“Interesting Friends” – Bob Hillman

Brisk, skillful power pop

“Interesting Friends” – Bob Hillman

Is power pop having a bit of a moment here in the mid-’20s? Some say yes. I don’t think the genre ever really goes away, just as it never really reaches any kind of mass appeal. But I don’t doubt that its current resurgence relates to some sort of collective-unconscious reaction to 21st-century pop’s relentless move into over-processed, over-compressed, committee-written, pitch-corrected, guitar-free, personality-free pap.

Note that Bob Hillman isn’t some kind of bandwagon-jumping newbie. His musical career dates back to the late ’90s, with a 10-year hiatus leading to a re-emergence in 2015. And while what he’s recorded to date, nine releases now, does not uniformly qualify as power pop, he’s got a strong sense of melody that serves him well across all his compositions, and particularly well here with the unabashed power pop of “Interesting Friends.” Brisk and instantly likable, the song’s drive is visceral yet mellowed by Hillman’s placid tone and unhurried delivery. And like all good power pop, the song is highlighted by crisp lyrical turns of phrase and gratifying melodic resolutions. As a bonus we get some pretty hot guitar work along the way.

Speaking of interesting friends, Hillman has a couple joining in here by way of longtime Elvis Costello bandmate Pete Thomas on drums and guitarist Trevor Menear, who played with Dawes on tour for 10 years. “Interesting Friends” is a track from Hillman’s new six-song EP, The King of the Bees, released in August. Check it out on Bandcamp.

“Failing Hail” – Shiloh Lindsey

Lonesome Western vibe

“Failing Hail” – Shiloh Lindsey

“Failing Hail,” languid and assured, opens with a lonesome Western vibe accentuated by Shiloh Lindsey’s reverbed alto. Additional appeal comes via some distinctive lyrics with their broken rhymes:
My demons had me awake at 2:00 am
This morning so I thought I would fool them
with some nicer thoughts tell myself to prove it
and this is what I came up with “Came up with” doesn’t remotely rhyme with “to prove it” and yet they seem like just the words to say, especially the way that Lindsey says them. Now I’m fully on board.

And the real hook is yet to come. Lindsey’s hidden weapon is her vocal range; when the chorus arrives she’s an octave higher than where the verse was happening. The supporting chords feel like a mini-revelation, first at the chorus’s opening (“The bad times”, 0:50) and then even more so when the run-on lyrics build the melody back to that same note (“remember”, 1:00). It’s impressive what one well-placed chord or two can do to lift a song to another level.

Shiloh Lindsey is a Canadian singer/songwriter based in Vancouver, B.C. She was raised in Alberta and also lived for a while in the Maritimes. She’s been recording since 2005, but her new album, The Western Veil, is her first release since a dreadful motorcycle accident she had in 2024. “Failing Hail” is the first available track from the new album, which is coming out in November, to be available via Bandcamp.

“Red Lights” – The Deathray Davies

Theatrical and incisive

“Red Lights” – The Deathray Davies

With its theatrical orchestrations and incisive urgency, “Red Lights” is the kind of song that prompts a smile in a particular way that only music has access to. There’s nothing overtly funny happening in the lyrics; it’s the music itself that’s deftly amusing–there’s first and foremost the surging uphill churn of the intro and its subsequent reiterations, but a number of smaller grin-inducing moments unfold along the way. including unhinged horn bleatings, bashy drumming, quivery synth lines, and even some well-timed moments of near silence. A lot gets packed into 2:29 and it’s all good, from the sing-song-y melody to the abrupt ending.

Not that I’m sure exactly what’s going on here lyrically but this yet again supports my general inclination to treat a song’s words as sounds and a vibe as opposed to a story. There’s something about hearing the phrase “drive right through red lights” over and over that rouses the psyche at a feeling rather than a comprehension level. That’s how most lyrics function for me truth be told; the song becomes more like a dream to feel into than a concrete reality to analyze.

