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Still Flyin'

Never Gonna Touch the Ground

(Ernest Jenning Record Co.; US: 21 Apr 2009; UK: 21 Apr 2009)

The members of the indie-pop party-band Still Flyin’, steeped as it is in its own cute pop version of reggae or ska, call us dudes and beckon us to party. And party we want to, not just because it taps into a kind of quintessential party feeling, but because Still Flyin’ seems friendly and have a lot of positive energy, plus nice harmonies. Never Gonna Touch the Ground opens with an appropriate theme song, with the chorus: “Still flyin’ / We’re never gonna touch the ground.” That about sums it up, but what’s to like about Still Flyin’, even more than its fun-loving sound, is that deep down the songs feel personal, like your next-door neighbors had so much fun at the block party that afterwards they wrote a bunch of songs about the neighborhood, about the fun that friends can have together. It’s a simple but eternal theme, perhaps, but it sounds dynamite when phrased as a big party anthem, like on the delightfully corny “Forever Dudes”. Though it might seem difficult to find a band who can sing about 20 dudes on a party bus and make you care, Stiill Flyin’ somehow pulls it off. “It’s important to keep in touch / With all the dudes that you love,” the band proclaims, and who is to disagree?

Rating:

Dave Heaton has been writing about music on a regular basis since 1993, first for college newspapers and DIY fanzines and now mostly on the Internet. In 2000, the same year he started writing for PopMatters, he founded the online arts magazine ErasingClouds.com, for which he is still the editor and main writer. He also writes music reviews for the print magazine The Big Takeover and has a blog column on their website, BigTakeover.com. He has a Bachelors degree in Journalism (1996) and a Masters degree in English (1999), both from Truman State University, in the underrated town of Kirksville, Missouri, Though he does enough music-listening and writing for it to be a full-time job, it is not one. He has held a series of editing, writing and business communications positions at small and large companies in Kansas, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He currently lives in Kansas City.


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Still Flyin' - Good Thing It's a Ghost Town Around Here
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