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Reviewing music is very much a subjective endeavor. Even when a critic seeks to provide useful cues and references to help readers form their own opinions about the music, it\u2019s ultimately the perspective of the reviewer \u2013 complete with its experience and\/or baggage \u2013 that informs the review.<\/p>\n
Customarily, the research (if one can call it that; homework<\/em> might be an even better term) that the reviewer does is confined to two activities: listening to the music and reading up on its creation and creators. Taken together, those components of preparation provide enough raw data from which an informed (and hopefully informing<\/em>) review can be created.<\/p>\n I mention all this as the backdrop against which I encountered The Power of And<\/i>, the debut solo album from Spongetones<\/a> bassist and songwriter Steve Stoeckel. Through a very fortuitous sequence of events, I was invited by Stoeckel (we\u2019re friends) to join him onstage \u2013 with two other fine musicians \u2013 for a pair of live dates at The Cavern Club and Pub in Liverpool. Songs from The Power of And<\/i> will form the core of the sets. I\u2019m headed across the pond in just a few days. To say that I\u2019m honored and excited is understatement; The Cavern is to me what Jerusalem or Mecca is to religious people, and I’m a major fan of the man and his music.<\/p>\n Of course I had been listening to and enjoying The Power of And<\/i> for quite some while before this opportunity came up; I had plans to review it. Yet when the live gig opportunity came up, I paused, thinking that perhaps it might be (or be seen as) some kind of conflict of interest to review the album.<\/p>\n But I\u2019ve thought it over more, and have reconsidered. The thing is, first off, I didn\u2019t play on the record. Steve sang and played a great deal of what one hears on the album, and musicians all far more skilled and talented than myself contributed their parts to the sessions. So: no conflict there.<\/p>\n Secondly, and more importantly in this context, I have something more to offer than is customary. Because beyond merely listening to and reading about these songs, I\u2019ve taken a deep dive and learned how to play<\/em> them (by the way, I\u2019m a keyboardist). The process of breaking down these arrangements, getting under the hood<\/i> of the songs so to speak, has gifted me with a much deeper appreciation for the fine and often subtle skill that Stoeckel displays as songwriter and recording artist.<\/p>\n And I want to share some of that insight with you.<\/p>\n The album opens with \u201cLaura Lynn,\u201d an uptempo rocker that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Spongetones album. Its arrangement is based around the traditional guitars\/bass\/drums setup, with a bit of keyboard work for extra texture. Stoeckel\u2019s Pop Co-op<\/a> band mate Joel Tinnel lays down the song\u2019s lead guitar parts, and while they\u2019re tasty and expressive, it\u2019s what\u2019s going on under them that\u2019s most inventive. Stoeckel has a rare facility for pop songcraft, and that doesn\u2019t mean simply lining up three or four chords into a song form. His subtle shifting between major and minor chords is the sort of technique that would pass right by the casual listener. But spend time trying to play along and you discover the color and nuance that doing so adds to the song. Stoeckel doesn\u2019t do it to be clever or tricky (nor to make things difficult for someone trying to learn to play the things). No, instead he does it to make the song better, more interesting.<\/p>\n The first time I heard \u201cMod Girl,\u201d I liked it fine enough, but didn\u2019t consider it quite as immediate as some of the other tracks on The Power of And<\/i>. It\u2019s what reviewers sometimes call a grower<\/i>; the song can take its time to warm up to some listeners. But it’s well worth the small effort. Here, Stoeckel\u2019s longtime close friend and Spongetones bandmate Pat Walters provides the lead guitar work. And again it\u2019s those subtleties within the song\u2019s structure that make it something special. On the surface, it\u2019s an exceedingly simple song. But that feel \u2013 a key to its accessibility \u2013 is deceptive. The nice thing is, one can ignore those under-the-hood intricacies and just enjoy the tune.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Emerald Sea\u201d is a lovely, jaunty tune with flavors of Celtic folk. Primarily an electric bassist, Stoeckel has long been enamored of the ukulele and used it to good effect on many recordings (most notably on his releases with fellow Spongetone Jamie Hoover<\/a>, billed as Jamie and Steve<\/a>). There\u2019s no uke on \u201cThe Emerald Sea,\u201d but that acoustic folk sensibility finds voice in the song. There\u2019s some wonderful instrumental dialogue between Michael Mitsch\u2019s pennywhistle (there\u2019s a back story there; ask Steve, if you get the chance) and Tinnel\u2019s electric lead guitar. A casual listen might miss that and conflate the two as a single instrument; knowing what\u2019s actually going on musically only increases one\u2019s appreciation of the song.<\/p>\n After an opening figure, \u201cChristine\u201d begins as a model of simplicity, with a pounding, repeated chord. And unless one listens closely, the song maintains that straightforward, somewhat conventional (not in a bad way) character. But play along and you\u2019ll discover that the chord changes are something of a whipsaw. This isn\u2019t prog rock by any measure, but Stoeckel\u2019s inventive use of unexpected chord changes isn\u2019t the kind of thing one usually finds in pop. It\u2019s a testament to his artistry that the technique works in this context, and that it strengthens the song’s pop character rather than introducing an auditory obstacle for pop-oriented listeners.<\/p>\n \u201cJust One Kiss\u201d opens with just one musician: Stoeckel sings and plays that uke I mentioned. But his skills as an arranger are on brilliant display here: at just the right moment, the band comes in, the song opens up, and the whole thing transforms into a spirited rocker. Next, the arrangement pulls back a bit, and then it charges forward a second time, now with even more gusto. The way the song ebbs and flows makes it come alive in a way that a mere pop song might not do.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Monsters Under My Bed\u201d is a gentle, winsome and heartfelt ballad. Its inclusion shows the variety that has long been a hallmark of Stoeckel\u2019s songwriting. The sonic contrast between the primarily acoustic arrangement and Keith Shamel\u2019s soaring electric guitar solos is a thing of beauty.<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t mentioned the other fine players on the album; they include Rick McClanahan from the Coconut Groove Band, vocalist (and Big Stir Records labelmate) Irene Pe\u00f1a on vocals, the dear departed Chris Garges (playing drums on \u201cWhistling Past Graveyards\u201d) and Stoeckel\u2019s Spongetones bandmate Eric Wilhelm on drums. Wilhelm is also part of the Liverpool-bound lineup; we\u2019ll be joined for both performances by guitarist Peter Watts of the simply amazing Canterbury-based Spygenius<\/a>. Come say hi if you\u2019re there.<\/p>\n There are eight other songs on The Power of And<\/i>; each has its charms. Anyone won over by even one track discussed above is sure to find pleasure in those as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reviewing music is very much a subjective endeavor. Even when a critic seeks to provide useful cues and references to help readers form their own opinions about the music, it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,51,62,65],"tags":[2056],"class_list":["post-25340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-pop","category-rawk","category-review","tag-steve-stoeckel","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25340"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25374,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25340\/revisions\/25374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}