The Deathray Davies is a band on its second or maybe third wind. Fronted by John Dufilho, its origins go back to Dallas in the late ’90s, the band name a self-conscious joke-cum-homage to the Kinks. They were featured on Fingertips way back in 2005 and then again in 2021, after the band awoke from its self-described “15-year-nap.” “Red Lights” is a song from the Davies’ forthcoming album, Lampshade Earthquake Microphone, to be released in November.

On the way I wonder

Eclectic Playlist Series 13.04 – August 2026

Stories have been gaining traction lately about the music industry’s newest incarnation of payola, which here in the ’20s involves online influencers getting paid to promote specific albums and artists. As much as this is in fact happening, it strikes me as a “dog bites man” story. Ho fucking hum. What do you expect from the hyper-capitalist shit show that the web has become? Between the lack of fair regulation and the amoral clamoring for clicks that characterizes online behavior across the board, from corporations to everyday individuals, it’s no surprise that people are doing anything they can, technologically or otherwise, to make a buck, scruples be damned.

If you’re here, however, I’m hoping you can appreciate the different vibe and approach you’ll get on Fingertips. It is ever and always about the music, about what strikes my ears as worth sharing, above and beyond the clickings and followings and viral hype-mongering. Thanks for finding your way to this obscure patch of online humanity, and thanks as always for listening.

The latest mix:

1. “Me and the Boys” – NRBQ (Tiddlywinks, 1980)
2. “Lay Your Lazy Head” – Carrie Ashley Hill (single, 2013)
3. “X Offender” – Blondie (Blondie, 1976)
4. “Up the Bracket” – The Libertines (Up the Bracket, 2002)
5. “The Sound” – Leslie Spit Treeo (Don’t Cry Too Hard, 1990)
6. “Love Fell On Me” – Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston (Take Two, 1966)
7. “How Much I Lied” – Elvis Costello & The Attractions (Almost Blue, 1981)
8. “Nearby Parallel Universes” – Teddy Abrams (Preludes, 2025)
9. “On the Road to Find Out” – Cat Stevens (Tea for the Tillerman, 1970)
10. “Animal Instinct” – The Cranberries (Bury the Hatchet, 1999)
11. “Wide Awake in a Dream” – Vicki Anderson (single, 1966)
12. “To Live and Die in the Airport Lounge” – My Teenage Stride (Ears Like Golden Bats, 2006)
13. “Airport” – The Weather Station (single, 2025)
14. “I Want You Back” – Hoodoo Gurus (Stoneage Romeo, 1984)
15. “Back Where You Belong” – Sinéad O’Connor (The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep [Original Soundtrack], 2007)
16. “Sunday” – Sea Lemon (single, 2021)
17. “Spanish Bombs” – The Clash (London Calling, 1979)
18. “Love Hit Me” – The Orchids (single, 1963)
19. “(Nice Dream)” – Radiohead (The Bends, 1995)
20. “Summer’s End” – John Prine (The Tree of Forgiveness, 2018)

Random notes:

* While there’s no trace of her life as a singer/songwriter anywhere on her current web site, the set designer and prop stylist Carrie Ashley Hill is still a musician too, performing these days in the Brooklyn-based duo Chest High Fires, with her husband Jeff Burrall. “Lay Your Lazy Head” is a song from her solo past, and was featured here on Fingertips back in 2013.

* “Love Hit Me,” an early-’60s non-hit for a schoolgirl outfit called the Orchids, comes to us attached to two interesting bits of history. First, the song was written and produced by Shel Talmy, who produced a number of the era’s landmark singles, including “You Really Got Me” and “Waterloo Sunset” by the Kinks, “My Generation” by the Who, and “Friday On My Mind” by the Easybeats. Not a bad resume. Second, the song was featured on the British TV show “Juke Box Jury” on a week when the four Beatles comprised the panel of judges. Only Paul McCartney voted the song a “hit”; the other three deemed it a “miss.” I’m on Paul’s side, as pretty much usual.

