Cool Stuff for a Hot Friday from Francie Moon and Charly Bliss

Francie Moon by John Meeks Craddock

Hot Takes

Looks like we're done for the time being with April showers, and we can start looking ahead to May flowers. This weekend kicks off a big run of activity that goes into next week, so I figured I'd send you out there with a couple of things that I've been enjoying over the last couple of days.

Francie Moon, So This Is Life

Francie Moon (aka, Melissa Lucciola) is a New Jersey treasure. Francie Moon bleeds and sweats the music she makes; and, I'm ashamed to say, I haven't given her work the coverage it deserves here. Back in September, I did manage to share single "Red Cloud Road," which shows up as the closing track on Francie Moon's debut LP So This Is Life.

I said of that track that it sounds like it "could be playing for you from an old, beat-up radio on a hot day as you drink an ice-cold Coke from a glass bottle." I may have been a little off with that. As I listen to So This Is Life -- which Moon originally recorded to cassette with Richie Samartin before transferring, overdubbing, mixing, and mastering the final product with Samartin and Jon Irizarry -- I do get the retro feel I was trying to evoke with that description. It's less relaxing, though, more full of some kind of fire.

Opener "Grow" is bluesy and yearning with Moon's singular voice howling "I wanna grow, but I don't know how." "Charmed" sways on bendy guitars as it makes the case for living in the moment. The title track tells of people living their lives, while it asks "is that all?" and the guitar wails away in the background.

Throughout So This Is Life, Francie Moon sounds wise beyond her years. She possesses a voice and a delivery that make you feel like you're listening to a revered singer from a by-gone era. Her songs seem to come from someone who's seen a great deal and still has some big questions.

So This Is Life is available over at Francie Moon's Bandcamp page.



Charly Bliss, Guppy

Last Friday, Brooklyn's Charly Bliss released their long-awaited debut LP, Guppy. I waited for this one for a long time, and I spent all of this week being not disappointed. Charly Bliss have said that they spent a while trying to find themselves playing among avant-garde and experimental bands in Brooklyn. It was when they finally decided to embrace the fact that they are a pop band that things finally came together.

"Glitter" finds singer Eva Hendricks asking, "Am I the best? Or just the first person to say yes?" while sticking with a relationship she kind of hates. I saw a YouTube comment on the video for "Ruby" that said something like, "Weezer fronted by Alvin from The Chipmunks." While that was probably intended to be mean-spirited in the way YouTube comments can be, it's the combination of sugary pop vocals and heavy 90s guitar riffs that make Guppy so addictive. And Hendricks's vocals can go from teeny-bopper innocence to manic freakout in a split second as they do a few times on "Percolator."

I've always loved that strain of power pop that combines hooks and heaviness. Charly Bliss add something extra by making exuberant pop that goes right up to the edge of bursting into something wilder. On "DQ," Hendricks sings, "I bounced so high, I peed the trampoline;" and almost every song here is like that. Flying high to the point where you just about lose control.

Guppy is out now on Barsuk Records.



OK. That's it for now. Have a great weekend. Get outside. Ride a bike. Play some baseball.