The Silver Lining

If a pair of vintage-pop enthusiasts met on a bus on vacation, fell in love and formed a band and wrote songs about it, they’d sound like the Silver Lining. That is in fact how this project was conceived: recently married couple Matt Rhodes (guitar, vocals) and Anna Price (vocals) met on a bus from Boston to Rochester in 2003. When Price mentioned she liked the Guess Who, the die was cast. “By that time we’d had the astrology conversation and done each other’s charts,” Rhodes says at their home in Watertown. Adds Price, “I remember you were insecure. But when my parents picked me up, I said, ‘That’s the man I’m going to marry.’ ”

The Silver Lining’s self-released debut CD, Well Dressed Blues, does deliver romance, but there’s a fair bit of minor-key melancholy in there as well as the two trade off vocals. The ’60s pop connections are filtered through ears that grew up on Bowie and Radiohead. Producer Tony Goddess (the Rudds’ bassist) puts the vocals up front and gives the songs a shimmer that brings to mind his former band, Papas Fritas.

“My father was a Beatles obsessive,” Price notes, pointing to an extra-large coffee mug in their apartment. “Every Sunday morning he’d fill that mug and play the Beatles until it was empty. When I was growing up, that music seemed more real to me than anything else. When my friends were into New Kids on the Block, I was playing the Turtles. I like to think we sound like that music in an alternate universe.”

The Silver Lining have called in many high-profile friends for a Tuesday residency at the Abbey that runs through June. Emily Grogan, the Other Girls (with Andrea Gillis and Michelle Paulhus), and Aloud join them on the 13th. Rick Berlin and Simon Ritt are there on the 20th, when the Silver Lining will play both a covers set and an original one. And the closing blowout on the 27th will include Ad Frank, Corin Ashley, and the first local gig in a while by Paula Kelley. - The Boston Phoenix

It’s rare to hear a debut album that sounds as fully-realized as the the Silver Lining’s note-perfect, Tony Goddess-produced Well Dressed Blues, which already already has folks describing them as the US’s answer to Magic Numbers. Fronted by co-singing husband-and-wife team of Anna Price and Matt Rhodes, the group nails joyous ’60s pop like no one we’ve heard in years: as our sister publication Stuff at Night put it, it’s “like being hurtled through space in a time machine aimed for the Summer of Love and piloted by the Jefferson Airplane and the Mamas and the Papas.” Next week, the Silver Lining plays kicks off a residency that sees them playing every Tuesday in June at the Abbey Lounge. Matador's next big thing, Jennifer O'Connor, is along for the jumpoff on June 6. Mark yr calendars.

- The Boston Phoenix

Matt Rhodes' brand of classic pop on songs like opener "Cemented Steps" is an inspired hybrid of LA psychesters The Merry Go Round and Victorian music-hall enthusiasts The Kinks. Anna Price's vocalizing on "Well Dressed Blues" evokes The Association and The Peanut Butter Conspiracy but the carnivalesque guitar line makes the song a splendid one-off... The band's sometimes harsh yoking together of disparate sub-genres actually works to their advantage, giving the songs unusual textures and grabby hooks: see the Southern rock guitar plus Beatles melodicism on "In the Future"; also see the brilliant waltz-rhythm coda to their ballad "Battered Senseless MIA Heart." TSL is neither revolutionary nor reactionary but evolutionary, fashioning splendidly colorful and worthy offshoots of the 1966-1972 era of psyche garage pop. If you're into The Hollies, The Turtles, and whatnot, you'll greet this release like a long-lost friend. If you've never heard of them, there's an introductory course right here.

- The Noise

Really well crafted harmonic melodic folk rock with plenty of 60’s influences and the musical abilities to back them up. A mix of male and female vocalists blend together to recall the Mamas and Papas, the Free Design, and It’s a Beautiful Day, among others; but, these folks are into their own thing; led by songwriter Matt Rhodes. A well polished mix of influences that ranges from Carpenters-like pop, Harry Nilsson’s witty goofing, to almost garagey rock, and even some glitter rock elements. Very clever and well done.

