the mommyheads

The Mommyheads - Genius Killer (Name Your Price)

I'm not sure if I like any band more than New York's The Mommyheads. I certainly can't think of one. There really is no one quite like them. You can compare individual songs to others, but as a whole naaah. Last month I did a prelude piece on the album here.

I haven't re-read that piece, so if I repeat myself you will know how true the words are. For a band well into their fourth decade, there is no sign of the quality letting up, quite the reverse Highly intellectual, yet incredibly Pop at times.

Essentially Indie, but with ventures into Psych, Prog and Pop Rock. They've been compared to Queen, Radiohead and XTC on the same album. Here the poperatic stuff is nowhere to be seen, but the other two are. They have always been a thinking man / musician's band, here they seem deeper than ever.

Unexpected instruments enter at will, expecting something Guitar led, a keyboard run will come in from nowhere. Take for instance Distil Your Love Into That Dying Light is all funk, but stills manages to unleash a fantastic Pop Rock chorus. Impulse Item is an epic opener, but still manages to slip in a short classical run.

Impulse Item is wonderful, all moody at the start, breaking into a monster of a song, as commercial as The Mommyheads get and rewardingly so. Yet She's A Fighter is almost Bossa Nova lounge and Bittersweet slowly visits everywhere, almost Soul at times to a Roxy Music-ish bass line.

One And The Same is very XTC around the mid 80s, We Almost Lost It All is heartfelt, mighty in its melancholy. First Five Seconds is Modern Prog at its very best, showing how the genre can be so misconstrued as an abiltiy lesson when it can be done as well as this.

Idealist is splendid, very complex, rhythms everywhere, a raiding of the musical instrument cupboard and like four songs in one. I urge you to read the lyric sheet, there is so much depth and message in every song, never more so than on the title track.

Genius Killer remains the real earworm for me. It is the song in which you notice the lyrics most across a wonderful rhythm section and a killer angular riff. I've not mentioned Privilege, which is wonderfully venemous with added African Rhythms and Sax. Genius Killer is an absolute tour de force!







You can listen to and download the album here. The download is at Name Your Price on Bandcamp, but please and try to pay at least a little something, Talent Is An Asset! The album will also be available on CD and Vinyl at The Mommyheads site here. -

The Mommyheads return with the forthcoming new LP Genius Killer, which is due out on September 20th.

The Rock & Roll Globe have been fans of The Mommyheads since discovering them in the 90s, a group who could play David Bash’s International Pop Overthrow as naturally as they could a prog rock festival. And that duality comes through in darker and more textured directions on Genius Killer, where artfulness and accessibility walk arm in arm. As this band quickly approaches their 40th anniversary as a unit, it seems like they are only getting better with age.


The Mommyheads Genius Killer, Mommyheads 2022
The Globe is truly honored to have been tapped to premiere the video for “Idealist,” the lead single off Genius Killer which was directed by longtime collaborator Patrik Karlson.

“The original intent for this song was an acknowledgment of how following your muse can sometimes be heartbreaking both emotionally and spiritually,” says guitarist/singer Adam Elk. “The filmmaker, Patrik Karlson, has such maturity and humanness in his work. In this instance, he gracefully illustrates the duality of being held captive by your own desire for success and accolades with a stunningly beautiful approach. This video is a visual dream-poem that expresses and expands the meaning of the song while leaving much open for interpretation of the viewer—we feel he brings out those same qualities of gravity and maturity in our music.”

