Blue Vinyl
See also: The Telephone Numbers - The Ballad Of Doug
San Francisco's bloomed, again. A second (or third, or fourth, or fifth?) wave of fuzz and jangle surfs along in these two latest long players from that ever fertile ground, courtesy of, as is so often the case now, Spanish label, Meritorio. The Telephone Numbers record is actually a re-press, having first come out back in 2021, but this is the kind of ageless melodicism that's been experiencing various degrees of re-birth for something like 40 years now, so one more time wont hurt. I assume the titular Doug to be Mr Yule, and frontman, Thomas Rubenstein, has a noticeably Alex Chilton warble to his voice, which means two of the key bases for this kind of thing are well covered, while the music itself lands with some distinguish somewhere between Teenage Fanclub and classic first era Captured Tracks. The Don of San Francisco, Glenn Donaldson (the clue's in the name), even turns up on one track. Thanks to anyone who can tell me what that last song sounds like. Bugging me for days now. By contrast, Whitney's Playland are just that bit more INDIE ROCK, Yo La Tengo by way of the Darklands, in service to the slow build melodic crescendo more than the jangling chug. I'm gonna ask you to look past the artwork on this one (let's put it in the box labeled 'not to my taste' and leave it at that) and embrace the unabashedly sincere songcraft and shameless nostalgia it elicits. It's 1993 again. Your hopes have yet to turn to disappoinments. Song about a sun beam, song about a girl. You get the idea and it's still a good one, and maybe always will be.
