Stars After Stars After Stars

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Stars After Stars After Stars

Stars After Stars After Stars-which borrows its name from the legendary "J and H Productions" underground tape-finds Priggen tackling an assortment of tunes originally recorded by the likes of the Ramones, Big Star, Alice Cooper and the Zombies, as well as such lesser-known but no less notable acts as the Pontiac Brothers, the Jacobites and Hot Bodies, local legends from Priggen's hometown of New Haven, Connecticut. Although written by others, the artist imbues the songs with the same sonic adventurousness and emotional commitment that he applies to his own compositions.

The self-produced album was recorded with an array of vintage gear and a musical cast that includes Cheap Trick drummer Bun E Carlos, a longtime Priggen pal who plays on six of the album's songs and whose last non-Cheap Trick studio credit was with John Lennon. Stars After Stars After Stars also features a virtual Who's Who of the NYC music scene, including guitarists Ivan Julian (Voidoids/Matthew Sweet), Mark Spencer (Blood Oranges/Jay Farrar), Jon Graboff (Beat Rodeo/Laura Cantrell), bassists Danny Weinkauf (They Might Be Giants/Fountains of Wayne) and Scott Yoder (Kevin Salem/Amy Rigby), drummer Brian Doherty (They Might Be Giants/XTC), keyboardist C.P. Roth (Blessid Union of Souls) and mixer/engineer Adam Lasus (Clem Snide/Helium).
FULL TRACK LIST
In The Inside (Kerry Miller)
Be Married Song (Ward Dotson)
How We Were Before (Colin Blunstone)
When You Looked At Me (Jenifer Jackson)
Big Store (Stephen Duffy)
Only Children Sleeping (Nikki Sudden/Dave Kusworth)
Plainsailing (Tracy Thorn)
Questioningly (Douglas Colvin/John Cummings/Jeffrey Hyman)
Nightime (Alex Chilton)
I'm Eighteen (Bruce/Buxton/Cooper/Dunaway/Smith)
A Slow Soul  (Green Gartside)

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01 In The Inside.rm
02 Be Married Song.rm
03 How We Were Before.rm
04 When You Looked At Me.rm
05 Big Store.rm
06 Only Children Sleeping.rm
07 Plainsailing.rm
08 Questioningly.rm
09 Nighttime.rm
10 I'm Eighteen.rm
11 A Slow Soul.rm
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Rootstime.be Reviews

This is a review of both of my solo LP's. Now I'm not sure exactly what these say (or why a site with a Belgian domain is written in Dutch) but I got an idea from Babelfish that this guy likes 'em both. Link.

"De uit New Haven, Connecticut, komende singer-songwriter Spike Priggen heeft vooral binnen New York een sterke reputatie opgebouwd als leverancier van doorleefde muziek, stadsmuziek met gitaren als dominante factor. Buiten New York is hij niet zo bekend en misschien is zijn muziek wel te Amerikaans. Toch is het de moeite waard om naar zijn muziek te luisteren, er doen ten eerste altijd goede muzikanten op mee. Op zijn debuut album "The Very Thing That You Treasure" is dat Scott Yoder (Tandy, Star City), Jon Graboff (Amy Rigby), Joe McGinty (Psychedelic Furs), Jane Scarpantoni (R.E.M., Nathalie Merchant) en Brian Doherty (They Might Be Giants) en verder ... levert hij gewoon kwaliteit.

We horen elementen uit alt.country en roots en voor de liefhebbers van singer-songwriters is er een hoop te genieten. Priggen's zijn debuut, voor het nadrukkelijk aan de weg timmerende label Volare Records, is er een om je vingers bij af te likken. Als je tenminste van de betere power-pop houdt, zoals de nummers: "Yesterday", de ballads "The Right Thing" en "Nothing", en "I'm In Love" dat klinkt als een mix van country met rock en pop. Spike Priggen heeft een prachtplaat afgeleverd in 2001 met dit debuut, een plaat waarin hij trouwens bewijst een uitstekend singer-songwriter te zijn.