Watch the video for Idealist below and pre-order Genius Killer as soon as humanly possible. - Rock and Roll GLobe

“New Kings Of Pop” The Mommyheads got their start somewhere around 1987 or so in New York. They relocated to San Francisco and in the 90s they were Bay Area staples. Their music is a charming blend of wobbly pop beauty that brings to mind everyone from Jellyfish to XTC but the Mommyheads are not just a pop band—they’re an idiosyncratic outfit that, over the course of their career, have thrown sonic curveballs that even their most ardent fans never saw coming. They had a brief dalliance with a major label, signing to Geffen in 1997, but that yielded only one fabulous self-titled album. After they parted ways with Geffen they kind of parted ways with each other, taking a break from recording that lasted almost 11 years. With close to 15 albums under their belts, the Mommyheads output is rich and rewarding. The band have had their songs covered by Jenny Toomey and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, they appear in a Time Warner TV ad, and we're happy to report that the Mommyheads are not only back, they're more creatively alive than they’ve ever been. Their latest two albums New Kings Of Pop and Age of Isolation rank among their finest work. Singer Adam Elk is our guest today and this is one of the most entertaining and interesting chats we’ve ever had. www.mommyheads.com www.bombshellradio.com www.alexgreenonline.com Stereo Embers The Podcast Twitter: @emberseditor Instagram: @emberspodcast Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com - Stereo Embers

The Mommyheads (Adam Elk, Michael Holt, Dan Fisherman, Jason McNair) are an indie-pop band formed in Brooklyn in 1987 by Adam Cohen (now Adam Elk).
They developed a cult following across North America through extensive touring in the 1990’s.

Circulating over the years via bootleg cassette copies, The Mommyheads’ ‘Swiss Army Knife’ has never had a proper release. A rare favorite amongst devotees, this tape is far too special to have been trapped in obscurity for so long. While containing some stellar live cuts from an early incarnation of the group, this collection primarily showcases the wild creativity of Mommyheads songwriter Adam Elk who independently recorded these tunes on four-track during his teen years in Brooklyn. The songs herein are striking in their eccentricity: schizophrenic wordplay, mind-bending chord structures, acoustic mayhem, and DIY experimentalism all meld together within these colorful song fragments.

There is an unrelenting playfulness to this set that makes it a sublime joy to listen to; the manic creative energy is infectious all throughout. ‘They Call it Accident’ is driven by an urgent, plucky bass figure in 6/8 alongside living room thumps. ‘We Are Intertwined’ is a waltz number with clanging Rhodes chords and a miniature psychedelic circus detour in the middle. ‘Canoe Driver’ is a gorgeous piece of baroque pop, complete with string stabs and an ultra-catchy ping-ponging vocal refrain. As with The Mommyheads’ full-lengths that followed, a penchant for glorious melody underpins the whole collection. In fact, ‘Gravity’ and ‘Cactus Farm’ would end up on their thorny classic debut Acorn; they unfold with a youthful excitement here. These are the seeds of a stunning musical legacy and the homespun, idiosyncratic sheen render this package just as fresh-sounding today as it was in its early 90s obscurity. - psychedelic baby mag

Never say never.

Twelve years after calling it quits, The Mommyheads are back at it, pulling from their six-album canon and rocking out like it’s 1992.

The 1980s and ’90s saw the mellow rock band rise on indie labels such as Simple Machines, and, after years of critical success and stellar live shows, sign to Geffen (ooh, big time) in 1997. But, one album and one year later, they were dropped and unplugged their amps — seemingly for good.

But two years ago, the band reunited to play a series of memorial shows for its deceased drummer at venues including Union Hall, and even put out a new album, “You’re Not A Dream.”

Then they went back to their day jobs as computer programmers and composers for commercials, thinking they were really done this time.

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But Sweden just wouldn’t stop calling.

“They were like, we’re going to make sure you get back together and come here,” said singer Adam Elk, whose band is inexplicably huge over there. “It was like getting the guys out of the old age home — let’s get the band back together!”

For a modest band with largely a cult following — you’d be hard-pressed to find any of its earlier records, though the 1994 classic, “Flying Suit,” has been reissued — the trip this past spring was a nice ego-boost. Since coming back to New York, Elk has gotten back into writing, revisiting 1970s prog rock for some inspiration, and booked some gigs stateside.