George Parsons
Dream Magazine #7
- Dreams Magazine

It used to be a vintage guitar here and a Hammond B-3 there, but artists are getting scary-good at evoking certain eras of music. These very things start happening the second Well Dressed Blues starts spinning. The flowers start melting off the album artwork and springing from the speakers with each guitar flourish. Throw this record through a few sound-aging devices and people will swear they saw the Silver Lining opening for the Mamas and the Papas.

As a record, Well Dressed Blues states its intentions immediately. The vibrant jangle of “Cemented Steps,” features the bright, sun-shiney vocals of songwriter and vocalist Matt Rhodes. The poppy-swing of the first track gives way to the second track of Well Dressed Blues, but now it’s Rhode’s co-founder and wife Anna Price on the mic. “Well Dressed Blues” simply seeps strawberry jam from out its deep grooves and Price’s gently swinging voice coaxes melodies out of the track that lesser vocalists would overlook.

The Silver Lining is not simply the love child of Price and Rhodes, the group is comprised of five like-minded flower children jamming out on Wurlitzer electric pianos, wah-wah pedals, and boasts enough old-sounds to send any vintage purist into trips of ecstasy. The venerable Mellotron even makes an appearance on “Even Then,” another standout track.

The sassy and sexy Well Dressed Blues is not the simplistic sounds of a group of kids in recently purchased bellbottoms playing with vintage gear. The record is exquisitely put together, a retro-pop gem turned into audio gold by the divine hand of the Rudds’ bassist-gone-producer Tony Goddess. Well Dressed Blues is more of an appreciation and approximation of the songwriting spirit of the middle ages of rock, a time when shaggy-haired masterminds created wood-paneled goodness that would emanate from golden-grilled speakers. (Self Released)

-C.D. Di Guardia
- NE Performer

The cuddly lady and long haired lad may bring pop stars The Magic Numbers to mind, but this American act sound far more like the Cali-influences the Numbers purport to have. This demo was recorded in a big studio and the production is pretty nice although indebted to everyone from The Association through to Alice Cooper theres enough of the modern age about this cool harmony rock band to break through. For cats like us though, the songcraft and arrangements of the late 60s are very much in evidence. A little bit rockier than sunshine pop per se with some nice touches. I dig it. - Shindig!

The Silver Lining is not really a subtle band, and Id like to see the technology that could drown out these vocals. Soaring, powerful, turbocharged vocals. The combination of a sweet tenor and a power alto makes for gorgeous harmonies; Im reminded a little of Lennon and McCartney at a couple of points. And when Anna really cuts loose and wails, its glorious. With excellent drumming and bass lines and tastefully flashy guitar solos, there is just absolutely nothing wrong with this set. Im especially impressed with a song called Well Dressed Blues, the lyrics to which seem delightfully dirty when I can make them out. And the last song has a slow, smokey Patti Smith intensity to it. - The Noise

Happy together
The Silver Lining's golden pop

BY JONATHAN PERRY

Chatting about music with the members of the West Coast pop revivalists the Silver Lining is a bit like being hurtled through space in a time machine aimed for the Summer of Love and piloted by the Jefferson Airplane and the Mamas and the Papas. It’s actually quite a pleasant time warp to be caught in: a sunshine-dappled tide pool, far less musty and mothballed than one might expect. And it’s not every day that you get a group of twenty- or even thirtysomethings from Boston waxing eloquent (they’d wax nostalgic if they’d been alive back then) about the Airplane’s Grace Slick, or singing the praises of ’60s AM-radio gods like the Turtles and the Monkees. This is fitting, given that two of the Silver Lining’s members were previously in a garage-psych outfit called the Punk Monkees.

