Bright Ideas – Saturdays and the Turning Tide LP (Squirmy)
RECOMMENDED
Way back in the fall of 2006 I covered a Bright Ideas single for this column, the product of Sacramento songwriter Scott Miller (the other one, not the Game Theory guy, but the dude from Nar) and a couple buds rounding out the ideal pop trio for these days. Saturdays was apparently released on CD in 2005; its appearance on vinyl, years after the fact, is perplexing but very welcome, the sort of thing you hope someone with the taste and wherewithal to release records by dead bands would rediscover someday. Most would lump this in with indie pop – my wife, the Girl Detective, came in here just now and asked me why I was listening to that old Elephant 6 band Beulah. But the riffs and drive of decent garage rock are there, if softened and jangled to the point where it just started to break a little bit. There’s eight songs here, every one of them a winner, but especially “Falling Down,” ending side A with a rambunctious glory that is too rarely heard around here. I’d position them as a more mature Cause Co-Motion, with the occasional sit under Felt’s shade trees, but would have to insist that you pick this up really soon, or at least stream it from the release’s Bandcamp page. It’s a really good time. (http://squirmyrecords.blogspot.com)
(Doug Mosurock)