The foursome will be at Park Slope’s Rock Shop on Aug. 19, where you can expect the group’s tight musicianship and XTC-like layered sound.

And this fall, the band looks to release a compilation album, “Finest Specimens,” out just in time for CMJ.

It looks like the Mommyheads aren’t cutting the cord again anytime soon. - The NY POST

Long-running New York indie pop quartet The Mommyheads are playing Richmond Music Hall at Capital Ale House tonight, on tour to support their brand new album, Age Of Isolation. Their lush melodic sound is sure to bring the city together.

It’s an auspicious night here in Richmond, particularly if you’re a fan of music. For you see, New York’s own The Mommyheads are coming to town tonight, lighting up the evening with a set of great music at Richmond Music Hall at Capital Ale House, where they’ll be joined by local favorites Prabir Trio.

If you’ve been in the indie/alternative music world anytime over the past three and a half decades, chances are you’ve encountered the Mommyheads at some point. Starting back when they were teenagers in late-80s New York, this indie pop quartet was part of the bubbling-under east coast indie scene in the early-90s, and eventually even got signed to a major label, Geffen Records, in the waning days of the post-Nirvana feeding frenzy. As with a lot of bands who were brought into the major label hype machine that late in that whole era, The Mommyheads received almost no label support, and barely even got their one major-label release, a self-titled album, into the world before they were dropped.

This whole experience was thoroughly disillusioning and depressing for the members of the Mommyheads, to the point that they actually broke up completely for a decade. Thankfully, they still loved music, and couldn’t help but return to action in the late 00s. These days, the band retains three of the four core members from their 90s heyday, and is if anything even more productive — not only have they been back together for longer than they were ever originally a band, they’ve released seven new albums since reforming in 2008. They only released five the first time around!


Their complex, rich, and addictive melodic sound has stayed powerful throughout their lengthy career, and this is obvious on their brand new album, Age Of Isolation. It reflects the cultural mood created over the past year and a half as all of us were required to spend most of our time by ourselves in our homes, missing out on so many things we’d taken for granted for so long — from late-night hangs with friends to the joys of live music. The Mommyheads capture the zeitgeist on songs like “TV Dinner,” “Am I Too Comfortable,” and the title track, evoking artists as diverse as Grandaddy, XTC, ELO, and John Lennon (during his solo era) with a series of guitar-based, synth-infused indie pop tunes.

This all stands in intriguing contrast with the previous Mommyheads release, a remastered reissue of their second album. Coming Into Beauty was originally released in 1992 by Simple Machines Records, that essential label of the early-90s indie pop revolution (and where I myself first heard the Mommyheads, on the Simple Machines compilation EP Pulley). Rather than the lush, multilayered soundscapes of their more recent work, Coming Into Beauty has more of a jangly, wide-eyed feel — more Aztec Camera than the Eels. Which only makes sense, as the members were all in their late teens when they originally recorded this album. Rest assured, if you’ve found anything to appreciate in modern examples of the Mommyheads material, you’re sure to get a kick out of these earlier tunes as well, especially from their youthful, energetic approach to the same flawless melodic sense the band evokes to this day.

All of this is what you’ll have in store for you tonight if you head down to Richmond Music Hall at Capital Ale House, where the Mommyheads will be doing their part to inaugurate the post-pandemic era of live music excellence. They’ll be joined by our own veteran of the melodic indie/alternative world, Prabir Mehta, backed by his latest project, the Prabir Trio. So if you were thinking of strolling in fashionably late, make alternate plans — you’re going to want to be there from the very first note.

Broadberry Entertainment Group presents The Mommyheads at Richmond Music Hall at Capital Ale House, Thursday October 28, with Prabir Trio. Doors open at 7 pm, show begins at 8. Tickets are $10 in advance and can be purchased at bit.ly/mommyheadsrva. Proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test within 72 hours required for entry.