"Music appeals to such a small demographic now and is so splintered, which is cool, but there’s something that’s been lost: the ability to be universally appealing to people," says Silver Lining singer Anna Price, who shares vocal duties with her husband, singer-guitarist Matt Rhodes. "When you hear [the Turtles’] ‘Happy Together’ on the radio, it’s a beautiful pop song, and everybody can relate to that."

"But somewhere along the line, rock got so bloated and full of itself that punk came along and poked a pin in that balloon," continues Price, whose band plays the Abbey Lounge every Tuesday in June. "That needed to happen, but that punk movement came with its own set of problems, which is that music became endlessly nihilistic and elitist. It became a club based on cool. In a different way, it was the same problem as what had happened before. The music stopped being about really connecting with people. We’re trying to bring it back around to that."

Well Dressed Blues, the Silver Lining’s self-released full-length debut, is the result of that desire, and it is, quite simply, unlike anything you’re likely to hear from a Boston band this year, or have likely heard from a contemporary band in a very long time. Expertly produced and engineered by Papas Fritas/Rudds member Tony Goddess, Blues is front-loaded with brightly gilded boy-girl harmonies that, yes, hark back to the Airplane, the Mamas and the Papas, and the Association. The group’s transistor-radio pop also carries a dash of the Turtles and the Something Else–era Kinks. The month-long Abbey residency begins on June 6 to coincide with the disc’s release.

What’s remarkable about Well Dressed Blues is how fresh it all sounds as an antidote to the troubled, politically divisive times we’re living in. The album works as both a balm and an escape. "I like to think of it as divine obliviousness to what’s going on around us," says Rhodes, who writes the band’s songs. "A lot of the music we listen to is so much older, and it’s not of our time. In our way, we’re doing what Dylan did — he’d read 1860s newspapers to see how people talked back then — and [our music] is oblivious to the [existence] of all of the bands that are cool right now." Much like the world we’re living in, rock has become too "jittery, anxious, and overstimulated," Rhodes contends.

Silver Lining keyboardist Ted Collins remembers the first time he caught an early incarnation of the group, when his old band, the Punk Monkees — which also included current Lining bassist Greg Radawich — shared a bill. (The discreetly superb drummer Doug Fuller rounds out the Silver Lining.) "What struck me about the music when I first saw these guys was that it just totally stood out," says Collins, who joined soon after. "It was different than anything else, so un-cynical. I thought, ‘This is amazing stuff.’ "

Even more amazing was the collision of coincidence and storybook romance that brought Price and Rhodes together. "It was right before Thanksgiving 2003, and we were both taking the bus from Boston to Rochester to visit our respective families," recalls Price. "We had never met each other before, but we grew up in the same hometown and we actually wound up living in Boston right around the corner from each other. We even went to the same college [Emerson], too, at different times. So I had barely made it to the bus at South Station and had almost missed it. At the first rest stop, we struck up a conversation and started talking about Etta James and singing, and what had been lost in pop music. We were both lamenting that. It was one of those rare occurrences where you meet somebody and within five minutes, you feel like you understand them. We couldn’t shut up the rest of the ride. My mom picked me up at the station and I told her, ‘I think I just met the man that I’m going to marry.’ "

No wonder, then, that Price and Rhodes would eventually name themselves the Silver Lining, after what they saw that day riding the bus to Rochester.
- Stuff at Night

April 2nd, 2007

"...as I came in from a cigarette The Silver Lining had already begun their set. Holy shit!... The Silver Lining brought their A-game to the Rumble, and it showed. Their songs were upbeat and catchy enough to make even the indiest of scenesters forget to cross his arms and gently bob his head. People were dancing, and I would have been too, if I wasn't a seven-foot tall gangly-ass mess with two left feet. Frontwoman Anna Price stood in the center of the stage looking like an icon from another time. She danced and never seemed awkward or ill-at-ease, even when her husband and guitarist Matt Rhodes took the lead. The music was good, guitar-driven pop, and the band could have been described to sound like any number of your parents' favorite groups. This was the kind of band you could take Grandma to and you'd both have a good time." - The Weekly Dig