Music at Flying Colors - Fan Photos

SPOCK'S BEARD at The Pound in San Francisco, April 2005

Brian Wilson at Davies Symphony Hall

"Smile" Concert 11/2004

Music at Flying Colors

http://www.fufkin.com/columns/mathews/mathews_09_01.htm

Here is an interesting review from FUFKIN.COM on comics related pop music.

POWER POP at Flying Colors

We get a lot of comments about the music we play in-store at FLYING COLORS COMICS & Other Cool Stuff. Music is an important part of the environment many regular shoppers here have come to enjoy. Since a good deal of the music we play in-store is from one great---and fiercely independent!--- record label, we decided to make some of our favorite CDs from that label available for sale in the store.

The label is NOT LAME RECORDINGS (http://www.notlame.com) , the premier purveyor of "POWER POP" --- cool tunes that have at their roots, the heritage of seminal bands such as THE BEATLES, THE KINKS, THE BEACH BOYS, BADFINGER, BIG STAR, CHEAP TRICK, THE RASPBERRIES, ELO, XTC and Bay Area legends JELLYFISH.

POWER POP is a style of rock featuring can't-get-it-out-of-your-head melodies, soaring harmonies, along with crunchy and jangly guitars. It's like the stuff you probably loved listening to on the radio, back when radio wasn't controlled by mega-corporations with the safest possible play-lists.

POWER POP is about radio when there was a chance to discover new and independent voices based on great songs rather than the cesspool of current video fashions. Back before "Video Killed the Radio Star". Back when radio was fun.

Just as in the comic book field, many of the freshest voices can be found in the pages of independent comics, the same can be said for pop-rock music. The best stuff can come from unlikely sources. Sure, you can find thousands of mega-selling discs at traditional record stores, but more than 90% of those are from a small handful of gigantic, conglomerate corporations. We stilll believe the best buys are the ones that give you something special. That's what you can find in the CDs we sell in FLYING COLORS.

If you are musically adventurous and like to find some great stuff off the beaten path every once in awhile ---and if you still enjoy the classic and forever-cool style of music exemplified by the bands mentioned above, give some of our NOT LAME CDs a try.

You'll like what you hear.

Current Not Lame favorites available at FLYING COLORS include:

The Dotted Line
A solo project from Brian Wilson Band member Scott Bennett and it will leave fans of Jon Brion, Jason Falkner, Wondermints, Neil Finn, Kevin Gilbert and Owsley with jaws to the floor. Anthemic song-writing and musicianship are a large part of the equation, but the greatest appeal may be in the soaring, lush and heartfelt vocals. Features guest appearances by Brian Wilson and the Wondermints.

The Cars - "Tribute: Substitution Mass Confusion"
A tribute to one of the all-time great power pop bands, The Cars. This 21 track tribute showcases contributions from Jon Auer (the Posies), Jason Falkner, Butch Walker, Owsley, Bleu, Gigolo Aunts (featuring Kid Lightning), Doug Powell, Damone, The Argument, Chris Von Sneidern, Action Action, Dum Dog Run (Rick Altizer) and many more.

The Supahip (Michael Carpenter/Mark Moldre) - "Seize the Worl"
It's a classic rock album, in the purest sense of the word. "STW" is packed filled with wedding-cake melodies, haunting, thrilling hooks and the colliding shadings two incredible musicians who happen to be disarmingly outstanding harmonizers. Touching on the pop stylings of McCartney-esque ballads (in fact late-era Beatle-isms abound all over the place here), through to indie pop rants, passing through country rock, epic pop and even a few delicious grooves.

International Pop Overthrow Volume 8 (3 CD`s)
The best way to sample so many new indie bands! There is an amazing mix here of unreleased and rare songs, plus upcoming releases mixed in with previously available tracks. 65 total tracks! That's a lot of power pop on 3 CDs for one low price!

The Everyday Things - "Lighten Up, Francis"
Produced by Spongetones leader Jaime Hoover, the classic refrains of The Beatles ring crystal clear all over The Everyday Things' awe-inspiring debut, "Lighten Up, Francis". Clear, readily identifiable echoes of timeless bands like The Plimsouls, The Beat(Paul Collins), The Romantics and 20/20 are enough reason to drop everything right now and listen to the sound bites!

Cliff Hillis - Be Seeing You
Cliff Hillis displays a voice and songwriting style that is both classic and current. "It's so perfect, there's no way it won't catch on in the pop-rock underground...powerful, guitar-driven pop that's slick without being cheesy, light and pleasant without inducing cavities, and that has a rock 'n roll soul. Cliff Hillis is one more great reason to empty your bowl"-Audiogalaxy Featuring heartfelt emotions poured out amidst interminably catchy hooks, addictive sing-a-long choruses, impossibly lovely vocals by Hillis and punchy, crunchy ringing guitars that totally hit the mark.

The Shazam - Rev. 9
Taking inspiration from The Beatle's "White Album", the 7 songs here reveal The Shazam and its lead songwriter Hans Rotenberry to be rock's great hope to break down the walls of resistance built by the teen-pop blah of the last few years. To get back to "real" music, this one will blow your mind!

And many others, too!

PROG-Rock at Flying Colors!

Let's start by name-dropping several classic progressive rock bands: GENESIS (especially pre-1980), YES, GENTLE GIANT, CAMEL, KING CRIMSON, early MOODY BLUES, EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER, RUSH, PROCOL HARUM... the list goes on!

If you were there to hear these bands at the beginning, chances are your first listen was from free-form underground FM radio stations. It wasn't until later that these powerful groups had "hit" songs heard by millions. Most of these bands specialized in style-hopping, stretched-out epics that defied three-minute pop singles heard on most radio stations. Sometimes, these epic tracks would fill the entire side of a vinyl album (like "Supper's Ready" from Genesis), with several 'movements' more stylistically close to classic music as grand stories were woven in big chunks of challenging music.

Progressive Rock is so designated because the music moves progressively (and sometimes aggressively) from pop to hard rock to jazz to classical to metal, sometimes even to madrigal!

In store at FLYING COLORS, you'll hear some of these classic bands, but more often, you'll hear the new, independent bands currently blazing new trails of progressive rock into the modern age.

While Flying Colors doesn't currently sell any of the CDs for these new bands in-store, we do highly recommend the following prog-rock recording artists:

SPOCK'S BEARD http://Spocksbeard.com
NEAL MORSE http://NealMorse.com
PORCUPINE TREE http://PorcupineTree.com
FLOWER KINGS http://FlowerKings.se

Flying Colors also recommends the following site for purchasing contemporary progressive rock:
RADIANT RECORDS http://radiantrecords.com

Questions? Comments? Other music recommendations?
E-mail Joe@FlyingColorsComics.com