The Elbow Patches: Achingly Familiar

NYC based musician John Dunbar had written the material for what supposed to be the next album by his band The John Sally Ride when disaster struck. Bass player Sal Maida passed away and as he felt that he could not be replaced Dunbar used one of his other guises, The Elbow Patches. He takes a sweep at everyday relationship troubles, making the Achingly Familiar a putdown album of sorts, a mix of sardonic wit, with sarcasm riding shotgun.

His guitar is mixed up front, spewing out a by bevvy of licks and jangling chord changes that will haunt guitar teachers as their pupils will be quizzing them to learn. But even if they manage to replicate his sound, they will likely come up short acing his sense for both melody and rhythm. Dunbar says that Achingly Familiar is not a tribute to his deceased band mate - something to honour him will be released next year - but it will do nicely for now as a continuation in his quest to keep smart power pop alive.

The Elbow Patches: The Day Got Away From Me

NYC based musician John Dunbar has gone back to one of his another aliases. After naming himself Elvis Eno for his I'll See Myself Out album, his now goes by the name The Elbow Patches again. His single The Day Got Away From Me, on which he tries to deal with the fleeting concept of time, is a piece of vintage sounding (flower) power pop, about halfway Badfinger and The Byrds.

Elvis Eno: I'll See Myself Out

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NYC based musician John Dunbar is a huge fan of The Juliet Letters, an album by Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet, so he donned the alias Elvis Eno for a bunch of songs about women that were inspired by this song cycle, with The Fragment Quartet supplying the strings.

I'll See Myself Out is a series of short stories set to music - A Lady Of An Uncertain Age, An Assertive Girl - who crossed his path. Some of these meetings were rather nice, others not so much. I Found Out Who She Voted For gets off at a good start - she likes Roger Glover and The Saint with Roger Moore - but it all falls apart when politics become part of the equation. More bad news when things become quite awkward in Silence Is The Truest Expression Of Feelings and The Cards To The Chest Man, the latter written from the woman's perspective.

The John Sally Ride: Melomaniacs

New York power pop band The John Sally Ride made a concept album of sorts. Melomaniacs gives a thumbs up to all people who fell in love and spend as much time as they can listening and organizing. His Record Collection sums it up quite nicely: "When he got his allowance he would save every cent // Only at the record store is where it was spent // Now he’s an adult and things are mostly the same // An obsession he could never tame".

The band's songwriter John Dunbar is quite possibly one of them himself, but he can distance him from it to write about with a mix of humour, wonderment and compassion. Nobody in his right mind would call Everybody's in Show-Biz a high point in their discography, but it is for someone who saw the cover in the record store and made it His First Kinks Album. A fan can become a hater almost overnight in She's Breaking Up With The Band and a well-written review could be the gateway to discovering an act or style you were not aware of (God Bless The Music Press).

JSR: The Other Women

For quite a lot of women, it really sucks that their first name was used for a popular song. People will keep mentioning all the time, wondering aloud if their parents named them after said tune and even going as far as singing a bit of it too (quite badly most of the time). For ten of those affected, NYC musician John Dunbar wrote an alternative track for his new album The Other Women.

The horrendous Kiss song Christine Sixteen was updated to Christine Sixty, who has aged quite well, but takes shit from nobody. Sweet Caroline is replaced by the way cool alternative Mean Caroline, and the Beach Boys' Help Me Ronda is now reimbursed for all her hard work when the singer offers to help her out instead. Pink Floyd's Emily is now longer playing. She has grown up is now and is working in an office, blissfully unaware of the crush one her co-workers has on her. Dunbar mostly navigates through '70s-tinged pop for his alternate versions, gravitating to rock for the frankly quite hilarious Sheena Is A Prog Rocker: "Sheena loves Genesis, but only until Peter Gabriel quits // Her friends don't understand, they all much prefer the later hits".