Customer Reviews

Crashing the Ether (Dig)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Tommy Keene has put out as strong an album as there is this year. Gushing with his trademark power guitar hooks and some of the most wonderfully crafted power-pop tunes of his long and well-received career, Mr. Keene has given us a ten song reminder of what made the likes of him and Jules Shear seminal underground alternative acts that should not be forgotten.

Crashing the Ether is quite simply astonishing in how well it holds up against all the power-pop incarnations of the 21st century. "Black and White New York" opens the album with a stark indie beauty and from there its all up, as there are no weak cuts.

What Mr. Keene has always done better than most all the electric folk bands who have come and gone in the last twenty years or so is lace virtually every song with a memorable power chord or two. Try out "I've Heard That Wind Blow Before" for a great example.

Tommy Keene belongs in the First Chapter of the Alternative Rock Canon and the strength of his music from the 80s on into 2006 affirm his place anywhere in the rock and roll scene.

I've been a fan of Tommy Keene since the 80's, as I'm from the D.C. area like him. I agree with "Tankery's" assessment. This CD is yet further proof of why, to my ears, no one's ever bettered Tommy and his brand of "Power Pop." His stuff has, and always has had, balls. No namby-pamby, preciousness; just memorable hooks, guitars that chime AND grind and BIG, but not too busy drumming. There's good reason why folks like Robert Pollard and Paul Westerberg respect and wanna play with this guy. Get this CD and see why.
Just saw him live for the umpteenth time. You should too if you can.

As a fan of rock in its many incarnations, I have to accept the fact that a lot of the songs I love are "shared" by many, many people. That's all well and good, but when I hear a song that I've deeply connected with being played over a loudspeaker system at, say, a clothing store, it gives me pause. On the one hand I'm happy for the artist, who obviously has "made it" in the conventional sense of the term. However, I have to stop and wonder whether I'd have embraced this song so fervently if this was the context in which it was first introduced to me.

The above is not a problem I have yet to encounter with the music of Tommy Keene. Although the guy marries yummy Beatlesesque pop melodies with crunchy guitar and witty, pointed lyrics like nearly nobody else these days, he remains solidly under the Great Pop Radar in the Sky, tooling away in near-obscurity. This is honestly really too bad. I've come to expect that most truly talented artists these days will just have their cult following and that's that.

This is a great disc. As with all of the best rock records there is a current of melancholy just beneath the accessible pop surface, straining to be heard and understood. Many of these songs are about moving on or moving forwards, leaving behind failed attempts and experiences that the narrator has simply outgrown. In that way this is a very Westerbergian (if that's a word) record, balancing smarts, frustration and hooks in equal measure.

Of course I'd love it if Keene had his day in the sun. The man deserves it! However I have to admit that the cult status that this man's music has obtained makes the discovery of it an even greater treasure.