Marilyn Drew Necci
MARILYN DREW NECCI - Richmond Magazine

The Mommyheads were an incredibly important part of the burgeoning ’90s alt/indie scene that provided a wealth of influence despite never being an incredibly prominent act. They disappeared after things turned a little sour when they signed with Geffen and re-emerged re-invigorated almost a decade later. Since that re-emergence they’ve released three strong records, but Vulnerable Boy tops all of them in scope and quality. On Vulnerable Boy, the Mommyheads make good on the title and expose themselves more fully throughout this collection than they ever have before. There are blasts of erratic fuzz cutting through a sound somewhat reminiscent of the one Young Man conjured up earlier this year on Vol. 1. Through Vulnerable Boy‘s 13 tracks, the band doesn’t miss a step and ends up with a surprise contender for year-end consideration. - POP Matters

Sometimes you need to go back to go forward. Knowing when to mine what came before and when to blaze a way forward is a kind of wisdom. After 35 years of relentless effort to find that balance, the Mommyheads manage to do both at the same time.

This month, Mommyheads return to the Bay Area where they were based during the heady San Francisco alternative music scene of the ’90s. The band will play Santa Rosa’s Lost Church on Oct. 26 and the Chapel in San Francisco on Oct. 27.

Although the Mommyheads’ lyrical, timeless, retro-now sound draws from across the eras of rock, the legacy of the ’90s post-punk takeover looms large in the feel of the band. Their weird mix of musical styles is almost normal to the ear now, enriched by the alternative rock legacy of noise fused with melody.

The Mommyheads’ new album, Genius Killer, is a tight, self-assured affair that sounds all the more youthful for its maturity.

Adam Elk’s raw vocals, brazen for their limited—if any—production, sound familiar and edgy, like listening to the patient arguments of a kid home from college trying to open the mind of a beloved uncle.

Oscillating wildly from the electro-tweak of the title track to the straight up Stevie Wonder future-funk of “Distill Your Love into Your Dying Light,” to an album closer with trip-out electro-rock worthy of the Doors, the Mommyheads produce that heart swelling pull of rock anthems without sounding like Panic at the Disco.

Reflecting on the band’s time in the Bay Area, Elk told the Bohemian how different the nurturing local scene was compared to the band’s original and current home, NYC. “[In the Bay Area if] you connected with the audience, you played for three hours,” said Elk. “In New York, you got half an hour, 40 minutes. In LA, you had to pay to play in the ’80s and ’90s.”

We also shared memories of the idiosyncratic local experimental noise scene of the ’90s and 2000s.

“A band like Mr. Bungle would never come out of a big city like … New York,” Elk said. “In the Bay Area, you could woodshed a little bit, work on your [music] without the pressure of having a big crowd so fast,” or having to appeal to the attention of industry players.

“We’re number 58 this week in college radio,” Elk enthused. “There’s some 20 year olds that like a band in their 50s. That’s an accomplishment,” he laughed.

Even with an outsider mentality from the start, Elk has come to see more clearly than ever that the band’s endgame is to have fun and play music.

“[So many] artists are wrapped up in their ego, and they’re just gunning for something … but they don’t know where they’re going. I think when you finally realize what you’re trying to get [as a band], it can be as simple as what’s right in front of your nose, [which] for us is a better show and better music,” said Elk. “That’s where we’re at, which is very healthy.”

When I congratulated Elk on his wisdom, which seems lacking in music now as much as ever, he said, “Well, music wisdom. It’s all I got.”

The Mommyheads play on Wednesday, Oct. 26, at the Lost Church, 427 Mendocino Ave. in Santa Rosa. 7:30pm, $15, all ages. Local electro-funkers B3PO open for the Mommyheads. - Santa Rosa Bohemien

"Led by New Yorkers transplanted to SF , are post graduate students of the Beach Boys and the Beatles , out to capture the nuances of Longing in perfectly balanced melodies" Jon Pareles - NY TIMES