* Almost Blue, the country music covers album sprung on an unsuspecting public by Elvis Costello and the Attractions in 1981, has stood up admirably over time. Frustrated with the lack of commercial success of his previous two (excellent) albums, Costello decided he just wanted to sing other people’s songs on his next release. As it turned out, Almost Blue, presaged his subsequent inclination to take any number of musical left turns over the years. But Costello was nothing if not passionate in his appreciation for the American genre. He worked with legendary country producer Billy Sherrill, and while the sessions were not without tension and disagreements, the album remains a curious but entertaining listen. I’ve always been partial to his affecting cover of this Gram Parsons song, “How Much I Lied.”

* Leslie Spit Treeo was a band from Toronto active in the ’90s. Their debut album, Don’t Cry Too Hard, for Capitol Records, got a toehold on alternative radio programs in the U.S. in 1990, but their three follow-up LPs, only two of which have a digital presence, didn’t make much impact. Lead singer Laura Hubert went on to a solo career singing jazz, vintage blues, and western swing. She recorded three albums in the ’00s and still performs in and around Toronto.

* Not sure how this came about, but the late, great Sinéad O’Connor was asked to contribute a song to the movie The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, a fantasy about the Loch Ness monster. The song would later appear on her 2012 album How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?–an album not available at this point on Spotify. I will listen to her sing just about anything. When she does those octave-apart harmonies with herself? My god.

* While we’re on the topic of Irish musicians, here also are the Cranberries. The popular band had faded a bit from their commercial peak by the time they released Bury the Hatchet, in 1999. Some might claim that their progression from the charming jangly/strummy rock of their first album to the weightier offerings of their next two releases cost them a certain amount of their audience. I wouldn’t disagree. And while the songs on Bury the Hatchet may not be quite as exquisite as those found on the debut, the lighter sound hits the ear like a refreshing breeze after the semi-dreariness of album number three in particular. “Animal Instinct” was a minor hit but was nowhere as ubiquitous as songs like “Linger” and “Dreams.”

* Vicki Anderson, born Myra Barnes, had two three-year stints in the mid-’60s and early ’70s as James Brown’s lead female vocalist; he was at one point quoted as saying that Anderson was the best singer he ever had in the James Brown Revue. She recorded more than two dozen singles, using both her birth name and her stage name, but never had a breakthrough hit. She remained active in the music industry until 1995; a number of her songs became Northern Soul staples over the years. She died in 2023 at the age of 83. On her “Wide Awake in a Dream” single, the song is listed as “traditional,” but an earlier version, recorded by Jerry Jackson in 1962, was credited to Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio. Crewe and Gaudio were best known for a series of hit songs written in the ’60s for the Four Seasons, including “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”

“Salt” – Passenger Lounge

Effortlessly engaging

“Salt” – Passenger Lounge

Easy-going and effortlessly engaging, “Salt” is precisely the kind of song that fuels my ongoing desire to keep doing what I’ve been doing here since (yikes) 2003. Passenger Lounge is an unassuming three-piece band, comprised of family members in New Orleans who make no effort to bowl you over with online hype. The email arrived without fuss or preening or reference to their streaming or follower numbers. (Aside: I don’t care about anyone’s streaming and/or follower numbers.) The music was more than enough.

“Salt” grounds itself in a strummed, backbeated groove then immediately establishes its distinguishing sound: the lead singer, identified only as J, with a voice that’s equal parts air and substance, singing a seesawing melody with strings of words that feel both inevitable and difficult to follow. As you settle in you begin to notice a male voice (this would be either Alec or Peter) in subtle accompaniment, and a wayward saxophone blowing in nearly atonal concurrence. The song presents a continual dialectic between resolution and irresolution, with each lyrical line seeming to start on a resolved note and to end unresolved, which creates an irresistible forward flow.

Things subtly alter around 2:10, as the song’s underlying momentum remains but with the music, now, staying unresolved for a good 40 seconds or so. Lyrics pile onto each other as the melody seems to run into a wall before a sense of release arrives around 2:56 as the original pattern returns, boosted by a new sense of urgency and the male singer pushing more to the front of the mix. Just as we’re reacclimated we get a whole new melody at 3:39, in a late-arriving bridge that’s really more of a coda, leading into an all-instrumental final section featuring even later-arriving electric guitar work that eventually dissolves in a puddle of electronics. The whole thing is captivating in a low-key but insistent way.

