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Fantastic power poppers the Mommyheads are that rare thing, a New York band who feels no need to reference Velvet Underground or Blondie. Instead, the Mommyheads worship at the altars of XTC, the Beatles, the Raspberries and Badfinger. But that was before they relocated to San Francisco, where they cast off that smarmy NYC grit and embraced San Fran psychedelia ala Jellyfish, Jefferson Airplane and Ken Kesey's Acid Test. At the end of the continent where else can you go but into the inner world of the mind? I'll show you the life of the mind!

Ten years after their supposed swansong, 1997's The Mommyheads, they return with You're Not A Dream, refuting John Lennon's famous comment re Beatlemania: "The dream is over" and even his cryptic backwards masked revelation "Paul is dead, miss him, miss him." Paul's not dead, and John is, but the Mommyheads offer enough sunshine, power pop and light to almost make us for the moptop four from Liverpool.

Recalling their mighty back catalog including 87's Magumbo Meat Pie, 92's Coming Into Beauty, 94's Flying Skull (sense the growing sense of frustration in that album title?), 95's Bingham‘s Hole (a weak stab at mainstream funk friendliness), and their major label debut and demise, The Mommyheads.   

Wikipedia: "Produced by Don Was, the CD met with mixed reviews. The band was dropped during a label shake-up before the album was even released, and the album was barely promoted. The Mommyheads broke up shortly thereafter. Many fans hold this as a perfect example of a major label ‘ruining' a band that had established critical success and a solid fan base with the quality of its independent recordings and excellent live shows."

How true. Major labels used to be all powerful. But at least they provided a launching pad for bands with the goods. Now they just shovel s*** as accountants sign bands and publicists more interested in clothes than music make life miserable for us, your underpaid and trusted music journalists. But that is another story, and probably another blog. Okay, it's worth mentioning, under the blog title: "Publicists Are The Enemy, Followed by Their Accountant Bosses and Glass Towered Fatcat Label Presidents."

"Help Me" recalls the Police, Badfinger, maybe McCartney in "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" mode. It recalls the 1980s of the Producers, not the new wave of XTC. You're Not A Dream is fully fleshed out and tunefully poppy: "Work" recalls a non anti-depressant-taking Fiona Apple, "Angels And Weatherman" transports Sly's "Family Affair" into a rolling white boy parade, "Stupid Guy" recalls a million LA songs from the late ‘70s, "Dirt" imagines the Band covering "Play That Funky Music White Boy." Get fonky with it Mommy!

The Mommyheads
"Help Me" (mp3)
from "You're Not A Dream"
(Bladen County Records)

More On This Album

Juliana Hatfield's How To Walk Away: While were talking pop, how 'bout a few tracks from the most overrated indie pop gal of recent memory, Juliana Hatfield? I didn't know why she didn't leave earlier when she did finally depart the "scene," and now she has returned. Why? 

"Shining On"

"This Lonely Love (feat. Richard Butler)"