Gold Motel
Gold Motel‘s “Cold Shoulders” brought vintage Blondie to my mind when I first heard it, and it has remained a favorite (that LW–lovely wife—also likes it seems to support the Blondie connection). The Chicago 5-piece is built around Greta Morgan, formerly of The Hush Sound (yeah, I never heard of them either). They claim to have come up with the name by pulling words out of a hat. Plenty of videos on YouTube, but they’re all live versions or remixes. Hear the original version and/or buy it for a buck at BandCamp.
Craft Spells
Craft Spells is another of those bands with vocals that sound like they were recorded from a payphone in new Jersey while the rest of the band was in the studio. The track “After The Moment” evokes a Morrissey impersonator who has jumped on stage with a jaded disco wedding band, by which I mean to say it’s fabulous (a la The pains of Being Pure at Heart). I read that they are duo of Justin Vallesteros and Frankie Soto of Seatle via Stockton California, which leads me to wonder which of the five above they are, not to mention who are the other three! I’m open to any updates!
Minitel Rose
Like most French electropop, you’ll either love or hate Minitel Rose. From the opening synth riff (heard on Passport Approved, BTW) , I thought I might be listening to new Teddybears track. Whichever memeber of this trio (Raphael, Romain and Quentin) is doing the main vocal, he’s got that vaguely robotic quality to his English that I, for one, love (there was a German prog-rock trio called Triumvirat that I listened to in the 70s whose vocalist learned his English phonetically — he didn’t understand a word of what he was singing— that had this same quality, but that’s a story for another time).
djeddieo.com 