PowerPopSquare

There is a new podcast about Will Owsley from Stories & Sounds called " Like Father, Like Son "- I really recommend to listen to it. It's fabulous! Listen here: LINK I should mention that there is even an UNRELEASED OWSELY SONG included!

In case you didn't hear the news, the debut album of Owsley is out in vinyl at Real Gone music. Get it while you can ( LINK ). It's limited to 1000 copies.  I waited 15 years for it...

William Owsley III, known in the world of music as Owsley has sadly passed 10 years ago. Now you have the chance to put his extraordinary self-titled debut record on vinyl! You just have to vote (this is no preorder, it's just voting)! Vote here: https://www.runoutgroovevinyl.com/product/owsley-41891 So how does it work? A record of the month will be voted. The one which wins will get a preorder window of 30 to 45 days where you can buy it. Then it will be manufactured which will last 2 - 4 months. Wouldn't it be great if this will happen?

The year draws to a close, seen musically it was a stunning year (in other areas, it was surely not).   So - here is the Top 10 of PowerPopSquare for 2017: 1. Chris Price - Stop Talking Price is a man of many talents - producer for Emitt Rhodes and Linda Perhacs , writing with artists like Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (Jellyfish) and Taylor Locke (Rooney) or recording a complete album with an iPhone 4 (his first record Homesick ). Chris Price was joined in the studio by a variety of top musicians, including Kyle Fredrickson, Ben Lecourt, Fernando Perdomo, Joe Seiders and many others. Price explains: “ I spent the five years since my first album Homesick working on albums for two heroes of mine, Emitt Rhodes and Linda Perhacs. But I never stopped writing and recording material of my own, and both of those incredibly inspiring and fulfilling projects ended up deeply informing my work, pushing me to think harder about my lyrics, become more adventurous in my production and...

Almost a year ago I made a serious attempt to get everything together for a project: a Third Record of Owsley . There are a couple of stunning songs (demos, unreleased songs, collaborations) out there and as far as I know many more are in the vaults. So I asked at Facebook if there is Interest in such a project (and man - there is!) and started a poll to look for a possible success of a crowdfunding campaign. So all signs looked good. A lot of other musicians, friends of Will Owsley and his family showed interest too. Sadly the project wasn't realized. To cut a long story short: I created a third record myself. And I think it's a good one. It's called Feel No Pain . If you are interested in the record, just write me here: powerpopsquare@gmail.com

The Semantics - Powerbill Demos (1993) 01 Sticks and Stones 02 Future For You 03 Glasses and Braces 04 Johnny Come Lately 05 Coming Up Roses The Semantics - One More Step (Demos - by PopFair / 1993) 01 Heart Attack 02 Simple Thing 03 Vegas 04 Standing Still 05 Pamela 06 One More Step 07 Jerry Deacon 08 Lonely Girl 09 Gone 10 She's So Clean 11 Victim for Somebody 12 Baby It's You 13 This One's For Me 14 The Facts of Life 15 Hippy Woman 16 Wildflower 17 Maria 18 Merry Go Round 19 Avalon The Semantics - Powerbill (1993 recorded / 1996 released) 01 Sticks And Stones 02 Future For You 03 Coming Up Roses 04 Jenny Won't Play Fair 05 Average American 06 Don't Say Goodbye 07 The Sky Is Falling 08 Black And Blue 09 Johnny Come Lately 10 Life Goes On 11 Glasses And Braces Owsley - Owsley (Original Version / 1998) 01 The homecoming song 02 Coming up roses 03 Good old days 04 Uncle john's farm 05 Sentimental favourite 06 Oh no t...

About a month ago I asked via Facebook: Just a theoretical question: If there would be enough songs for a proper third record of Owsley, how many people would buy this record or would pay for a crowd funding? Within 24 hours more than 120 people (just at this Facebook group) answered "YES". They would have bought at least this record, many of them wanted give more money just to get this record out. Because of this, I thought a next step would be to start a poll and give you some samples of the songs that are already out in the world wide web (at various sources). These are the songs that are already there. I excluded some collaborations and live recordings. So this is the attempt for a first track list. There are even more songs in the archives. The biggest problem to get this record done are copyright questions and production costs. It could be helpful to estimate if financing of the record (e.g. by crowd funding) would work well or not. So please ans...

Sometimes it's quite surprisingly what's surfacing on the internet. Things you never thought that could exsist: Here's a complete video captured concert of Will Owsley from 2004. And it's so good.

William Reese Owsley III - or Owsley - was an American singer-songwriter & producer. Owsley was born in Anniston, Alabama in 1966. He was raised in a musical household. In 1986 he moved to Tennessee and met a guy called Ben Folds. Both formed along with bassist Millard Powers and drummer Zak Starkey The Semantics . In 1993 they recorded Powerbill and were signed to Geffen. Sadly Power b ill never got a release in the United States. Geffen called it “ too pop for alternative, and too alternative for pop ” . Because of that the four disbanded. After that William Owsley played for Amy Grant and Shania Twain - he also sang duets with her. He earned a nice amount of money with that, bought a house and built a recording studio. This is where he started his first solo record. William said: " I had heard the story of Tom Scholz of the band Boston recording his first album and taking it to the record company, where he told them that it was finished and they could take it o...

So, here are my fav records of the year 2010: 1. Bleu - FOUR (Highlight: Ya Catch More Flies With Honey Than Vinegar, How Blue) 2. Guster - Easy Wonderful (Highlight: Bad Bad World, Stay With Me Jesus) 3. Aqualung - Magnetic North (Highlight: Fingertip, Reel Me In) 4. Jeremy Fisher - Flood (Highlight: Shine A Little Light) 5. Justin Currie - The Great War (Highlight: The Way That It Falls) 6. Rooney - Eureka (Highlight: I Can't Get Enough) 7. OK Go - Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky (Highlight: End Love - also the video!) 8. Mark Bacino - Queens English (Highlight: Middle Town, Queens English) 9. Owsley - Changes (no offical release, but an excellent collection of unreleased stuff by Pop Fair - RIP Will. Highlight: Changes, When Lonely Comes Around) 10. Darwin Deez - Darwin Deez (Highlight: Radar detector, Up in the clouds)

Without many words - just listen ( Owsley live in Nashville 2004 ): Owsley - Live in Nashville 2004

As reported today, Will Owsley passed away on April 30, 2010. It's sad to hear. R.I.P. Will. We will miss you. I normally don't post official material, but if you don't know him, you should listen to the little compilation I did of this great musician who died too early: RIP Will Owsley

Will Owsley - or Owsley - an american songwriter & producer released two CDs in 2000 und 2004, both have written powerpop all over: Owsley - listen @ amazon.com The Hard Way - listen @ amazon.com Sadly he stopped with his own music career and is now supporting other artists like Amy Grant. Here's a little something to cheer those up who hoped for new material (like me) - a recording of a live performance from 1999: Owsley - Live (1999)

Where to start? Some years ago, while I started to discover new musicians and bands by this new thing named ... internet, I found a lot of similar music I could not sort by a genre. The songs where very melodic, pop-like and beatlesesque but anyhow different. Years later I learned the genre was named PowerPop. So, for everyone who is into this music and especially for those who still are not - I created this blog. I will talk about my favorite artists like Mike Viola, Bleu, Owsley, Ben Folds (Five), The Nines, Ben Kweller, Jason Falkner, Stephen Duffy & The Lilac Time, Brendan Benson, David Mead, Jim Boggia, Nik Kershaw and more. And I will post rare stuff by these artists (and I hope that's okay for them), but no official released songs or albums.