Op zijn volgende soloplaat "Stars After Stars After Stars" tapt hij uit een ander vat, niet dat de muziek zozeer verschilt. Neen, deze plaat is volledig een coverplaat. Hetgeen we eerder verwachten van reeds gevestigde artiesten, dan van iemand als Priggen die zich nog moet bewijzen. Maar goed, met de hulp van muzikanten uit bevriende bands brengt Priggen een eigen interpretatie van o.a. "How We Were Before" (Zombies), "Nighttime" (Big Star), "I"m Eightteen" (Alice Cooper), "Big Store" (Stephen Duffy), "Plain Sailing" (Tracy Thorn), allemaal songs van diverse pluimage en waarin hij volledig slaagt. Spike Priggen zijn beide albums staan voor mooie toegankelijke liedjes, bekwame muzikanten en een hele mooie stem; meer is er soms niet nodig om de luisteraar in de zevende hemel te krijgen. In de VS wordt het nummer "Every Broken Heart" uit zijn debuut gebruikt in een populaire tv-serie, dus ik voorspel nu alvast dat we in 2006 veel gaan horen van deze bijzondere rockmuzikant." Link.

Independents Only Review

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Spike Priggen "Stars After Stars After Stars"
The Volare Label

The true star of "Stars After..." is the songwriting. It's introspection at it's best and only strengthened by Spike Priggen's crisp vocals. After each listen you feel yourself getting involved in the songs and the stories told. Stories of engagements not meant to be (Be Married Song), heartfelt apologies (How We Were Before), bad memories, heartbreak and whisky (Questioningly). He approaches songwriting with heart in hand as if each moment of his life had a soundtrack. Accompanied by Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos, Spike Priggen pulls off on the most well written disc in years. It's got a country pop vibe like John Doe.
R.I.Y.L.: R.I.Y.L.: John Doe, Matthew Sweet, Paul Westerberg

Outtakes Review

Si pone a cavaliere di un certo pop underground questo ragazzo di New Haven cresciuto negli umori culturali della Grande Mela, che con il suo secondo Stars After Stars After Stars rielabora talune cover ricercate a ridisegnare piuttosto la sua identità. Il suo debutto nel 2001 è con il disco The Very Thing You Treasure e ora, con questo recente album, per Spike Priggen si delinea un percorso alternativo alla sua produzione per guardare a sé stesso da un altro punto di vista. Il risultato offre all'attenzione un disco non lontano da una linea esplicitamente new-wave, che sta tra Lennon e David Bowie, a cui lo stesso Spike dice ispirarsi. Sicché lo ritroviamo immerso in quanto della metropoli newyorkese furono talune sonorità di un periodo, che ha segnato un tassello di storia del rock. Il curriculum del nostro lo vede nella sua militanza in alcune band indipendenti, nei suoi trascorsi attraverso scene sotterranee del Connecticut, fintanto che l'approdo a New York City ne costituisca quasi l'ovvia prosecuzione, nello scenario di un certo power-pop di leggendaria J&H Production - Ramones, Big Star, Alice Cooper… -. E il personaggio, a metà tra un improbabile Waits acqua e sapone e un volto lontanamente rassomigliante al giovane Patrick Swaize, compare in primo piano in ogni meandro del cd quasi ad atto d'egocentrismo, se non fosse poi che i pezzi cantati sono tutti di altri.
L'interno del booklet vi rende merito, con un collage di varia provenienza e ritagli caricaturali da Elton John ai Cheap Trick by Sabatino '75. Non resta così che l'intervento di alcuni musicisti per delle songs intagliate nella medesima vena artistica, dalla collaborazione dei chitarristi Ivan Julian, Mark Spencer o John Graboff, al basso e batteria rispettivamente di Denny Weinkauf con Scott Yoder e Brian Doherty, C.P. Roths alle tastiere. Apre una In The Inside che sembra far rimembrare Heroes di David Bowie, su di una voce quasi alla Ryan Adams, indi a seguire la terza How We Were Before i cui tratti somigliano a delle ballate alla Rem, tra chitarre e voce. Resta cupa e malinconicamente distorta la Big Store a metà del disco, prima che la settima traccia Plainsailing si scopra tra le cose migliori insieme alla più dura I'm Eighteen, Slow Soul e l'ottava Questioningly tra le ballads più classicamente all'americana, per Stars After Stars. Un insistente audio-liner note data da un lungo dialogo fantasma è infine, prima del commiato con un interessante e più grezzo senza titolo: forse un'anticipazione di un prossimo lavoro autografo? (Matteo Fratti) Link

Shindig Magazine Review

Review by Paul Kerr

SPIKE PRIGGEN
Stars After Stars After Stars (Volare; CD)
    
