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Allen Clapp

Something Strange Happens: OUT NOW!!!

About Me

Something Strange Happens T-SHIRTS by Jill Bliss!The word on Something Strange Happens Pop MattersMundane SoundsAmp CampErasing CloudsAll Music

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 2/27/2006
Band Website: allenclapp.com
Band Members: Allen Clapp, Harmony Rocket, Fender Rhodes, Roland Space Echo, Lots of Reverb
Influences: The Weather, A.E. Housman, McCartney, George Butterworth, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Aaron Copland, Edgar Poe, William Blake, Al Stewart, Page & Plant, Taupin & John, McDonald & Giles, Goffin & King
Sounds Like: At long last, Something Strange Happens collects all of the odds and ends of the first decade of Allen Clapp's recording career. Gathering long out of print 7" singles, contributions to compilations, demos, and two new songs, this 17-track compilation isn't the usual ephemera, but an essential addition to Clapp's canon. The Bay Area-based singer/songwriter only managed two albums in the 1990s, 1993's One Hundred Percent Chance of Rain by Allen Clapp & His Orchestra and 1997's Square by the Orange Peels (the band Clapp formed with his wife, Jill Pries, on bass and a high-school buddy, ex-Mummies leader Larry Winther, on lead guitar), but both were minor classics equally prized by the D.I.Y. twee pop kids and power pop fans. The title track of this collection appeared on both (it's here in the original version from One Hundred Percent Chance of Rain), and it remains one of Clapp's finest achievements. . . Clapp's self-effacing liner notes amusingly document the slow disintegration of the four-track cassette machine these songs were recorded on, and indeed, there's a greater lo-fi fuzziness here than on the pristinely recorded Square or even the relatively clean-sounding homemade effort One Hundred Percent Chance of Rain. Throughout, however, Clapp's genial sunniness and knack for clever indie pop hooks remain constant. --Stewart Mason, ALL MUSIC GUIDE
Record Label: Bus Stop, March, Four Letter Words, Elefant
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

Hello Popstar

I am singing on a Target commercial! It starts off with a toaster that pops up a picture frame instead of toast and text that reads: "hello popstar." It ends with a girl playing guitar in a field of t...
Posted by Allen Clapp on Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:14:00 PST

The Girl with the Smile

. . . A Song for Amy MalzbenderBy day, I'm an editor at the Palo Alto Weekly where I edit stories, choose photos and design layouts. I've been doing this for a few years at various newspapers, and it'...
Posted by Allen Clapp on Wed, 13 Sep 2006 11:02:00 PST

Syd, we will miss thee

Syd we will miss theeMy introduction to the music of Pink Floyd was probably similar to many. A second-hand copy of "Dark Side of the Moon" was procured by a friend, spawning afternoon listening sessi...
Posted by Allen Clapp on Wed, 12 Jul 2006 03:51:00 PST

Why Windham Hill is cool

I remember a time in the 1980s when you couldn't walk into a public place without hearing some kind of "Windham Hill-ish" music being piped in from somewhere.It was ubiquitous. It was tasteful.I hated...
Posted by Allen Clapp on Tue, 25 Apr 2006 08:07:00 PST

Transcendent

I highly recommend that every music fan of any sort go out instantly and find a copy of The Lark Ascending by 20th Century British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.If you can possibly manage it, find t...
Posted by Allen Clapp on Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:01:00 PST

Four-track Forecasts

It's been six years since Brian Kirk at the Bus Stop Label and I first talked about putting together a compilation of my early singles, and I can't believe I'm actually writing this, but it's coming o...
Posted by Allen Clapp on Wed, 19 Apr 2006 03:52:00 PST