Music, when soft voices die
Vibrates in the memory -
~Percy Bysshe Shelley
A few posts down I wrote about the Sinceros, one of the great overlooked power-pop bands of all time. Mark Kjeldsen, the man who fronted the group wrote most of their songs. He had one of the most beautiful voices in power-pop, vibrantly illuminating the songs he wrote for the Sinceros and on a 7' single he released. Falling In and Out of Love, from Pet Rock, simply sparkles, and was later covered by Tracy Ullman. There is more on the net these days about the Sinceros than there used to be, but still little is known about what happened to this band. The band was poorly promoted, it seems, and whispers of creative differences can be found. The sad discovery that Mark died of AIDS in the 1990's after working as a cabbie in Holland, comes across as a mere footnote in articles at Wikipedia and the few places you will find if you search for him.Vibrates in the memory -
~Percy Bysshe Shelley
For what it's worth, it's more than a footnote to me. I was living in a small Kansas town when the New Wave was at it's height, though I was fortunate (and resourceful) enough to find the music I discovered through Saturday Night Live, HBO's Video Jukebox, Rolling Stone magazine and the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature ( yes there were information resources before the Internet) through mail order, and trips to Lawrence and KC (and God love my Mother for helping me find it. She didn't understand the music, but she understood how important it was to me). And so I had New Wave, I had the Sinceros, and Pet Rock inspired me to hang in there and be true to myself and I felt free, and hopeful.
Mark Kjeldsen was a beautiful man, and he made beautiful music. The spark his music nurtured in me, and in others, lives on. New Wave for me was the promise of new beginnings in a world which felt isolated and far from the world I wanted , and the lesson that life is full of new beginnings, if we have the eyes to see it. Power Pop, indeed.
UPDATE: July 01, 2015 Amazon now has 2 versions of "Pet Rock" by the Sinceros available for download! Lots of extra cuts!
Sinceros "Pet Rock" at CD Universe!
4 comments:
This is such an excellent post. Thanks very much for linking to the stuff I wrote. When I discovered the Sinceros (just last year) I was so taken aback, with "Pet Rock" especially. What amazing music, and I'm glad it's living on (at least with a few of us!)
Loved "take me to your leader" on TOTP, so I bought the Sinceros first album - orange vinyl - and it was taken by burglars.
Mark Kjeldsen wrote two great songs, and a lot of the others had potential. For a lot of people, that was all that was needed to make history. I have to feel that he was ripped off before he fell into obscurity.
I don't know what happened to the original comment. It has been eaten by a penguin and I am completely fed up of gargyl.
I liked Mark, he didn't deserve obscurity. He wrote good songs, if the industry had been kind two great songs would have been enough to put him on top for the rest of his life.
Shit happens.
I agree OF, something was up there. I really felt they should have been bigger.
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