Anti-now music

Push Kings, Zumpano do it the old way

by Matt Ashare

Usually I'm inclined to dismiss music that brings to mind the Association, the Dave Clark Five, the Hollies, or just about anything that refers back to the British Invasion, which I've always considered a hostile subversion of the grand ugliness of rock and roll. Sure, there's value in a tight, well-crafted pop song, in the merging of Route 66 and Tin Pan Alley that the Beatles pulled off. But what's a crisp guitar hook or a dapper three-part harmony next to the primal fuzzed-out fury of the Sonics' "Psycho" or the phlegmatic sneer of a Johnny Rotten?

With their homonymous debut and Mod fashion sense, Boston's Push Kings ask a different question: "Is there really an anti-now movement out there?" The quote's taken from the top of the fresh-faced foursome's press bio, but it's implied on each of the 14 catchy retro-leaning tracks on Push Kings, which is the first CD released by Dambuilder Eric Masunaga's Sealed Fate label. It's the kind of rhetorical question that brings to mind Paul Weller's initial forays with the Style Council, which seemed at the time to be his way of challenging the kids of the early '80s to look back past the nihilistic clouds of punk to the fortifying sounds of sweet soul music.

The answer, by the way, is yes, there really is an anti-now movement out there, inasmuch as mod duds are hip in swinging London again and just about anything that involves more than two people constitutes a "trend in the making" these days. What's more, Push Kings will be joined by the like-minded Vancouver outfit Zumpano, whose new Sub Pop disc is Goin' Through Changes, on a bill at T.T. the Bear's Place this Wednesday, April 2.

What Push Kings and Zumpano share has a genuine (read: not ironic or detached) enthusiasm and affection for the aesthetic values of '60s popmanship, including the idealistic primacy of the unified group over the individual, as signified by ever-present vocal harmonies and guitars that play "parts" rather than "leads." Like Paul Weller's Style Council, they take cues from the pre-punk and sometimes even the pre-rock era, integrating respectable piano embellishments and, in the case of Push Kings, strings and trumpets.

But if Weller's switch from the mod punk Jam to the suave Style Council was a move toward the mainstream of his day, Push Kings and Zumpano are clearly not going with the flow in the current pop world, whether you think that electronica is the next big thing or that post-grunge alterna-novelties are here to stay for a while. Neither of those loosely defined genres counts the Beatles in its top five influences, which leaves Rubber Soul lovers like Lilys, Olivia Tremor Control, and Apples in Stereo free to become an oppositional force in covert alliance with anti-nowists like Push Kings and Zumpano. (Sorry, Oasis are a grunge band.)

"Will there be no more number ones that we could play on our radio?/And will the pop just melt away on one bright day?" asks Push Kings singer/guitarist Carrick Moore Gerety on a buoyant tune titled "Number Ones." (Carrick Moore sings the odd-numbered tunes, his brother guitarist Finn Moore Gerety the even ones -- how cute is that?) The Gerety brothers answer their own query by harmonizing Beatles-style on the mantra-like hook "What you hear today you'll be singing tomorrow" as strings arrive to cushion the sharp chime of their rhythm guitars. They sing about crushes on babysitters ("Jenny G"), high-school dances ("Number Ones"), youth as a time to grow your hair long ("Florida"), and a girl at the athletic center who just broke up with a guy named Stan ("D.J."). This is a world where Sheena never became a punk rocker and innocence is nothing to be ashamed of.

On Goin' Through Changes, their second album, Zumpano appear to have amassed a larger, more varied collection of vintage vinyl than Push Kings. The British Invasion signatures that were written all over the band's 1995 debut, Look What the Rookie Did (Sub Pop), have been joined by the more ambitious and eclectic markings of Scott Walker orchestral melancholy, smooth Paul Revere and the Raiders pop, and the rock-oriented side of Burt Bacharach (i.e., "Walk On By," "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?," and "I Say a Little Prayer"). The result is a bit too muddled to provide any "number ones" for the radio -- the arrangements of tunes like "Here's the Plan" and "The Sylvia Hotel" are intriguingly complex and the lyrics curiously cryptic, yet both tendencies serve to obscure any hooks. But Zumpano and Push Kings both add up to a pretty good argument for an anti-now movement, even if it means accepting the value of the British Invasion.

Push Kings and Zumpano play T.T. the Bear's Place with Red Red Meat this Wednesday, April 2. Call 492-BEAR.