My new rock album, Pop and Circumstance

POP AND CIRCUMSTANCE (2024)

Listen on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Tidal or this website.

1. What Love Can Do
2. Get Out While the Getting’s Good
3. Your Work Day
4. One Good Turn
5. A Thing For You
6. Stretched Too Thin
7. Codependency
8. Long

Music and Lyrics written by Paul Heinz.

Drums – Josh Holm, except track 6, Sam Heinz.
Bass – Johnny Furman, tracks 1-3, Julian Wrobel, tracks 4-8, PH, supplemental bass.
Guitar – Brandon Schreiner, tracks 1, 2, 7, solo on 5, Griffin Cobb, tracks 3-4, Roy Anderson tracks 5-6, 8, PH, supplemental guitar.
Backup Vocals – Jessica Heinz and PH.
Second Vocal on track 2 – Anthony Calderisi.
Paul Heinz – vocals and keys.

Copyright 2024, Paul Heinz. All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by Sarah Heinz based on a concept by PH.

Drums engineered by Mark Walker at Kiwi Audio, Batavia, IL, on July 10, 2022.
Mixed by PH with helpful feedback from Mark Walker, Johnny Furman, Brandon Schreiner, Sam Heinz and Anthony Calderisi.

Mastered by Collin Jordan of The Boiler Room, Chicago, IL.

Thanks to all of the musicians, engineers and artists, as well as to Isaac Triska for giving it his all.

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The short version is that I’d hoped to be completed with this project by December of 2022. Oops.

Here’s the long version. Still just clawing our way out of the pandemic in the spring of 2021 and immediately on the heels of completing The Human Form Divine, I decided to tackle what I thought was a brilliant idea: take the original recordings from my 2000 album, Better Than This, and mess around with the mixes. Maybe re-record the vocals of a 32 year-old me and replace them with my more mature voice, add some live drums, get things properly mastered. It would be a blast! So I took out my trusty CD-ROMs upon which I’d stored all the tracks, only to discover that most of them weren’t retrievable. Gone. I even took the CDs to a specialist, and the conclusion was the same: I either had to live with what I recorded back in 1999 or completely re-record the tunes.

Well, why not? I relearned my piano parts, got a proper click-track programmed, recruited my son Sam to record drums, and even tracked down the original guitarist from the original album, Andrew Portz from Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, Sam didn’t get the songs down during the summer of 2021 and was soon back off to college. I was in a bit of a bind.

I searched for a replacement drummer, and after hitting a few dead ends, Josh Holm entered the picture, recommended to me by my friend and current podcasting partner Chris. Our initial conversation went something like this: would you like to play drums on an album? If yes, we have two options: completely re-record Better Than This or record a new album of what was shaping up to be a collection of up-tempo tunes, possibly in the realm of power pop. Josh chose the latter, thinking it would be a lot more fun to create parts for new tunes rather than reproducing parts for old tunes. Probably a good call (though I’d love to revisit Better Than This one day).

This was in September in 2021. I hadn’t really written any songs yet but had snippets, some of which I’d shared with Chris a year or two earlier, hoping to do some collaborating, but he didn’t have the bandwidth to address them at the time. So I started writing in earnest, going back to song ideas I’d recorded on my phone over the years, and even one that I started composing over two decades ago (”Long”). It’s funny how once you make a commitment to finishing something, you actually finish something! I started marrying ideas together to complete songs, and as always happens once I start a project, I also wrote several songs from scratch in the ensuing months.

In December, I finally had a demo to send to Josh, a song called ”Your Work Day,” taken from a guitar line I’d written the previous March. Later that month I finished “Get Out While the Getting’s Good,” the chorus of which I’d written the previous February and that I eventually combined with a verse I’d written in November of 2019.

“Codependency” was written in short order on guitar in July of 2021. It’s one of those chord progressions that I would never be able to write on piano. With guitar, I place my hands down and don’t really know what’s going to come out, and sometimes happy accidents occur. I finished the demo for this tune in January.

