Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Everybody Wants to be Teenage Fanclub these days.

Last year I ran a post titled "Everybody Wants to be Neil Finn these days" in response to a spate of Finn soundalikes I ran across. And as you can see from the title, the same phenomenon seems to have cropped up with respect to TF. So if you worship at the altar of Norman Blake, here you go:

Mr. D-Wings & Wheels. This one came to my attention when Ray at Kool Kat featured it in his weekly update, and it's a fine example of the midtempo pop hooks and sweet harmonies that make for the classic TF sound. Plus it's available on eMusic. MySpace

The Wonderful Guinea Pigs. The good news: this is one of the better "discs" I've heard this year; this Swedish band has the goods, with "Mirror to Mirror" and "Desperate Days" being two of the better songs i've heard lately and they capture the TF sound to a "T" (and an "F"). The bad news: I used the term "disc" because they don't have a proper one for sale yet. Normally, I don't advocate file-sharing, but their 13-track demo/promo is floating around out there if you're resourceful enough. Just make sure you buy it when they release it properly. In the meantime, you can listen to them on their MySpace.

The Swedish Polarbears-Worship This!"EP"
. Another Swedish band with a TF-fetish. But these guys don't monkey around (guess I'm mixing my animal metaphors) with their influences - they wear them on their sleeves, as witnessed by their signature track, "Norman Blake". Like their Swedish brothers above, they don't have a proper release out, but all 4 tracks are streaming at their myspace. Here's the "Norman Blake" video:

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