A covers album can be a risky proposition, but Spike Priggen has chosen his material with care and reworked it with style and panache. There are good versions of obscure tunes such as 'Be Married Song' by Ward Dotson, Spike's old buddy from his Liquor Giants days, and a Jacobites tune, 'Only Children Sleeping'. On both songs a lap steel is used to great effect and without any overtones of country. On tunes by slightly more well known artists, Spike and his band give the songs reverential and melodic makeovers. The original artists would barely recognise 'Questioningly' (The Ramones) or 'I'm 18' (Alice Cooper) but I am sure they would be pleased with the new versions. Spike has a good voice that sometimes has the breathy quality of Freedy Johnston, another power pop veteran who has yet to receive the success he deserves. At other times he reminds me of Michael Stipe; in other words the guy can really sing.
    
After years playing as a sideman in classy US indie guitar bands like The Liquor Giants and Dumptruck, Spike's released his first album in 2001. The self-penned tunes received such critical acclaim that I'd like to track down a copy, as his approach to covers shows style and flair.

Americana UK Review

Great collection of obscure covers.  A veteran of American new wave/post punk/power pop bands including Dumptruck and the Hello Strangers, this is Priggen’s second album.  A collection of covers , he states that “a lot of the artists I admire were known as great songwriters and equally as great interpreters of other peoples songs.” Cover albums can be fairly awful vanity projects (the equivalent of inviting someone over to see your very tasteful collection) or a chance to bring a particular vision to bear on influences allowing a degree of insight into an artist’s roots (Bowie’s Pin Ups?, any other takers?). Priggen falls firmly into the latter camp although there is a  degree here of having impeccable taste (but then, don’t we all?). The only songs that listeners might immediately jump on are Alex Chilton’s “Nightime” and (gulp) Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen.” Otherwise Priggen’s tastes seem to be biased towards mid eighties British indies , Nikki sudden and the Jacobites, Everything But the Girl and Orange Juice with a nod to earlier years with the Zombies “How We Were Before” and a smattering of American indies. Gathering together a collection of worthy musicians including Bun E. Carlos(Cheap Trick) and (the) Mark Spencer (of Blood Oranges and Jay Farrar fame), the sounds here are redolent of vintage power pop, approaching the delights that were to be heard from Dwight Twilley and his ilk. Opener, “In the Inside” (originally by The Hot Bodies) churns along with  Priggen’s voice sounding a little like Alejandro Escovido. On “Big Store” (written by Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy, originally by the Jacobites) the band conjure up a colossal wall of noise with the guitars riffing away until unleashed at the end. The guitarists throughout (Mark Spencer and Ivan Julian of the Voidoids and Matthew Sweet) are superb. There are some hidden tracks after the main fare, one, a musicians’ in-joke apparently, is a recording of some guy pitching to record labels execs to put on a huge show of some sort. This tape provides the album’s title as he states that Warner Brothers have on their roster “stars after stars after stars.” The humour escapes me but after this there are two other songs, the final one a rousing cover of Orange Juice’s “Felicity”.  Priggen has a healthy attitude to the internet and his website has information on several of the covers on the album. There’s also an opportunity to listen to it as a stream, so if this review whets your appetite head on over there and tell him we sent you. Link.

New Haven Advocate Review

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"It may seem strange that an album of covers--by such familiars as Alice Cooper, the Ramones, the Zombies and Big Star--can seem so personal, so lived-in, so fluid and consistent in tone and outlook. But not if you know Spike Priggen, who adds nuance and wistful abandon to every band he leads or joins, from the Hello Strangers to Dumptruck. Many of the tracks are deliciously obscure (Scritti Polittis A New Soul, Tracey Thornes Plainsailing, and the Jacobites punkily dry-witted Big Store), and one of the best is locally rooted: Hot Bodies In the Inside, penned by Kerry Miller. All are couched in Spikes preternatural alt-pop cloud of knowing, and fluffed up by a spectacular group of sidemen, including Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos and Blood Oranges Mark Spencer. Now where's that promised second album of original tunes?" — Christopher Arnott

Me And Bun E

Here's me and Bun E Carlos in the front seat of my (since deceased) 1977 Volare Station Wagon. We're on our way to Brooklyn's "Fireproof Recording"  where Bun E played on 8 Spike Priggen tracks in one day (nice going Bun E!). 6 songs are on my new all-covers CD "Stars After Stars After Stars" and there'll be 2 more on my next all originals CD (working title "There's No Sound In Flutes").