The phrase “What Love Can Do” was taken from a comment I made during a Packers game in January of 2022. Someone asked me if I wanted Aaron Rodgers to come back the following season, and I answered, “I want to see what Love can do” referring to the team’s second-string quarterback, Jordan Love. Someone said, “That would be a great song title.” And it was! I just needed to write a song. I started composing the tune and by the second week of February it had come together, with just a few lyrics to be ironed out.

I thought of “One Good Turn” in December of 2021 with the chorus pretty much complete. The verses came together that January, and the tune was ready save for a few lyrical phrases later that month.

In April I completed the demo for “Stretched Too Thin,” a song I began way back in 2010 when I still carried around a hand-held recorder. The verse and melody of the B section were fully formed right out of the box, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it beyond that. The bridge “…trying to be a good husband” was written in 2017, and then the tune sat on the backburner until I finally got the motivation to take it to the finish line.

The origins of “A Thing for You” came while I was cutting the lawn in May of 2021, with the verse melody pretty much complete. That September I composed the pre-chorus and chorus, the latter from a riff that I had written a year earlier for an entirely different tune.

Lastly was “Long,” a song I began writing in January and August of 1999 (I still have my original notes) during my stint in Emmaus Pennsylvania, nearly fully formed except for a few key lyrical phrases. Funny how just a few lines can really muck up a tune! It took me a “long” time, but I finally put this one to bed in May of 2022.

I met with Josh at his home to talk through the songs, and on July 10, 2022, he recorded drums at the now defunct Kiwi Studios in Batavia, IL, where I’d recorded at least parts of every album I’d made since The Palisades in 2016. Since my son Sam was back from school by this time, he played drums on “Stretched Too Thin,” and both he and Josh did a terrific job of injecting new life into songs. Real musicians do something that no amount of programming can accomplish. At the controls was Mark Walker who also assisted me on my last recording, and as is always the case at Kiwi, the session was low-stress and productive. We celebrated our achievement at the end of the day with drinks and stogies.

Because the music on this project resembled power pop, I recruited my old bandmate Johnny Furman to play bass, as we had played in a power pop band called Block 37 last decade. I knew he’d be perfect for my new batch of songs. Opting to play on three of them, he sent me tracks in August of 2022. Next on bass came my trusty assistant, Julian Wrobel, who’s played on my last three projects. Julian is a force on bass, employing lines that I couldn’t dream of in a million years. He came over to my house on two dates in August and knocked off the other five songs in short order.

On guitar, I first recruited another old bandmate from a long time ago, Roy Anderson, who I played with in Milwaukee back in 1991-1992. He had played guitar on a few tracks on The Dragon Breathes on Bleeker Street way back in 2003, and we’d recently gotten in touch again. I sent him tracks to a few tunes that I thought would be up his alley and he didn’t disappoint, adding parts to “Long,” “A Thing For You” and “Stretched Too Thin.” Griffin Cobb of Louisville, KY returned after doing a stellar job on my previous album, sending me tasty tracks remotely for “Your Work Day” and “One Good Turn.” Finally, a new musician friend of mine, Brandon Schreiner, came to the rescue on the remaining tracks, coming over a few times in the fall and early winter of 2022, taking the songs “What Love Can Do,” “Get Out While the Getting’s Good,” and “Codependency” to the finish line (at least guitar-wise. I still had a long way to go), and adding the solo to “A Thing For You.”

For vocals I was uncertain about what to do, as admittedly, my voice is not that strong for this type of music. My friend and fellow musician Isaac recorded a few tracks for a couple of tunes in January, but I ended up recording vocals myself, often with the attitude I desired but without the finesse and skill I wished for. I knew I needed help on at least one song, and my old cohort Anthony Calderisi came to the rescue, providing the second vocal for “Get Out While the Getting’s Good” in June of 2023. As ever, on backup vocals was my daughter Jessica, who knocked out her parts with professionalism in an hour or so. I’m glad she didn’t inherit her old man’s vocal chops.

I started mixing in earnest in July of 2023, but after a month or so I decided I hated everything I’d recorded and had to take a break. This happened with my last album as well, and after a few months of hemming and hawing, I ran into Brandon at an impromptu music jam in friend Rob’s basement, and he gave me the pep talk I needed to resume mixing. I also bounced an idea off him that I soon put into action.