“Salt” is the lead track from the band’s debut, two-song EP. You’ll find it on Bandcamp.

“Church Street” – Martyrs

Percussive tempo, yearning vibe

“Church Street” – Martyrs

With (literally) no introduction, “Church Street” feels like a story joined in the middle. As the song unfolds, the lyrics solidify, somewhat, into a bittersweet, literarily-told tale of lost love, but it’s the music (steady rhythms, well-constructed melodies) and vocals (vulnerable tenor) that grab the ear independent of the narrative. The frisky, percussive tempo belies the melancholy in the air; the wistful call-and-response of the pre-chorus amplifies the yearning vibe, climaxing with the chorus and its central, unmissable lyric: “I said we live in a terrible world.” The story never completely coheres but its being told between the lines renders it all the more effective, to my ears.

There’s an instrumental break roughly in the middle, which not enough songs seem to do anymore. I like how the break ends with things going quiet for a moment or two (2:15) before we are launched into the second half. The drama is further enhanced by us hearing, now, the one and only mention of Church Street, which soon leads to these casual but finely wrought lyrics: “We parted in Cardiff/We knew it’d be hard but/We both felt like it was time.” Impressive combination of internal and external rhyming, that. We are in good hands all the way through.

Martyrs are the Welsh duo of Michael Hall and Jon Howells. They are passionate about their DIY ethos; the Welsh music site “God is in the TV” featured a post by Hall and Howells last month (subtitled “A Handy Guide To Making Zero Money As A Musician”) that took a deep dive into their refreshing stance. “Where we split paths with many bands,” they wrote, “is in the fact that we don’t have any interest in being a part of the music industry, nor any interest in popular or financial success.” I might second that thought here in Philadelphia, and in any case I completely vibe with musicians more concerned with music than fame and fortune. They seem to understand better than most that no one owes a musician a living–a harsh but inevitable fact of life here in the 21st century (and any time, really).

“Church Street” is the title track of a six-song EP the band released in April, an album that they describe as revolving around their hometown of Merthyr Tydfil. (“Merthyr” translates to “martyr” in English.) You can hear the whole thing and buy it (for one British pound) via Bandcamp.

“Beginnings” – Chloe Violette

Spirited and relaxed

“Beginnings” – Chloe Violette

I am something of a sucker for songs with this kind of starkly articulated, tom-based drumbeat, reminiscent of something delightful by Paul Simon. Add crisp acoustic guitar pickings and a rich vocal style and we have a winner. The vibe is spirited and relaxed at the same time, the organic sound an apt match for ongoing lyrical references to the natural world. Another piece of craft I appreciate is when a song has the nerve to interrupt its own flow, which happens here, first, at 1:28. This works especially well given the allure of the aforementioned percussion, which kicks back in after the interruption, allowing the listener to re-appreciate its laid-back vigor.

The singing voice is a highlight here, but how, I still wonder, after all these years, to effectively describe a voice? Comparisons are at once helpful and slightly lazy. Yes, there’s something of Phoebe Bridgers in Violette’s semi-smoky mezzo, but also something rounder or maybe chestier to it, maybe? I guess the best I can do is to encourage you to listen for yourself and see what her lovely instrument conjures.

A singer/songwriter based in the Gippsland region of Australia, in the state of Victoria, Chloe Violette has in recent years made the transition from teacher to musician. “Beginnings” is the opening track on Colourfast, her debut, which was released back in February. Recording began in March 2023; the process, she says, was not rushed. Note that the birdcall that opens the track is from an Australian songbird called the superb lyrebird, recorded by Violette, as was the sound of the river that flows near her home in the country. You can listen to the album, and buy it, via Bandcamp.

