From The Desk Of Chris Stamey: Supergroups Are Back (The Orange Humble Band)

Although Chris Stamey is best known as being part of the original dB’s, the legendary jangle-pop combo from Winston Salem, N.C., that sprouted wings when they moved to NYC in the late ’70s, his solo work has always been equally fascinating. Soon after cutting Stands For deciBels and Repercussion, the seminal band’s longplayers tracked in the early ’80s, Stamey pulled up stakes and returned to churning out his own hackle-raising sound. He has resurfaced recently as part of a fertile duo with Peter Holsapple, but it’s albums like his current solo release, Lovesick Blues (Yep Roc), that keep his one-man trip smoldering like a late-October controlled burn in the N.C. tobacco fields while light rain begins to fall. Stamey will guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.

Stamey: Maybe it’s the “humble” in the name. This studio-based super spectacular aggregation, featuring the songs of Australian Darryl Mather (Lime Spiders), the singing of Seattle’s Ken Stringfellow (Posies, Big Star), the guitaring of North Carolina’s Mitch Easter (Let’s Active) and the drumming of Memphis’s Jody Stephens (Big Star, Golden Smog), needs less humility and more shouting from the rooftops. Darryl fell in love with pop songs and guitars at an early age and, in essence, “dreamed” a band and made it happen; he’s first among equals here. And it really works. They have a new record, Depressing Beauty, again recorded at the legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis, the historic Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals and at the great Fidelitorium in North Carolina, and this time around the guests include a full spectrum of luminary songsters: Dwight Twilley, Jon Auer, Susan Cowsill and Van Duren, as well as Memphis/Muscle Shoals-axis killer kats Spooner Oldham, Jim Spake, Scott Thompson and Rick Steff. It’s musicians (and friends) playing together, great singing all round and Darryl’s great, emotional, carefully crafted melodic songs. And Mitch is such a master of both guitar playing and guitar tones, not to mention a great mixer. This time out, Carl Marsh (who, as a kid, wrote the famous strings for the third Big Star record) upped the ante and orchestrated several of the songs. (Full disclosure: I also added one string arrangement, on the last day of mixing, to “She’s A Sensation,” and the song has been playing in the back of my head ever since!) Maybe it’s my dark history, but honestly, between you and me, I often find what’s called power pop less than compelling and “more honored in the breach.” But I love the Orange Humble Band: They do it right. Is there a megaphone in the house? Can someone shout about this, please? (And, as an aside: Ken also has a new record of his own, Danzig In The Moonlight, that deserves much more than just an aside in the space I have left here, so run get it and check him out on tour this year, coming to a city near you soon).

Video after the jump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkSCijP2JVM