Enter Mark Walker once again, the audio engineer who led the drum sessions over a year prior. I asked if he could help me take the mixes to the finish line once I got them to a decent place, and on December 3rd he came to my house and together we dialed in the bass and kick relationship that I so often struggle with, along with a few other issues. I handled multiple rounds of additional tweaks for the next week, and finally got the files sent off to Collin Jordan of The Boiler Room in Chicago for mastering.

For the album cover, I once again employed my in-house artist, daughter Sarah, who’s now done covers for four out of my last five albums. I had the idea of incorporating as many uses of the word “pop” as possible, and Sarah didn’t disappoint, completing the art in short order, long before I’d even finished recording.

So there you have it! Next up is (I think) an album of moody music composed around a particular theme, hopefully with my daughter Jessica contributing on vocals. We shall see if it comes to fruition.

PH

The Cheap Trick book, This Band Has No Past

It’s been a long time since my last post, but I’m ready to get things rolling again.

Last spring I wrote about Brian Kramp’s run-in with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a short-sighted entity who temporarily shut down his music podcast, Rock and/or Roll. The silver lining in this fiasco was that it freed up Kramp’s time to complete This Band Has No Past: How Cheap Trick Became Cheap Trick, available now at Bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, and other bookstores. I am not a die-hard Cheap Trick fan by any means, though I do think that Dream Police and In Color are nearly perfect power pop albums. Beyond that I’m a modest fan at best. Nonetheless, I found Kramp’s 300-plus-page read to be a delightful trip to the world of live music in the Upper Midwest during the 70s, and a meticulous record of how this band earned their success. If the book can capture the interest of a casual fan, I think that hard-core Cheap Trick followers will be ecstatic.

Kramp conducted more than eighty interviews for the book, including particularly insightful contributions from original drummer Bun E. Carlos and band manager Ken Adamany. The other original band members – Tom Petersson, Rick Nielsen and Robin Zander – didn’t participate, but their words are well-documented from past interviews, and I didn’t find their lack of direct input to be a drawback. If anything, it may have helped to keep the book focused and allow for more contributions from other players in the band’s history.

This Band Has No Past, a title taken from the mock-biography included in the band’s debut album, meticulously covers the origins of Cheap Trick from its modest roots in Rockford, Illinois, with forerunning bands such as The Grim Reapers, Bo Weevils and Fuse, to the recording of the wildly successful Cheap Trick at Budokan, the album that finally garnered the sales that eluded the band through their first three releases. You might be asking, “How the heck can a 300-page book only cover the band’s first few albums?” Kramp does this in a multitude of ways, all of which I found appealing.

First, he put the band’s evolution in context with contemporaneous events like the Vietnam War and the releases of Jaws and Star Wars, plus events that played tangential roles in band members’ lives, such as the details of the Richard Speck murders (which would inspire the song, "The Ballad of TV Violence") and the story of the plane crash that took the lives of Otis Redding and six others in 1967. As it happened, future band manager Ken Adamany owned the Madison, Wisconsin club where Redding was to appear that night, and Rick Nielsen’s band, The Grim Reapers, opened for what turned out to be somber occasion.

Second, Kramp’s devotion to details that other author’s may have deemed unimportant give the story its scope and vibrancy, such as the story of Chris Crowe, a graphic artist who created the band’s logo, the inclusion of setlists from various shows, and an in-depth analysis of which of the debut album’s sides was supposed to be played first (it’s not as obvious as one would think). Kramp scoured seemingly every publication that included even a passing mention to the band – the Racine Journal Times, the Rockford Register Republic, Estherville Daily News, etc. Seriously, I admire the efforts it must have taken for Kramp to amass so much information and portray it in an entertaining fashion. Hell, he included two pages worth of adjectives that various publications used to describe Cheap Trick, and another two pages of adjectives used to describe at Rick Nielsen. Kind of crazy, but really rewarding!

