radio personality Murray The K.
Murray departed from his solo act and vocal group presentation and made a valiant attempt to capitalize on the new sound and face of rock by booking self-contained electric bands. Nevertheless, the show billed as “Murray the K presents Music In The 5th Dimension” marked the end of an era.
The shows took place over 40 years ago in 1967 from Saturday March 25th to Sunday April 2nd at the RKO 58th Street Theatre in Manhattan. There were five shows a day starting at 10 in the morning and lasting till after midnight.
Mitch Ryder headlined.
Don Lehnoff: It actually wasn’t “Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.” At the insistence of his producer, Bob Crewe, Mitch was embarking on a solo career andweappeared as the Mitch Ryder Show. I was part of a 10 piece band hired to back Mitch up … 5 guys from Baltimore, 3 from the Chicago Loop who opened the Ryder shows, plus a trumpet from Florida andguitarfrom New York. The “Wheels” declined the opportunity to be augmented with horns, so they parted company.
Hedging on his bet, Murray booked two soul acts – Wilson Pickett and Smokey Robinson. Smokey, even though advertised, never appeared.
Don Lehnoff: Smokey Robinson was hired for the show as advertised, but at the first rehearsal I sat in the audience seats andwatchedRobinson, still wearing his trench coat, arguing on stage with Murray the K. At one point Smokey stormed off the stage andup the aisle to the exit, not to return. It was my understanding that he walked out on the show because Mitch Ryder was billed above him, but I can’t swear to that. In retrospect, that would be considered absurd billing … but this was the high point in Ryder’s career and he was being seriously hyped by the serious hype machine of Bob Crewe. We headlined everywhere we played, with the one exception of a concert in Chicago where another Creweproduct, The Four Seasons, was billed above Mitch.
Nobody cared that Smokey no-showed. The Blues Project with a very young Al Kooper and The Young Rascals appeared, and two very historical moments in rock went down when The Cream (yeah it was Cream, but they were billed as The Cream) andThe Who both made their American debut. Bothbandswere billed as “Direct from England.”
The Cream did two songs per show, “I Feel Free” and “I’m So Glad” or “Spoonful, then The Who destroyed their instruments at each performance.
It was Roger McGuinn and George Harrison’s arpegiated style of playing guitar, a sort of picking and sometimes strumming technique on a Twelve String Rickenbacker that has gone on to influence a universe of guitar bands, just ask Peter Buck!
Influenced by folk, bluegrass, mandolin playing, banjo picking and other kinds of acoustic guitar music, Roger picked away as the engineer added some compression, went right into the board, and the rest was rock history, a new sound, and a group called The Byrds hit it big .
Here is a great site where you canlearn how play arpeggios and learn how to use them. This is also a really fantastic site for lots of guitar playing knowledge.
Just how do you get that jingle jangle sound?
Now we have some input from the man himself…..
RM:The sound is a combination of several things. It’s compressed. I have to credit Ray Gerhard. He’s an engineer at Columbia Records. He came up with the idea because without compression the Rick kind of falls off. It doesn’t sustain a long time. And he compressed that into another, a serial compression.
The other thing is the arpeggio style I play comes more from a 5-string banjo. And then a lot of the folky stuff, like the Travis picking behind the lead break. Underneath it I’m playing (Plays), rolling. So, I’m overdubbing the lead break and doing the rolling underneath it.
I guess that’s the sound. Banjo picking, compression and some other little folk techniques I picked up along the way.
What is the best amp to use with a Rickenbacker RM: The roland JC120
I would say a Vox AC30 would be in there. Here is a link to rickresource.com ,the forum for all things Rickenbacker where you can see which amps hundreds of jangleheads use to get this heavenly guitar sound.
Here is yet another Rick forum that talks about the wiring in those early Ricks and more about which amplifiers the Byrds actually used live.
Roger, who has been into digital recording on his own for some time now explains how he now records his signature jangle without even using an amp. He goes directly into the computer!
RED: Do you mic an amp when tracking your classic “jingle-jangle” electric 12-string Rickenbacker sound?
RM: No, for that I go direct into the computer without an amp through one of my three I/O interfaces. I got into recording the 12-string electric this way back in The Byrds when we always went direct with it in the studio. That’s the clean part of the jingle-jangle sound with no hum or ambient room noise. It’s a very compressed sound, of course, and I achieve that by running the Rick through a pair of Jangle Box stomp boxes I love. Those are based on the compressor circuit built into my custom Rick model [Rickenbacker 370/12 McGuinn Limited Edition 12-string.] Once I’m in Adobe Audition with it, I don’t really need to compress the Rick any further because the two Jangle Box’s have already nicely compressed it. But I do like to hard limit the track once I’m in Audition to really punch the Rick to the edges of the envelope.
One of the most powerful forces known to all rockers, the thundering guitar sound emanating from the wall of over-driven speakers powered from Johnny’s stack of 100 watt Marshall heads.
