Blake Jones & The Trike Shop - and still…
BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP, Fresno California's delightfully unique purveyors of art-infected guitar pop, return with a new full-length album entitled “and still...” on Vinyl, CD and all digital platforms, out August 16 from Big Stir Records. Featuring the hit indie singles “Record Cover Girl” and “Mock Stoner Voices”, it's their frst major release since 2018's MAKE and the band's clearest statement of purpose yet. The new record is up for pre-order.
BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP have been making wildly innovative and melodically accessible music in various confgurations, all revolving around singer-songwriter-guitarist-thereminist Jones, since 1997's aptly titled debut Mad Pop Inventions. They've brought their unique brand of warm-hearted, quirky guitar rock to stages all over the US and UK and been equated with artists from the '60s (they're equally informed by The Beatles and Frank Zappa) and well beyond, with the likes of XTC, They Might Be Giants and Robyn Hitchcock often mentioned. It's music from, of, and about their native Central Valley, but its roots are and always have been global.
Their 2018 album MAKE was a watershed for both the band and the fedgling Big Stir Records, whose community-based ethos was shaped in no small part by Blake (and who counted The Trike Shop among its initial roster of just fve key artists). A celebration of the creative process and its role in overcoming grief, the album wound together the many threads of Jones' songwriting in a cathartic package that brought the band a whole new audience. But aside from a pandemic- themed solo EP from Blake – The Homebound Tapes, also on BSR –The Trike Shop collective has been largely an onstage concern in the years since, undergoing personnel changes that have brought us to the current lineup of Jones, longtime drummer John Shafer, Mike Snowden (bass), Mike Scott (guitar, vocals) and Scott Hatfeld (keyboard, vocals), all veterans of the astonishingly fertile Fresno music scene.
The album's advance singles – the liltingly sweet cautionary tale “Record Cover Girl” with its Beach Boys harmonies, and the irresistible quirk-rock masterpiece “Mock Stoner Voices” – have set the stage for much of what The Trike Shop circa 2024 have cooked up for the new album “and still...” with characteristically eccentric appeal. Both radiate a sense of nostalgia that's too sly to be saccharine, both drip with memorable hooks, and both take place in record stores. Jones adores them for the sense of discovery they ofer, and two more songs on the LP take them as their locations: “Used Record Stores” with its quintessentially ebullient Jonesian refrain “don't you adore / used record stores?” and, by inference, the instrumental “You Put Theremin On My Hype Sticker” (no
Trike Shop record is complete without a wordless interlude showcasing the vintage
electronic instrument, and this is one of their fnest). It's telling that “Mock Stoner Voices” in particular melds the vinyl shop setting with romantic remembrance, and there's more celebration of the beauty of everyday life on the soulfully Stonesy “Shake Your Dress” (you can dance to art-pop, people!) and the bewitching, skittering “Dreaming About Sleeping”, which may just be a love song to dreams themselves. And “Mr. Saturday Sun” is a lovely retro treat with its Zombies/Kinks feel (and just a tinge of dub production) that's guaranteed to capture the hearts of fans of classic pop worldwide.
But it's 2024, and the unease of the times can't help but seep into the lyrics of as thoughtful and observant a songwriter as Jones. Thus we're treated to bracingly of-the-moment tunes like “The Queen Is Dead” (not a cover, but a music hall piano-based band original) and the Fresno-centric, think-global-act-local anthem “We Love The Tower”. A sense of urgency even invades the Holidays on the outwardly-festive “String Lights And Hold On”, which manages to balance its unfinching look at the modern world with jangling and genuine Christmas cheer. Most pointedly, Blake proves himself that rare (and vital) songwriter who's able to take on as toxic a faction as The Proud Boys – who'd invaded his hometown for a time – and even do so with humor, on “The Fascist Bumblebee Winter Formal”. It's a new kind of protest song for an era that desperately
needs them, and Jones – always a believer that art can change the world – is uniquely suited to deliver it.
It's on the plaintive “What's Enough?” – the latest and maybe most afecting in a long line of Trike Shop songs that ask the big questions – that Blake's blend of celebration and cultural anxiety come together (pun intended – it's based on one of the most late-Beatles-inspired musical settings in his catalog). “What’s enough, what can you do? Oh when, oh when is it enough?” Jones asks, but the answer is right there in the creation of the song, and the whole of and the record itself. His is a profound belief that art means something, all the more when created alongside his fellow travelers in The Trike Shop, and as part of the creative communities he's always building, at home in Fresno and on the wider global pop rock stage.
The answer is often in his album titles... Mad Pop Inventions, Make, and now “and still...”: no matter how indiferent or downright hostile the world may seem, self-expression and
collaboration are crucial. And that, coupled of course with a singular instinct for unforgettable melodies and unexpected turns of phrase – is why we at Big Stir Records
resonate so completely with the music of Blake Jones & The Trike Shop, and why we're proud to bring their latest ofering to you. What's being expressed on “and still...” ranges from arch outrage to wistful optimism, but it's all delivered with heart and soul. It's the crucial sound of a band hewing to the spirit of creativity and community in a world that seems to value those qualities less and less. And still... BLAKE JONES & THE TRIKE SHOP
ride on, embodying both.