Which brings me to the third point: just as Kramp appears to have worked tirelessly to write This Band Has No Past, the book highlights just how hard-working the members of Cheap Trick and a multitude of other bands were at the time, playing show after show after show at tiny venues throughout the Upper Midwest, from bowling alleys to high school dances to clubs to festivals. The book serves as a time capsule of the gritty but vibrant live music scene during the 70s, a scene that modern day musicians can only long for. While most of the venues were foreign to me, I have to imagine that anyone from the area who came of age during the 70s is going to be thrilled with this trip down memory lane.

Most illuminating for me was the realization that Jack Douglas, the producer of Cheap Trick’s debut album, hand-picked the songs for that 1977 release, overlooking tracks that would later prove to be very important to the band’s success, most notably “I Want You To Want Me” and “Surrender.” And it’s mind-boggling to me that “Hello There” wasn’t chosen to open the first album; it would have rivaled other great debuts such as “Welcome to the Working Week,” “Let the Good Times Roll,” “Chuck E.’s in Love” and “Runnin’ with the Devil.” A fan of alternative history might ponder what would have transpired if these songs had been released earlier. Perhaps success would have come sooner, but perhaps Budokan wouldn’t have become phenomenon it became

Somehow it all worked out. And thanks to Kramp, much of it has been documented in an enjoyable read, and the book itself is an attractive, sturdy publication with color photos and appealing typesetting, making it well worth the price.

Introducing Block 37

With one gig and dozens of rehearsals under our belts (and five - count 'em - FIVE upcoming gigs scheduled) I figure it's high time to promote my latest band, Block 37, a five-piece act hell-bent on not boring you to death the way so many other bands do.  Seriously, I'm really excited about this venture for several reasons, three of which I'll highlight today.

1)  The band's mission to stay clear of classic rock and over-played hits and instead focus on fun, upbeat power pop gems, many of which you might have forgotten all about.  So yeah, we'll play some great tunes by bands you know like The Clash, The Cars, The Black Keys, White Stripes and the like, but then we'll perform that one tune that needs to be exercised from the recesses of your mind.  Songs like "Save it for Later" by The English Beat, "Here It Goes Again" from OK Go (which I just heard on an episode of Scrubs!), "Ah, Leah" by Donnie Iris, "A Million Miles Away" from the Plimsouls.  And Wilco.  And Elvis Costello.  Any Joe Jackson.  Vampire Weekend.  The Kings.  Fountains of Wayne.  The Knack. And, and, and...can you tell I'm really excited about our set list?

2)  So our current selection of songs is excellent, but what's really cool is we're learning new material all the time, which not only keeps us excited, it also means that our shows will constantly evolve so that you'll never get the same set list twice.  I've been in bands that are very reluctant to learn new material.  Not Block 37.  We are here to explore the vast soundscape of power pop gems from the last four decades.

3)  The musicianship of this band is ridiculous.  How Phil can remember all the lyrics to these tunes is beyond me, and Matt's spot-on guitar solos kills me.  Add to that a thumpin rock-solid rhythm section by Johnny and Doug, and it's a pleasure for me to add some keys to what's already a great sounding arrangement.

WHAT DO WE NEED FROM YOU?  First please go to our Facebook page and like us.  We're at 163 likes but we need more.  You can also check out our ever-changing website for news, videos and photos.

Second, come out to one of our shows!  As of this writing, you have five opportunities to hear Block 37 play:

Fri, July 31: Block 37 will be performing power pop gems for an evening gig at Phyllis's Musical Inn in Chicago, 10 to 1.

Sat, Aug 1: I'm back with Block 37 at Bono's in Lisle from 9:15 to 12:45 or thereabouts.

Sat, August 22: Block 37 is heading to Palos for a rip-roaring night of power pop favorites.  At Trio in Palos, 9 to really, really late.

Sat, August 29: My newest band, Block 37, will be performing at the Highland Avenue Block Party in Elmhurst Illinois.  Details to follow.

Fri, Septmber 18:Block 37 is back at our regular gig at Bono's in Lisle.  9:15 or so to the wee hours.

So come on out and see what all the hub-bub is about, help us grow, and with any luck, one day we'll play during daylight hours!