Johnny developed his sound early on, brutalizing his Mosrite Ventures II and hammering those bar chords in a frenzied style that has had more influence on punk rock than even his leather motorcycle jacket and ripped jeans. His chugging muted bar chords that exploded into thundering power chords literally defined the punk rock guitar sound. To read more about this guitar legend and find out exactly what equipment Johnny used to get his signature sound check out this site Compiled by Ian Harper & Chris Lamy.
Paul Westerberg First Act Guitar sold at Wall Mart
The Replacements had/have their cult following and Paul still has his loyal fans. With all the critical acclaim and stories of those legendary live shows Westerberg still never managed to attain the mainstream success and record sales of even those who were influenced by him to the point of being accused of blatantly ripping him off. There are many bands but the Goo Goo Dolls probably had the biggest success of any Westerberg Clones out there. John Rzeznek of the Goo Goo Dolls will be the first to tell you of Paul’s influence on him. And I do give John props for his workmanlike approach to songwriting and years of slugging it out on the road before attaining super stardom.
The Goo Goo’s can rock hard, and John has written some good tunes, but he just doesn’t have the depth and true emotional intensity Paul has. Could it be Johnny is better looking, or maybe it’s his two earrings or when he got the VH1 rock star makeover complete with his sexy new hair style. Paul would have none of that. He’ll just have to suffer with his cult status, critical acclaim (although much of his solo work is highly underrated) and his permanent status in the legends of rock who never had mainstream sucess hall of fame.
However through some of these articles like the very informative and comprehensive article by Ira Robbins “Paul Westerberg Comes In From the Ledge” you can see that Paul has come to terms with his past and was moving on and turning out some really high quality solo albums. Well that article was from 1993 so what has Paul been doing since?
Well, here is a link to his online only release from 2008 called 49:00. And you can find out what he is up to right now at The Latest Paul Westerberg News. And find out about the “Paul Westerburg First Act Guitar” sold at Wall Mart on the Paul Westerberg Message Board. I would never believe there could be such a thing. The reviews are actually pretty amazing for a $149 “beginners” guitar, read some of them and you can even buy one of these things, Paul Westerbergs Signiture Guitar from First Act. A Toy guitar that you can really rock out on, now that’s very Paul Westerberg!
Songheads Music Lou Read Jr.
Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!
Make a right on Sunrise Highway and just keep going as you are immersed in a timeless pop sound that will put a big smile on your face. A fine collection of songs inspired by 60’s AM radio & 70’s FM with influences like, The Beach Boys, Beatles, Todd Rundgren, Laura Nyro, Bacharach, Carole King, Lovin Spoonful, Mamas & Papas, Byrds, Cyrkle, Steely Dan and many others creates a wondrous sound that will always be fresh and uplifting! Before Sunrise Highway the band was called NEO. Every review compared the music to that of the Wondermints. The CD reminded others of Jellyfish. One reviewer said the vocals reminded him of Carl Wilson and the vocalist from Teenage Fanclub. Splendid songs, great musicianship, sublime vocals drenched in golden sunshine pop harmonies, now there’s a road that never ends!
ply, an inspired work. Influenced by the best sounds, Carole King, Pet Sounds/Surfs Up era Beach Boys, Wondermints, Beatles, Todd Rundgren`s wonderful “Something Anything,” Byrds, The Lovin` Spoonfuls infectious good vibes or Mama and Papa harmonies, Sunrise Highway pulls no punches to hide where their hearts and affection lie – most thankfully. There is a timelessness and emotion to these sounds that really resonates with folks like us, right? Well, Sunrise Highway is a celebration to them, artfully, masterfully done.
Lou Read Jr. likes to play and record real loud for like ten hours non stop. At some point we eat food. Then we play some more. Meditate some. Then we Listen to The Move and The Young Rascals for a while. Some days Lou Read Jr. just watches film noir, or cheesy horror or sci fi movies. Afternoons are always bathed in reverb. Feedback is like our mantra.The hypnotic effect of the steady rock beat is understood. Power chords warm the brain as we turn up the overdrive. We seek out the cool rock and roll, examining and fully experiencing it. Then we extract the essence and create real rock & roll . We used to rehearse in the garage but now we have the garage in our computer. We also like fuzz boxes a whole lot.
Radio Citys “Class of ‘77″ is my favorite album of 2009!”>>> Frank Secich/Blue Ash/Deadbeat Poets The previously unreleased full album from this amazing New York band! Hunkered in the studio in the late ’70s, these guys made a beautiful testament to the power of pop! Before the skinny ties, these guys followed the path laid out by BIG STAR, THE RASPBERRIES, BLUE ASH and BADFINGER, mixed with their own raw sound, to dizzying results! A mandatory purchase for powerpop fans everywhere-Soundflat-Germany
