Spring Break is Over: The Umbrellas, Ratboys, and Hepcat

It’s been a minute for the 6OGs, but we’re back after navigating the end of winter, March Madness, and the last-ever Stumpy Season in DC (will cloned versions really be the same?). But it’s time to get back on the job, as we have a busy spring ahead of us. Lots of promising new albums on their way, a calendar chock full of tantalizing shows (including the band we feature in our “new album” section below), and the usual parade of music news capturing the Zeitgeist. Sorry to disappoint that there is no review here of “Cowboy Carter” (though we have some of the 6OGs perhaps getting ready for one?), and I’m fairly sure we won’t be featuring “The Tortured Poet’s Department” when it drops next week, but hopefully the jangle pop, post-country/rock, and ska covered below can make up for those cultural gaps.

New album:  Fairweather Friend by The Umbrellas.  As I recently noted to fellow OG Brad, jangle-pop is having a moment.  In early 2023, I began the year by discovering the debut album from the jangly Welsh band The Tubs, Dead Meat.  It was influenced by some of my favorite bands of the ‘80s and ‘90s and ended up being one of my most enjoyable albums of 2023.  Now, in early 2024, I’ve come across the San Francisco-based four-piece band The Umbrellas and their latest album, “Fairweather Friend,” another superb addition to the jangle-pop canon that shares influences with the Tubs but also echoes some of the best Britpop of the early ‘90s.  As with “Dead Meat,” I fully expect “Fairweather Friend” to be among my favorite albums by the end of 2024.

The Umbrellas formed in San Francisco in 2018, and their distinctive sound is marked by the interplay between lead singers and guitarists Matt Ferrera and Morgan Stanley (sounding both melodic and shambolic – in a good way – in a manner similar to OG favorites The Bug Club) layered over the propulsive rhythm section of bassist Nick Oka and drummer Keith Frerichs.  It’s this winning combination that creates a sound that resembles a mixture of Belle and Sebastian, The Stone Roses, and The Wedding Present.

Fairweather Friend opens with “Three Cheers!” and, when the song kicks off with Oka’s staccato bass line, suddenly I’m a high school senior again, hearing “She Bangs the Drums” for the first time.  Truly an “inject it into my veins” moment.  And right off the bat, Ferrera and Stanley are sharing the lead on the sardonic lyrics (“Three cheers / They’re laughing at me / Don’t you know that in life / Nothing is free / Is this how it oughta be?”).  “Goodbye” places Stanley’s vocals at the forefront as she sings about finally ending a relationship (“Goodbye, so long and farewell / This time I won’t go on and on /About how we’re really meant to be”) but the spine of the song is Frerichs’ driving Madchester-inspired beat.  “Toe the Line” adds a bit of fuzz and a more aggressive, abrasive tone – entering deeper into Wedding Present territory – while keeping the band’s melodic vocal sensibilities.  While the rhythm section is once again key to this tonal shift, the guitars get cranked up a bit, maybe not to 11, but definitely more “in your face” than elsewhere on the album.

The jangly Britpop vibes don’t end there.  The opening guitar riff to “Gone” contains echoes of early Blur and even The La’s.  “Say What You Mean” is the band at its most bombastic, with bursts of orchestral strings occasionally dropping out to have Oka’s bass take over the sound, and with a chorus that seems tailor-made for 2024 (“Say what you mean / But don’t say it mean / Sometimes life is just so unforgiving”).  Musically, “Echoes” is a chill groove, but the lyrics also seem to speak to the current moment from a younger person’s point of view, looking at “what we told ourselves was our future” and watching “your dreams become an echo down the hall.”  “Games” is an up-tempo jam that contains more muscle than most jangle-pop songs, thanks to the pulsing beat and skillful guitar playing that meshes with Stanley’s smooth vocal delivery.  Album closer “P.M.” gives the album its title in the lyrics and sounds as if R.E.M. and The Cure recorded a single together.  Not a combination I ever considered, but it works.

I’ve already said that I expect this album to be among my favorites of the year, and I stand by that prediction.  “Fairweather Friend” is an absolute blast.  Now, are The Umbrellas aiming for the growth market that includes men in their 50s who caught the band’s influences the first time around?  Maybe.  Probably not.  But if young people are listening to Blur and The Stone Roses the same way I listened to The Band and The Velvet Underground as a kid, hopefully they’ll discover The Umbrellas.  And also, happily, The Umbrellas will play locally on June 12 at the Quarry House, and I expect these songs will be amazing live.  I’ll be the old guy nursing a beer while the kids have all the fun. (Brian)

Album from an upcoming/recent live show: The Window by Ratboys.  Legendary BBC DJ and music tastemaker John Peel once told the Guardian, in essence, that if he wasn’t sure if he liked something, he would play it on the radio to see if he could make up his mind. Although I am lucky enough these days to actually be able to do the same when I co-host a radio show with fellow 6OG Marc, that doesn’t always work for me (since we’re only for an hour every other week), and honestly it didn’t with Ratboys.  Turns out, for me, it’s that I need to see an artist live to make up my mind.

