Make Room On Your CD Shelf

Tony Peyser
Mirror contributing writer
  
   Marianne Pillsbury’s The Wrong Marianne is definitely in the Liz Phair mold but there’s more wit and humor and less shock and roll. The New York-based singer-songwriter can slyly devise a song like “Supersize” which extols the virtues of romantic obsession while simultaneously mocking them. “Boo Hoo” makes wry observations like, “When I stay in bed all day, they call it depression/When two people stay in bed all day, it’s called passion.” Pillsbury is a smart cookie and this debut is as comforting as a carton of ice cream after yet another really bad date.
   In the early 1980s, The Beat Farmers from San Diego made quite a splash on the L.A. music scene. These roots rockers stayed together until colorful front man Country Dick Montana’s onstage death from a heart attack in 1995. They’ve reunited as The Beat Farmers A.D. (“After Dick”) and their first album, Tales Of The New West, has been reissued along with cuts from other releases and a new song as well. Having never heard the band before, these 28 tracks floored me. It’s like a side project by John Fogerty, The Blasters and The Bangles. There are plenty of delights here like the jubilant “Bigger Stones” and the jangling “Road To Ruin,” while “Gun Sale At The Church” is a choogling mix of the second amendment and various commandments. The Beat Farmers are proof that great music has no expiration date.
   The Hang Ups’ self-titled first release for hip local label Trampoline Records is a little slice of 1960s pop heaven. This style of music is so damn tricky to do. A couple of wrong lyrics, unsettling chord changes or iffy harmonies and everything goes right out the window. But in five albums, these guys from Minneapolis have proven they know and love this kind of stuff. If the enchanting “One Of These Days” were an apartment you were thinking of getting, it’d take you about three seconds to write a check for the first and last month’s rent.
   L.A.-based Peter Himmelman does albums for kids. He’s also a composer for TV shows like “Judging Amy.” And he’s additionally an assured solo artist whose latest effort is Unstoppable Forces. My favorite song is from his second CD, From The Himmelvaults III, an assortment of unreleased tracks. The album notes call “Fatherhood” a run through, not even a demo. It’s just Himmelman, Joey Peters on snare drum and ace local musician Matt Cartsonis on slide guitar. This wise, irreverent look at being a dad has more heart than several aisles of Hallmark Cards.
   CDBaby has The Wrong Marianne for $12. Buy Tales Of The New West at www.rhinohandmade.com for $19.98. Get The Hang Ups at www.trampolinerecords.com for $10. Miles Of Music has Unstoppable Forces for $17.49.
   On April 5, Marianne Pillsbury is at The Gig in Hollywood.
   In honor of Bush making light of looking for WMDs at a journalists’ dinner, The Goofy Band Name Of The Week is … No Joke.