Angie
Heaton - Sparkle
other
Angie Heaton releases
Our Angie is back with a new CD!
Her debut Calamities & Restitution received acclaim
far and wide. We hear from a British friend that John Peel
is still playing tracks from that album. We couldn’t
be more pleased to give him a new one to play, and you a
new one to buy. Sparkle, produced by prolific boardsmith
(and slow going songsmith) Adam Schmitt, features Nick Rudd
and Kurt Bielema on guitar, Charlie Dold on bass, and Angie
on drums. The eleven tracks include Angie’s broad stylistic
assortment (Magnet said about C&R "…pop
songs, rave-ups, ballads, and dirges…"), and a
cover of Left Banke’s "Walk Away Renee". Angie was
just featured in the Summer 1998 issue of Entertainment
Weekly’s On Campus college
magazine. In the What Makes Her Special department EW claims, "Her
sharp sense of humor, melodic deftness, and cow-punk verve
are hot enough to pop her out of the corn belt." And
you gotta see that sassy pout Angie wears in the accompanying
photo.
Magnet,
October/November 1996
"Previously a drummer by
trade (for Corndolly and Liquorette), Angie Heaton makes
her solo debut with a nice eclectic album that goes through
almost as many styles as Guided By Voices does beers during
a typical concert. The folksy ‘Polly,’ a bittersweet
memoir of a beloved dead aunt, opens Calamities and Restitution and
seems to set the stage for a typical pop singer/songwriter
effort. But, before you know it, the brutal kiss-off ‘See
How You Are,’ the stark ‘I Can’t Remember,’ and
the elegiac ‘Fall’ prove all bets are off. Playing
stylistic roulette is actually a very shrewd move on Heaton’s
part; it not only allows her to show off the depth of her
chops, but it helps reduce the chances of her being pigeonholed
as the next Phair/Harvey/Amos by rock critics. Anyone who
can write pop songs, raveup ballads, and dirges as well as
Heaton doesn’t deserve to get stuck being called the
next anybody." – Andrew Johnston
Option
"Inspired by the fertile
flatlands of central Illinois, Heaton sings a Lois-y style
of folksy indie rock. Mellow and lackadaisical vocals are
accompanied with a simple and strummy acoustic guitar, accented
with violin on some tracks (‘I Can’t Remember’)
and sitar on others (‘Fall’). Heaton plays most
of the instruments on the album herself, which is commendable… ‘See
How You Are’ – the album’s standout track – is
basically a duet with herself and ‘Trans Am,’ which
uses clapping accents for percussion, takes her into more
experimental, rockier terrain. A pretty and well-produced
debut." – Susan Carpenter
Puncture,
Number 37
"There’s something admirable
about the unfashionable, rather mid-80’s execution of
this collection of songs by drummer/songwriter Angie Heaton.
But admirable isn’t always the same as likable—or
good. Heaton was previously heard (as drummer only) in Urbana,
Illinois’ all-female Corndolly, children of the wedding
of blue-collar rock and Rough Trade feminism pioneered by
Scrawl.
Heaton’s solo work has little
to do with this (why should it?), cleaving instead to highly
traditional verse-chorus song forms and resolutely assimilationist
production values—something like Marshall Crenshaw’s
notion of pop circa 1989 (or Freedy Johnston’s in ’95).
Check out the big, popping snare sound and chiming 12-string
of ‘The Pleiades,’ or the roominess of the Mazzy
Star-ish ‘Pretty Is As Pretty Does’…
Yet
many of her lyrical conceits are insightful—especially ‘Johnette Napolitano,’ an
odd number about bonding with the Concrete Blonde singer
(of all people) in 1989, only to be snubbed in ’91.
Despite its attempted slickness, this record succeeds when
Heaton gets to act a little disheveled (the bitchy ‘Superstar’),
or when something approaching ‘rocking out’ is
attempted: ‘See How You Are’ is early Scrawl doing ‘Stepping
Stone,’ while ‘Trans Am’ gets everything right—a
sassy Heaton rescues a depressed friend in Chicago and warns
her not to bitch, while handclaps and the lead guitarist
Henry Frayne (Lanterna, etc.) replicate 80’s AOR—this
time in a good way, and in barely two minutes." – Franklin
Bruno
Indie Street
"Oh, Angie, Angie, Angie;
how we love you! Let me count the ways. Well, today, fourteen… Angie
Heaton has gone forth and recorded a diverse and fun-tastic
solo album… Bristol-styled melodic jangle pop that builds
into a full band sound… And ‘Trans Am’ is
too fun. A silly song for silly moods. You’ll find yourself
singing the chorus all day long… Sometimes cheery, sometimes
saddening, but mostly just plain fun; Angie has written fourteen
songs to cover the many moods of pop music…" – Kevin
Brown
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