Marc had this album in his top 10 of 2023, and we’ve played them twice on our show.  I had heard some of their previous stuff, and I liked the last album “Printer’s Devil” quite a bit.  Sort of in the “oh yeah, they’re really good” and “I love it when I hear it” kind of way, rather than feeling compelled to go back again. With “The Window,” it was clear the songs were better when I listened, but it never got beyond that, even when I got to hear them on our radio show.

Turns out that that was the problem: I was just listening for songs. Unlike most people in 2024, I do actually listen to albums, but it’s true that, in many cases, my time or attention may not last past a few songs.  And with The Window, the power is in the album as a whole.  Because the album takes you on a sonic and lyrical journey in a way that, for me, finally came through live, so much so that it’s completely reinvigorated the album for me when I listen to it.

OG Brian and I recently joined FO6OGs (Friends of 6OGs) Michael and Mark to see Ratboys and Ducks Ltd at Baltimore’s Ottobar.  In all honesty, I was more excited for Ducks Ltd before the show.  Their recent album Harm’s Way is another good example for Brian’s “jangle pop is having a moment” feeling that he noted above, and it felt like the songs would shimmer live.  But some poor planning on my part and unlucky public transportation moments led us only catch a few songs, which did sound fantastic. As I nursed my beer between sets, I was honestly feeling quite disappointed and anticipating having a “they were fine” kind of feeling after Ratboys.

From the first notes, however, Ratboys had me and the rest of the audience in their hands for the journey.  Much has been made in the dozens of glowing reviews of this album – and singer Julia Steiner made a note of saying it was the one time on the tour that they’d played every song on it – that this is a veteran band (they’ve been around since the early 2010s) that has matured into making their best record, that they were influenced by recording outside of Chicago for the first time and with a new producer, and that you could feel that most fully in the fact that they’d turned it up and gotten louder and faster.

And certainly that is what hits you first on the record and live. Album opener “Making Noise for the Ones You Love” is a pure banger with loud and fuzzy guitars competing to keep up with a blistering drum beat that feels taken from Blitzkreig Bop – almost no fill, just drive.  Steiner’s vocals, which somehow maintains an almost childlike charm to it while ceding no ground to the noise, provide the perfect counterbalance.  Live, even though she’s playing rhythm guitar, Steiner’s clearly in charge, and the band stays with her even while it seems like they could blast off at any second.  The same is true on “Crossed That Line,” which has an even fuzzier sound and faster tempo, and “Empty,” which somehow makes the simple phrase “I have” into an anthem, even if the anthem has to hustle to keep up with the beat.

The show mixed in the album’s tempos and styles seamlessly.  That had not quite stuck for me on the initial listens to the record, and that’s where the feeling of being on a journey took over.  Whether it was acoustic album closer “Bad Reaction” or the extended track “Black Earth, WI” (which ends a long instrumental piece with a take on “Hush Little Baby”), the flow of the show, Steiner’s banter, and the tightness of the band kept me right with them. I usually struggle to enjoy songs as long as 8+ minutes live (I’m definitely not a jam band guy), but their mix of showmanship (at one point, the guitar player did a solo leaned up against a column) worked.      

But for me, Ratboys still does the kinda-country, kinda-jangly, kinda-poppy mid-tempo rocker best.  “Morning Zoo,” “It’s Alive!” and title track “The Window” all hit squarely in that lane.  Those were the tracks when the band had the crowd fully in their hands, and when you could feel how the record stitches the various pieces together. They appears as tracks 2, 4, and 6 on the album, and in going back to listen, they are the ones that keep you rooted as the band veers out elsewhere. Taken on their own, they’re good songs, but when they form the throughline of a journey, they’re soaring. 

Many reviews appropriately compare Ratboys to Wednesday, Big Thief, and Waxahatchee (and even Death Cab?), which all sonically make sense, though I will say that I think Karly Hartzmann, Adrienne Lenker, and Katie Crutchfield are all more innovative and colorful lyricists.  But Steiner deserves that kind of mention, as does the band.  They’re coming into their own as a whole.

