Fans of listening to hard-to-find Southern power-pop on the Internet: Rejoice, for someone has uploaded three songs off Powerbill, the 1993 album by The Semantics, to YouTube! "Don't Say Goodbye" (above) is about as perfect a piece of pop melancholy you're going to hear -- the chorus is so, so good. (Side note: Read Michael Chabon's essay on Big Star in the latest McSweeney's. If I had my copy with me I would quote it at length.)
As many of you know, before Owsley was a producer and Amy Grant sideman, he started The Semantics in Nashville with Millard Powers. Ben Folds, before forming BF5, played on their early demos. Zak Starkey (Ringo Starr's son) and Jody Spence joined the band and played on the album they recorded for Geffen, which was shelved, then later released in Japan after the band broke up. (It actually sold pretty well there, despite almost no promotion. Go figure.) There are two other album cuts up on the Tubes: the sweet-n-sad "Average American" and the more rockin' "Sticks and Stones," which features some wacky vocoder along the way. Enjoy! Don't thank me, thank Dudgeon82.
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