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Vinnie DePolo


Billy K.

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Finally got to stream the first song. Sounds like a demo, and a run-of-the-mill song. Was kind of disappointed....saw all those drums in the photo, and in reality, it was two singers and an acoustic.

Well, I'm going to check the second song out, as well as anything that says influenced by the Berries.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Checked out a few more of those "inspired" by the berries and/or Eric......

The Raves, who are from Nashville, actually are quite decent.......but sounding like more like Simple Plan with more backup vocals and less heavy of a guitar sound....but nothing really really reminiscent of our heroes.

Brian Michael Page of Rhode Island actually knows how to write songs, and is very free with mentioning Eric when describing the songs. Problem is the musicianship is not all that great and the production is totally atrocious.....what can I say?

And the search goes on....

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I was just listening last night to what I feel is the best of the "Raspberries-inspired" power pop bands---The Scruffs. They came out of the same Memphis scene as Big Star at around the same time, and saw their first LP, "Wanna Meet the Scruffs?" released in 1977. It's been reissued on CD, along with lots of other archival, previously-unissued Scruffs stuff (the best of which is the "Teenage Gurls" disc). You can find some soundclips at www.notlame.com

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I've mentioned this before: A few years ago Goldmine did a story on the best Pop albums of all-time. The one that finished in 1st (ahead of the likes of the 'berries and Badfinger etc.) was Chris von Sneidern's "Big White Lies." I had never heard of this guy (he's from San Francisco by the way), but bought the album on the strength of the review.

Well guess what? It was great! In the credits, Chris even thanks Eric, so you know that he's been influenced by Eric. If you can find a copy of the disc, I highly recommend it. If you can't, let me know.

Another Eric-influenced artist (as has been mentioned many times) is Kyle Vincent. Kyle tends to drift more to the "Winter Dreams" side of Eric than the "Tonite You're Mine" side - if you know what I mean.

Marvin

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That's weird....living in the Bay Area up until three years ago, I was pretty much up on everything locally....but never heard of that CVS guy.

And Page's stuff, well it's more inspired by solo Eric, as opposed to Berries. The poor quality of everything other than songwriting makes it difficult to listen to.

"Arianna" by the Raves, is decent, despite being a different brand of power pop than the Cleveland or UK kind.

And there is another Cleveland band that supposedly is good....but I'm not going to rely on hearsay.....

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Marvin, to be honest, I don't even remember ranking the albums numerically (although I will be for an upcoming book project I'm working on). Also, it's been a while since I wrote that piece. I'm sure that it will change when I rank the top power pop albums again (and it's all subjective, anyway).

I suppose the high ranking would have been because the CvS record is so darned consistent, with nothing even approaching an ordinary track. It really is one of the best pop albums I've ever heard, and definitely in my top 10 of all time. Fans of Badfinger in particular would dig it, I think.

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I think I may have the issue around here somewhere, Marvin, thanks. I'm sure "Starting Over" was also in my top 10, along with Adam Schmitt's "World So Bright," 20/20's debut record, Tommy Keene's "Songs From the Film" and something by Shoes.

I would add to the list the Orange Humble Band's "Assorted Creams" (AMAZINGLY GREAT pop album!) and Cotton Mather's "Kontiki" (imagine if the Beatles had recorded "Revolver" in 1997).

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