Three Imaginary Girls - Keith John Adams

Imaginary Mixtape {August 2010}: Lost at the festival, where could they be?

imaginary liz — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:08:06 +0000

Lost at the festival, where could they be?
At any ole place where the wi-fi is free.

It's true, our favorite part of the summer is the avalanche of festival possibilities. There's little better in the world than dozens of your new favorite bands playing one after the other on a sunny day in an exotic locale. This edition of the Imaginary Mixtape we share tracks from some of the cutest bands playing the Athens Popfest {August 10-14 in Athens, GA} and take a consoling look back at the amazing Indietracks festival line up {takes place each year at the end of July in the UK - fingers crossed next year we can make the trip?}. But, we start off the podcast looking at some awesome August events in Seattle. Get ready to mark up your calendars!

You can listen to a stream or download the MP3 version of the podcast on the imaginary bandcamp page. Bandcamp prohibits tracks longer than 25 minutes {I think it's some regulation against jam bands?}, so the podcast is split into three sections for those that like to listen via the bandcamp stream.

PART 1: Preview of some Seattle shows and events in August

PART 2: Athens Popfest preview

PART 3: Looking back at the UK festival, Indietracks

If you are the type that likes to listen to podcasts in itunes, download the .m4a file here {one single file with fancy chapters even!} and then open it in your itunes {Thanks to Jigsaw Records for hosting it!}.

Tracklisting: Imaginary Mixtape - August 2010:

Unclever

the sleepwalker — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:12:51 +0000

http://hhbtm.com/order.html

KJA.jpg

The United Kingdom’s Keith John Adams has three first names and his music is appropriately just as familiar and accessible. The aptly titled Unclever is, in fact, too comfortable, familiar, and accessible an experience. It certainly provides the soundtrack for some rump-shaking party fun, but that’s about the extent of it.

Unclever is full of some fine sonic sensibilities combining the blues-rocking of a sedated, but polished Jon Spencer, and the lyrical and vocal eccentricities of Jonathan Richman. Although the music is bouncy and bubble-gum joyous, there is relatively little arrangement or structure variance. In fact, the arrangements are extraordinarily simplistic with a minimum of instrumentation. As such, listening to the album as a whole leads to a sense that you might have heard the same song a few tracks earlier.

The lyrics are, at moments, intriguingly goofy and odd, but far more often, painfully silly and nonsensical. This shortcoming is somewhat abated by Keith’s skillful repetitive playground-chant delivery, which did make me wonder a bit if Keith might have had an earlier career as a middle-school bully. It is a bit too much to sustain for the whole album and it might make you feel like you’re being teased by a classmate, but the delivery does add a fresh and innovative shell to the otherwise lightweight lyrics.

The opening track, “Bed,” begins with a few lines that set the tone:

“Well you made your bed, now you lie in it. It’s an empty bed and it smells a bit. Get down, get down, get down, get down, if you looked into the mirror do you see a clown? Get down, get down, get down, get down, but if you looked into the mirror do you see a frown?”

There are some glimmering standouts. The best track on Unclever, “Elizabeth Hodgkinson Warzone,” has the subversive innocence of a rejected Shel Silverstein poem and a straighter alt-rock arrangement. Although the content itself doesn’t surpass the other tracks, something about its sneaky foot-tapping subterfuge and its ba-ba-ba chorus holds more water.

There is definitely an anti-folk gene pervading Keith John Adam’s DNA and as such, it’s never clear if he is mugging for you or at you, but it’s certain that his sincerity has been carefully hidden away back in the old country. You definitely won’t get much mental exercise listening to Unclever. If, however, Keith just wants you to tap your toes and shake your bum, he has succeeded.

There is definitely an anti-folk gene pervading Keith John Adam’s DNA.

Sing along with the new Keith John Adams' song, "Three Imaginary Girls"

imaginary liz — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:11:00 +0000

Keith John Adams wrote a song about Three Imaginary Girls... have a listen! Personally, we think it rules.

Your very own Keith John Adams song (about YOU)!

imaginary liz — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 03:44:50 +0000

Our friends at Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records just emailed us about a neat preorder promotion for the new Keith John Adams album -- a song about YOU!

Ltd Ed. Vinyl = Happy Happy Birthday To Me!!!

imaginary liz — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 17:34:07 +0000

The Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records 2007 Singles Club is limited to 450 copies. Finally - the perfect gift for your hard-to-buy-for vinyl loving friend (let me know if you need my mailing address).

Pip

Chris Estey — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 08:00:00 +0000

7.8

http://www.keithjohnadams.com/releases.html

keithjohnadams05dec.jpg

Keith John Adams is a UK artist who somehow on his second full-length solo album Pip takes the pastry shell of modern New Wave revisionism — experimental time signatures, Beatles-inspired keyboards, jagged riffs and jazzy dance hall meanderings — and floods them to bursting with a unique delicious creamy custard of marzipan-sweet melodies, crunchy yet swinging rhythms, and alternately tart and tasty lyrical imagery. It's a sound that pleasures today as much as it would have on a vintage Stiff Records release, filled with all the play and progressiveness that label exemplified (not unlike Adams' current home, the face-lickingly wonderful Happy Happy Birthday To Me).

Starting off as a member of the acoustic-based Horse Doctors back in the early 90s, later on with Zuno Men (which had a hit single on the BBC, "Stay With Me"), Adams can layer any song with splendiferous joyful textures using things like toy pianos and accordions whipped together with traditional rock gear. He happily and unabashedly sings about a friend transformed by love (the absolutely scrumptious "Torch"), very touchingly about his adorably common sense and affectionate father ("Dad") and the special relationship they share, and wanting to completely absorb a lover's mind in curious and passion-filled infatuation ("Inconsequential Thought").

The hypnotic plucking and tinkling never gets annoying, only making the hooks on the choruses that much more fetching. Imagine a Kevin Coyne without angst, but just as imaginative. There may be a couple songs here too many, and perhaps a little less jauntiness would vary the mood throughout, but that's nicking pits.

The Brit bubble-punk of Pip follows 2002's Sunshine Loft and a couple of mini-albums after Adams toured the States for three weeks in 2004. His current bass player on the road is Ant Chapman, who crisply and powerfully produced Pip in London over the past couple of years. Adams plays almost all the instruments himself on the album, but unlike some other one man band geniuses, his songs are filled with a lot of spontaneity and loose-playing, not sterile perfectionist constructiveness. And a whole lot of toy piano, too, which I can't get enough of!

Keith John Adams is a UK artist who somehow on his second full-length solo album Pip takes the pastry shell of modern New Wave revisionism and floods them to bursting with a unique delicious creamy custard of marzipan-sweet melodies, crunchy yet swinging rhythms, and alternately tart and tasty lyrical imagery.