Clever One (Pink & Black/ Fat)
by Jamie Kiffel
Picture it: It’s 1952, and the coolest guys in school are bobby soxers with hornrimmed glasses, spiked hair, perfect harmonies, and candy-sweet choruses. Now, it’s 2002 and the singer is a confrontational chick with a wad of harmonies, noisy guitars, and choruses like broken Sweet Tarts. These are The Flipsides, singable as a doo-wop band gone punky and pissed. Singer-songwriter Sabrina Stewart has a way of making bubblegum-stuck-under-your-seat pop music: Blackened, tough, and grimy but still a sweet and simple substance. Processed ’til it’s pink and familiar, it’s fun stuff, yet quite produced in that punky, shoutalong kind of way.
(PO Box 193690 San Francisco, CA 94119)