Mark Kjeldsen, the lost voice of Power Pop

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.

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!

The Sinceros

I first became aware of the Sinceros as Lene Lovich's backup band on her premiere album Stateless. This was around the time their second album Pet Rock was released, and it became one of my favorite album's of the early Eighties. It featured the wonderful song "Memory Lane" and the haunting gem "Disappearing" All in all, one of the most overlooked bands of all time, a group well worth remembering. Currently out of print, with a small but growing internet fanbase of bloggers willing to spread the word. Till there is a real release (after all, Elton Motello, The Dancing Cigarettes, Holly and the Italians, and other hard to find bands are finding new life in CD release and mp3 downloads at iTunes and Amazon, so surely there's hope) here is a video and a link to "Memory Lane". The YouTube Video below is a performance of their first single "Take me to Your Leader" from the album The Sound of Sunbathing. Enjoy! And help keep the music alive.



One of the best Sinceros tracks, lead vocals in this case attributed to Don Snow, later keyboardist for Squeeze, most recently performing as Jonn Savannah  (Links expired, working on getting new ones.  NOTE: Last.FM  now has 4 Sinceros tracks available!

Also, Pet Rock is now available at CD Universe!
Sincero's "Pet Rock" at CD Universe MP3's!