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Summer songs for modern lovers
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Fred Thomas, the singer, songwriter, guitarist, and ringleader behind the Detroit-area indie-rock outfit Saturday Looks Good to Me, does a mean impression of Jonathan Richman. Last Thursday at the Middle East, he related a story — imaginary, it turned out, but not implausible — in which he runs into Richman at a Dunkin’ Donuts down the block and after trying to play him a song is rebuffed. "Not gonna happen," he imagined Richman saying, getting the singer’s grumpy, basso profundo tone just right. You might not peg Thomas as a Richman fanatic from All Your Summer Songs (Polyvinyl), the latest SLGTM disc, on which he leaves much of the singing to an all-star line-up including Ted Leo, Ida’s Liz Mitchell and Daniel Littleton, Retsin’s Cynthia Nelson and Tara Jane O’Neil, Outrageous Cherry’s Matthew Smith, and Secret Stars’ Jodi VB. But at the Middle East, he stripped Summer Songs to its essence by leading a guitar/bass/drums trio (with the bassist doubling up on Farfisa organ). The vast majority of the disc’s elaborate arrangements — horn sections, string sections, exotic percussion, and orchestral flourishes recalling the glory days of Motown — fell by the wayside. Thomas compensated by playing his Spectorish teenage pop songs fast, loud, and sloppy; add in his adenoidal, rubber-band delivery, a streak of willful, romanticized na•vetŽ, and — voil‡! — you’ve got a modern-day Modern Lovers. At times he seemed in too much of a hurry, and the band were a mess, though an interesting mess along the lines of such ’60s-schooled punks as the Oblivians and Teengenerate (and like the Oblivians, Thomas dragged out the old Mahalia Jackson–identified gospel standard "Live the Life"). Their moments came on a couple of the disc’s slower numbers: Thomas is a gifted tunesmith and a thoughtful lyricist, and given the space to breathe, his songs about the awkward pairings of earnest boys and girls held their sparkle. Beneath the Motown arrangements and emo poetics are ambitious, big-hearted melodies, and even at punk velocity, you could make out that the hook in "You’re No Good with Secrets" borrows a snippet from Paul McCartney’s "Live and Let Die," and that in "All Our Summer Songs" the verse faintly echoes Celine Dion’s "My Heart Will Go On." Some summer songs never go out of style.
BY CARLY CARIOLI
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