Back to John Peel, who is credited by producer John Congleton as having said something like “any time he hears music he doesn’t like, he just assumes it’s his problem.” I would not have said I didn’t like Ratboys; it’s just that they hadn’t clicked. Turns out, though, it was my problem: I had not seen them live or understood the journey of the record. Now that I do, I’m all in. Hope you can catch them soon. (Brad)

Album being rediscovered (at least 10 years old): Right on Time by Hepcat.  Hepcat singer Greg Lee died on March 19 at the way-too-young age of 53 after suffering an aneurysm and a cardiac arrest.  For those unfamiliar, Hepcat have been a mainstay of the Southern California ska scene since breaking through in the early ‘90s, and original band member Greg Lee was a beloved member of that scene.  But whereas many of Hepcat’s local contemporaries exemplified the third wave ska-punk sound that briefly caught mainstream attention and quickly fell out of favor, Hepcat opted for a more traditional sound, initially focusing more on Jamaican-influenced ‘50s and ‘60s first wave ska, while later on incorporating elements of 2 Tone second wave ska.  Many of those second wave influences can be heard on 1998’s Right on Time, their third album and first for Epitaph subsidiary Hellcat Records.  While Hepcat never achieved the commercial success of some of the third wave ska bands, they remained active and continued to tour for years, garnering respect and adoration along the way, with Greg Lee’s singing and songwriting a key component to the band’s sound that brought fan support and critical acclaim.

“Right on Time” is probably my favorite Hepcat album (although 1996’s Scientific is a close second) and any discussion of Right on Time needs to start with the single “No Worries.”  Arguably their most notable song and biggest hit, “No Worries” got Hepcat a slot on the Vans Warped Tour, introducing the band to a significantly wider audience.  It’s very much a second wave-inspired song yet fits within the late ‘90s landscape.  The message of the song is right there in the title, a fun song with a great hook that, at the time, easily pulled in new fans.  “Raise your glass and tip your brim / No worries friends, no worries.”  The other go-to track from Right on Time is “I Can’t Wait,” another upbeat second wave-inspired song with lyrics co-written by Lee about a man done wrong (“It’s all right, if tonight should be the last / It’s all right, you’re already in my past”) that is enhanced by seamless harmony vocals and a masterful trumpet solo at about the halfway mark.

Two songs bring the tempo down a bit.  “Goodbye Street” and “The Secret” are both more rocksteady than ska, the latter with a bit of reggae dancehall breakdown dropped into the middle of the song.  The vocals, swapped among Lee and fellow singers Alex Desert and Deston Berry, are smooth and soulful.  “Rudies All Around” contains a soft but infectious guitar riff, and sort of splits the difference between Hepcat’s ska and rocksteady sounds, with Lee’s vocals standing out.  The bands kicks into gear again on “Tommy’s Song,” an upbeat ska instrumental with another terrific trumpet solo.  Right on Time has several other instrumentals, including the 40-second opening title track (that, to be fair, contains a sampled answering machine message saying that “Hepcat should go all the way”), and the jazzy “Pharaoh’s Dreams” and “Baby Blues” (the latter of which has a great keyboard solo about a third of the way into the song).

“Mama Used to Say” is more straight reggae than ska, whereas “Nigel” is secretly one of the best songs on the album, a second wave-inspired blast about “the rudest boy from Kingston to Spanish Town” that sounds like a cross between The Specials and The Toasters.  “Together Someday” starts with a great horn introduction and contains amazing lead and harmony vocals, but with lyrics that, uh, maybe haven’t aged well in an “Every Breath You Take” kind of way.  Album closer “Open Season…Is Closed” is a straight up extended jam, mixing elements of ska, reggae and rocksteady.

It’s a damn shame that bands like Hepcat are forgotten by the public at large until the news breaks of Greg Lee’s death.  Even then, it’s probably only noticed by regular readers of websites like BrooklynVegan or Consequence.  If you were ever turned off by the bro-tastic pop-ska-punk of Sublime, Reel Big Fish or Goldfinger in the mid-to-late ‘90s (believe me, I get it and I agree), think of Hepcat as its own project even if it arose out of the same scene.  Hepcat’s devotion to traditional influences separates it from their suburban shopping mall pop contemporaries, and albums like “Right on Time” can be heard in 2024 without feeling like you just switched on the Sirius XM all-‘90s station.  Give it a listen, and prepare to alternate between feeling uplifted and chilling out. (Brian)