Every ending a beginning

Eclectic Playlist Series 13.03 – June 2026

As my country gears up for a notable anniversary–we so like our round numbers, don’t we?–allow me to assure a troubled globe of civilized nations that many if not most of us Americans do not believe a savage fight in a metal cage to be either an appropriate or an enjoyable way to mark the occasion. Monumentally embarrassing, yes; morally and emotionally bankrupt, yes; symbolically terrifying, yes. Talk about watching an empire end. But this is what happens when capitalism is unrestrained and a criminal allowed to rise to power unchecked; and let us recognize that these two phenomena are intertwined. Here in the dark we await the nightmare’s end, longing for the better beginning that unfolds in its place.

The latest mix:

1. “Shrine” – The Dambuilders (Encendedor, 1994)
2. “That’s Where I Belong” – Paul Simon (You’re The One, 2000)
3. “Love Will Set You Free” – Carrie Cleveland (Looking Up, 1980)
4. “Bricks and Wedges” – Emma Harner (single, 2024)
5. “I’m in Disgrace” – The Kinks (Schoolboys in Disgrace, 1975)
6. “Teeo” – Vadoinmessico (single, 2011)
7. “Transparent Day” – The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (Part One, 1967)
8. “Forget About It” – Alison Krauss (Forget About It, 1999)
9. “The Other Days” – Sally Shapiro (The Other Days EP, 2025)
10. “Every Word Means No” – Let’s Active (Afoot EP, 1983)
11. “Glitter in Their Eyes” – Patti Smith (Gung Ho, 2000)
12. “Chain Reaction” – The Crusaders (Chain Reaction, 1975)
13. “Tell Me the Truth” – Midnight Oil (Earth and Sun and Moon, 1993)
14. “The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs” – Wye Oak (The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs, 2018)
15. “Wreck of the Hesperus” – Procol Harum (A Salty Dog, 1969)
16. “Empire” – Carsie Blanton (After the Revolution 2024)
17. “Trail of Tears” – Guadalcanal Diary (Walking in the Shadow of the Big Man, 1984)
18. “Remember Me” – Fleetwood Mac (Penguin, 1973)
19. “Dans le noir” – Juniore (single, 2013)
20. “The Late Greats” – Wilco (A Ghost is Born, 2004)

Random notes:

* Like an untold number of ’90s bands, the Boston-based Dambuilders–active originally from 1989 to 1998–have re-formed with a few of the original members; two newly recorded songs were released in April of this year. Musicians in the band’s heyday included Dave Derby, who later formed Gramercy Arms (featured here in 2008) and Joan Wasser, who went on to perform as Joan As Police Woman (featured here in 2011), and who remains active and compelling. (The latest JAPW release is 2024’s Lemons, Limes and Orchids.) “Shrine,” meanwhile, is the Dambuilders’ most well-known track; a re-recorded version is one of the two songs the band released this year. This is the original.

* Emma Harner, Nebraska born, is a singer/songwriter who labels the somewhat intricate guitar music she favors “math folk.” “Bricks and Wedges” is a stand-alone single she released in 2024. Her first full-length album, Evening Star, came out in April. Attending the Berklee School of Music, she is now based in Boston. The terminally online might know her from her TikTok videos but, call me quirky, I like full songs traditionally recorded.

* Someone should probably make a movie about Bob Markley, founder of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. Son of an oil industry executive in Oklahoma, Markley graduated from law school but had his eyes on a career in music. After hosting a local music show on Tulsa television, Markley, thanks to family money, moved to a mansion in Beverly Hills and began ingratiating himself with musicians in the local scene. After hosting a party at which the Yardbirds performed, he grew determined to join a band, largely as a way to attract girls, according to those who were there. But he was legally and musically astute enough to form a band inspired in part by the then relatively unknown Velvet Underground, give himself a lot of songwriting credit (even when he wasn’t the writer), and have a short run of major-label releases before things petered out. “Transparent Day” is a track from the band’s second album, Part One, released on Reprise Records in 1967.

