Friday, June 15, 2007

Cold Weather, Icy Hands

It's strange that I've liked Chuck Jenkins more solo than with band. I think I was turned off Icecream Hands in the late 90s because they seemed too JJJ. (The national youth station's propensity to play too many bands that sound similar blurs the lines between good and shit - hence The Used.)

Icecream Hands - The Good China (Dust Devil Music, 2007)

Everyone in Oz was doing it then, the guitary power-pop thing. Snout and The Fauves were great, Custard were fun for a while, Jebediah, Spiderbait and Regurgitator, even early Powderfinger. In there somewhere, Jenkins' boys, perservering. I remember the title Sweeter Than the Radio and I'm sure I'd recognise Spirit Level Windowsill, but apart from that it didn't cut through the sea of tunes.

Then last year I listened a bit to Chuck's second solo album, The City Gates. Open Road became a bit of a theme song for part of France, seen from train windows as weeks stretched out ahead without mileposts. Great lyrics, good hooks, simple and effective production.

And that was part of my turning back to guitar pop. I've been listening to it a lot this year. Smudge and The Lemonheads, for instance. The Wellingtons and New Estate are polar opposites in most ways, but they both realise that guitars run best on smooth, high-octane hooks. So do Icecream Hands.

But what they do better than either of these bands is tell stories. The story Chuck tells over the top of an ecstatic, pounding rock backing in In the Back Seat of a Stolen Car is all about love and regrets and betrayal and endings: "there's not too many places to hide/ on this side of the river, on this side of town". That gets me every time, that feeling that you've finished with the whole city.

From there, into Holding On, a great ballad which could be a Harry Nilsson outtake, fitting well with the current 60s revival. But it's the rocky tracks which do it for me most, the simple Say That You Want Me Some More following, without a heap of substance but a good simple pop song.

The album's full of really good songs, but the stories do it for me. Launceston, a multi-city tale about a girl loved and lost. And the second highlight, My Mother Was a Dancer, which reminds of Paul Kelly in its Aussie-childhood subject matter (When I First Met Your Ma?) and the Beach Boys in its sweet harmonies.

It's such a simply Aussie album, it feels like growing up and losing and loving and living. At least to me. You better buy it to see for yourself. Tell ya what, if you see me at the gig on Saturday night, you can demur in person. But do it after their set, just to be sure.

[buy The Good China from Sanity online]

[see Icecream Hands, Saturday June 16th at The Northcote Social Club with Emma Heeney and D Rogers - beautiful songs aplenty]

[visit Icecream Hands at their myspace]

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