Smoking Popes - The Party’s Over (Double Zero)

Various Artists - Tribute to Smoking Popes (Double Zero)

By Brian Yaeger

I was hooked on the Smoking Popes from the first time I saw them, which was when they opened for Tilt at the Las Palmas Theater in 1995. They were too mismatched for me to wrap my head around, and the enigma is what pulled me closer. Velvety crooning laid over often speed-pop guitar licks. Morrissey fronting the Buzzcocks? It seemed like it, and it worked like a beaut (which is strange to me considering how much I can’t stand The Morrismiths).

Double Zero Records, launched by the Popes’ drummer, Mike Felumlee, released two tribute albums simultaneously. The tribute brings together 13 bands that more or less are no-brainers for this homage, but they do the songs justice. The Party’s Over is a tribute to singer/songwriters of eras past performed by the Smoking Popes themselves. If it’s all too post-modern for you, let me bum a smoke off you and we’ll go outside for an existential chat.

Tribute kicks off with Bad Astronaut’s treatment of “Megan” and boy is it a tearjerker. Bad Astronaut are themselves a somewhat Smoking Popified version of frontman Joey Cape’s real band, Lagwagon, so imagine Popes lead singer, Josh Carterer at Lagwagon’s reigns and now you’re cooking with propane. Death on Wednesday handles “Let Them Die.” If you have a hard time differentiating the two versions, don’t flagellate yourself; it’s because DOW are essentially a Smoking Popes tribute band on their own with their punchy music and porcelain-throated vocals. Blue Shade Witness’ spot-on cover of “Mrs. You and Me” differentiates itself only by tingeing the song with some Wilco-esque prairie-rock. Duvall offers up a cover of a Smoking Popes song. Duvall is Josh and his brother Eli Carterer (guitar). Huh? (Ditto that for performances by Tom Daily and Felumlee himself. I know it’s Felumlee’s own label, but it seems like the Popes spawned enough clones, er, were influential enough that they wouldn’t have to fill in the gaps themselves so incestuously. C’est la vie.) I guess the point is, if you’re huge into the Popes, you’ll live the Duvall “cover” the best. The only left-field version present is Grade doing “Days Just Wave Goodbye.” It’s all the abrasiveness of Grade and the smoothness of Carterer songwriting. Sort of a Poping Smokes sound, if you will. Plus, there are two bonus tracks: “First Time” and “Gotta Know Right Now,” but amiss is Amazing Transparent Man’s cover of “Need You Around” (from their album The Measure of All Things) even though Retro Morning actually present their version here. Oh yeah, and The Ataris contribute, too.

Now onto the new recording by the actual Smoking Popes. Fans were sure as shit hoping for newly-penned ditties, but what they’re actually purchasing are covers of perceivably, conceivably cheeseball artists that the Popes know enough to actually respect. There’s no irony as they take on Patsy Cline’s “Seven Lonely Days” to jumpstart this disc. You wouldn’t mistake it for Patsy or Moz, and you probably will enjoy it. Willie Nelson’s “Valentine” follows. Niiice. The title track is one of those standards, but time will tell if future generations mistake Nat King Cole’s version as a Popes cover. Judy Garland’s “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart” and “Wake Up Crying” by Burt Bacharach also get the lounge-lizard-on-speed retooling by the brothers Carterer and co. Luckily, this is nothing like Duran Duran’s Thank You or Face to Face’s Standards and Practices.

These are two perfectly fine CDs… All in all, as with most tribs, if you’re a diehard fan of the band, you already have it. If you’re looking for an intro to this great band, go get their album Born to Quit or Double Zero even put out a live album and an anthology after they got booted from Capitol.