* The Kinks are my all-time favorite band; this is now their ninth appearance in an Eclectic Playlist Series mix. They offer a catalog that is far from perfect, but I would contend that there is not one mediocre-to-bad Kinks album that doesn’t include a worthy gem or two (or three). There’s something in Ray Davies sense of songcraft and in his vocal presence that appeals deep in my psyche. Schoolboys in Disgrace was the last in a series of albums recorded for RCA that presented as album-long concepts, and for all its shortcomings it also contains my #1 favorite Kinks song, “No More Looking Back” (previously featured in EPS 2.04 back in 2015), as well as the hooky “I’m in Disgrace.” This band is so much more than their early stompers (“You Really Got Me,” et al); for an idiosyncratic overview of their best work, check out my Spotify playlist and see for yourself.

* A seemingly light-hearted addendum to Wilco’s prickliest album, “The Late Greats” charms with its humor-masked profundity and undeniable if idiosyncratic groove. I recently heard it on the radio (take that, Jeff Tweedy) and am happy to recycle it here. So good you won’t ever know.

“Us and the Moon” – Tugboat Captain

Amiable melancholy

“Us and the Moon” – Tugboat Captain

A sad and persistent keyboard figure provides the sturdy backbone for this subtly well-constructed tune. The keyboard melody is soon handed off to a violin, and those two instruments proceed to intertwine with great countermelodic purpose, continually augmenting the vocal melodies without ever matching them. Tugboat Captain’s front man, identified only as Sox, sings with a tenderness that accentuates “Us and the Moon”‘s amiable melancholy, lyrics floating by just beyond full comprehension. As you continue listening, an elusive logic nearly but not quite reveals itself, something possibly to do with that unflagging instrumental motif. The song is a mood, an escape hatch, a benediction.

Tugboat Captain is a five-piece band from South London; they’ve been around nearly 10 years, albeit with shifting personnel–only Sox and bassist Joshua Cobb remain from the original lineup. “Us and the Moon” is a track from their latest album, All At Once. The band was previously featured on Fingertips in April 2023 for the song “Flash of Light.”

“Chrysalide” – Cédric Dind-Lavoie

Fetchingly tactile instrumental

“Chrysalide” – Cédric Dind-Lavoie

Instrumentals don’t often sneak through the gateway here, largely because my ears seem to need a human voice in the mix. Mind you, I don’t need to understand what the voice is saying–I don’t in fact pay too much attention to lyrics as a general rule–but I seem somehow to require words with my music, at least in the realm of the non-classical. (With classical music, for me, it’s the reverse: no words is the preference. Go figure.) When a song has no vocals I seem to lose my bearings a bit; I find it more difficult to delineate what sparks the ineffable joy that I seek in music, which for 20-plus years has driven my desire to post what I post.

But here is “Chrysalide,” from Canadian composer and multi-instrumentalist Cédric Dind-Lavoie, and it definitely trips the mysterious inner wire that says “Share this.” I think it begins with the nearly three-dimensional soundscape that greets us as the song gathers itself in the opening moments. We get a stark keyboard drone (perhaps a harmonium?), quickly joined by a bass and fully three-dimensional percussion that fetchingly mixes electronic and organic sounds. It’s a rhythm section you can all but reach out and touch. Some dreamy synth flourishes add to the texture; and when the acoustic guitar joins in it’s almost as if it’s sitting in your lap so tactile and crystal-clear is the sound. “The goal is not grandeur but proximity,” says Dind-Lavoie’s press material, “an enveloping sonic environment that invites listeners inward.” That’s unusually well-stated for press material, not to mention accurate.

The piece is brisk and engaging, unfolding in a manner both well-ordered and ongoingly unpredictable, up to and including those electronic burbles that materialize in the final 40 seconds or so. You’ll find “Chrysalide” on the album Collages (2019-2022), which was released in April and finds the composer revisiting music he had previously written for contemporary dance and documentary film. You can check the whole thing out on Bandcamp. Dind-Lavoie is based in Montreal and has one of those multi-faceted resumes that you’ll often find amongst musicians who hang out in avant-garde circles. I tend to like it when such folks tip-toe into offerings that grab the ear without needing an advanced degree to appreciate.