Mr. Suave's Mod, Mod World

A Powerpop Modcast



Thanks to sonic epicure Kenny Vieth for turning me on to "Mr. Suave's Mod, Mod World," a podcast celebrating mod music, and mod-influenced music from past eras including soul, ska, garage, sixties R&B, punk, britpop, acid jazz and especially my love that darest not speak its name, Powerpop.

Kenny burned me a CD of two Modcasts and they were great, from the opening salvos of The Mooney Suzuki shouting "Yeah You Can" to the twee Malaysian powerpop of Kuala Lumpur's Couple. I especially loved the "Girls, Girls, Girls" podcast that featured nothing but, duh, songs about girls (who Mr. Suave characterized as "the greatest thing in the world"). Belgium's The Kids and the UK's Creation, Hitman and Dirty Pretty Things were among the selected artists.

And I liked how Mr. Suave name-checked the excellent Yellow Pills CD compilations on Big Deal Records from the Nineties (unfortunately all out-of-print, though used copies are available from Amazon and WFMU's Beware of the Blog has links to 10 of its fave powerpop MP3s from this series). The CD comps were an offshoot of the Jordan Oakes' music fanzine Yellow Pills, which I used to read back in the '90s. I was such a fan that I interviewed Jordan Oakes over the phone as part of a powerpop music review in the Baltimore City Paper. Alas, the only Yellow Pills comp currently in print is Yellow Pills: Prefill Numero 004, a rather pricey CD ($32.99!) from the reissue label Numero Group.

The other great powerpop compilations were Rhino's Come Out and Play: American Power Pop (1975-1978) and Shake It Up: American Powerpop II (1978-1980), which were part of its D.I.Y. series and Rhino's Poptopia: Power Pop Classics series (all out-of-print, natch; like I said, powerpop is a love that dare not say its name!).

Anyway, check out the Mr. Suave's Mod, Mod World website, where song titles are linked directly to the MP3 source file of the show for easy downloading. Each modcast is between 30-40 minutes and Mr. Suave posts a new show every week. You can stream the show from the Podomatic homepage.