DISCOGRAPHY - "POP CIRCLES"
CD
2019
Pop Circles showcases the wide variety of melodic pop styles in which RXH excels – from melodic pop to soulful sizzling rock.
Says RXH, “This album is the latest batch of melodies, chord progressions, drum beats and words that somehow fell together and were recorded for posterity by my lovely engineer and wife Nancy. We started at East Side Sound on the Lower East Side, where I bashed and crashed on their vintage four-piece Rogers kit. After ten hours of that cacophony, we took those drum performances home to our bedroom studio and began trying to make sense out of it all. The result is this LP.” (FYI, if you’re not familiar with RXH’s drumming skills, you’re in for a treat. He has lent his persuasive percussion chops to such rock luminaries as Brian Wilson, Jonathan Richman, Link Wray and :Mark Lindsey, among others, including the band he founded, classic garage rockers The Doughboys.) For this project, Nancy Leigh plays solid and inventive bass as well as engineers and provides some harmony vocals; Julia Kent adds beautiful cello tracks to a few tunes; and Chris Jenkins contributed superlative viola performances.
Pop Circles contains 12 brand-new songs. Also included is the 5-song EP, “Richie’s Three Chord Garage” featuring RXH’s versions of songs he penned for The Doughboys to which he adds the songwriter imprint. Remaining material will be available as exclusive bonus tracks for this Kickstarter campaign. Some of the other bonuses will be original artwork by RXH that was used on the CD jacket, the “circle shirts” he wore in the pictures, badges, wristwatches, clocks, etc., all featuring the pun-y iconic front cover image, and of course autographed copies of the album.
RXH was one of the first “one man band” recording artists, following in the grand tradition of Paul McCartney, Emitt Rhodes and Todd Rundgren. His abilities have won him a fiercely loyal grass-roots fan base and reams of acclaim over the course of his career. Critical praise began with the release of his first album Living Room!! which Rolling Stone proclaimed “an undiscovered treasure.” All Music Guide called him “perhaps America’s greatest unsung hero of power pop, a songwriter of uncommon talent and intelligence and a one-man rock band without peer,” while Rollingstone.com praised his “hooks galore and ebullient melodies, and lyrics revealing the emotional power that pop can pack into its brevity.” As Rolling Stone editor David Wild put it in a piece on RXH’s fourth album Basic Glee, “rock’n’roll doesn’t get any better than this.”
Come full circle with Richard X. Heyman on Pop Circles!
AUDIO AND LYRICS
2. If You're So Inclined
3. Upside and Down
4. Everything Must Go
5. Action Screams Louder Than Words
6. A Love Would Have It
7. Marlena
8. A New Light
9. In a Sunlit Room
11. Hope
12. Where Circles End
13. Until Now
14. Long Way Down
15. Land
16. Route 22
17. Until The Clock Strikes Doom
18. Guess You Had To Be There extended