Answer: International Pop Overthrow

Question: What is something I would like to attend once before I shuffle off this mortal coil?

For those who aren’t down with IPO, it’s:

• similar to SXSW (except not stuck in one geographic location)
• a festival devoted to music, not film or other pop culture segments
• fixated obsessively (not unlike your faithful blogger) on powerpop bands, newbies and vets alike

Josh Fix, my latest powerpop obsession.

Josh Fix. Oh, man.

This goes back to my musings on one-man-bands… I’m just in awe of these guys who can pull off everything with aplomb. I first heard about Josh when he released his EP “Steinway the Hard Way” a while back (2004?) — but I didn’t buy it (dumb-ass). Now it’s OOP, of course.

Live and learn.

Jesus, as I sit here I’m listening to it on his site and I’m wondering why I don’t yet own it… let’s rectify that, shall we?

So I see a mention of him here and there… his new album drops, and NPR makes one of his tunes “Song of the Day” back in July. And then a friend shoots me an email about his video on YouTube. Sweet Christ, this is good. Like a slushy, sugary blend of Elton John, Spirit, Jellyfish, Ben Folds, Owsley, and lots and lots of Queen (the latter part of “Jethro” just oozes that swaggering Mercury/May/Taylor vocal arrangement, and “Whiskey and Speed” ends with a May-esque layered guitar mini-symphony coda). What more could this blogger want? Umm.. the bass chair in his band?  OK, asking too much, I realize.

Free at Last