Hello d00ds,
Many of you are Facebook friends with me, and will read this there. I am really interested in your opinion on a nagging question that occurred to me after I posted this; is it too much about Green Day and not enough about Ted? I mean, I really hate Green Day (for me they could be the Disney Channel version of Ted Leo,) and that sure comes through, but in attempting to praise our local hero, have I not actually paid enough attention to him? Thanks for your consideration.
"I listened to this; if you start at Green Day, remove the atrocious 90's-style compression on the guitars to allow them to sound more like, well, guitars, replaced their studied sloganeering with carefully crafted lyrics that actually mean something, granted them the ability to create a melody that you could remember three minutes after the song ended, and replaced that cartoonish dwarf with a human being (I love that one of my students referred to the Green Day guy as "Adam Lambert Sr" the other day), you'd be about 1/3 of the way towards what Ted Leo and the Pharmacists bring to the table. I listened to this SEVEN TIMES yesterday; it inspired me for a difficult meeting, then carried me 200 miles back home. Power punk/pop at its best. BUY IT NOW."