“The Trap” – R.M.F.C.
If you read these posts closely, you know how I love to identify Australian groups by their common sound alone. I don’t know that these kids jumped out as Aussie to me right away. It leans a little more Southern Cali surf rock, although that sound does have a big influence the Australian sound I like so much.

“Neon River” – Pond
Let’s stay Down Under with the latest from these Aussie psych-rock heroes.

“Apollo” – Slow Fiction
I hear a lot of early 2000s alt rock in here, recalling bands like The Superjesus and Remy Zero.

“The Dreamer” – A Country Western
I was expecting a Country or Not track with a band name like this. Rather, this is solid post-grunge.

“Cabin Song” – Rett Smith, Jessica Lea Mayfield
A terrific, smoldering duet.

“Go All The Way” – The Raspberries
Raspberries lead singer Eric Carmen died last weekend. He was most famous for his three monster solo singles: 1975’s #2 “All By Myself,” 1987’s #4 “Hungry Eyes” from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, and 1988’s #3 “Make Me Lose Control.” This was his best song, though, one of the greatest power pop songs ever recorded. It made it to #5 in 1972. I never listened to the lyrics much before I read about his career. Apparently this was highly controversial with some radio programmers because they viewed it as being too suggestive. Much simpler times. Carmen became kind of a right wing nut job late in life, but his music, or at least this track, still holds up.

“Stop” – Jane’s Addiction
This week’s The Alternative Number Ones entry was this jam from September 1990. The history of Jane’s Addiction is fascinating. Tom Breihan does it right, and this is one of his best, and funniest pieces. I would say it’s worth a month’s subscription to Stereogum to read it. Support independent music journalism!

“Indianapolis” – Michigander
Usually when I leave town I include music about my destination. This time I’ll share a song about the place I’m leaving. We’re off to Florida for the next week. We may have drawn the short straw for weather – at the moment rain is forecast for several days – but even if we’re stuck inside I’m not sure there will be any blog posts next week.

“You Might Think” – The Cars

This was supposed to be about Weird Al Yankovic’s “Eat It,” but YouTube won’t let me embed that song, so I’ll switch to this, another monster hit from the spring of 1984. A fun song by a band that was never massive but everyone liked. A quirky video that featured a super model. That was the formula for a hit in 1984. This was one of the first videos to heavily use computer graphics, and won Video of the Year at the first MTV Video Music Awards. Cracking the Top 40 the week of March 24 at #39, it spend three weeks at #7.