SATCH KERANS PIECES
Like longtime Red Sox outfielder Dwight Evans (yes, this is aimed at you, ’70s and ’80s kids), Danvers native Tom “Satch’’ Kerans is a rare, refreshing exception to what has, presumably, always been a young man’s game. A ’70s kid who fronted 1987(!) Rock ’n’ Roll Rumble contenders the Catalinas (they lost to Mark Sandman’s pre-Morphine outfit, Treat Her Right), Kerans just keeps getting better and surer with the years. After taking a decade off to go back to school and get a teaching degree, Kerans has since returned to writing songs, and the wisdom brought by time and experience plays right into his wheelhouse on his third solo effort: populist power-pop with a lived-in feel, in the vein of early Tom Petty, Dwight Twilley, or John Mellencamp. “I know more than a few things,’’ Kerans testifies in the pub-rocking “Hey Baby’’ (which features a tasty kick-drum break a la the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby’’). “I been around, I ain’t no novice.’’ You can hear that seasoned perspective in plainspoken yet vividly rendered vignettes like “Darkside of Dawn’’ and “American Cousin,’’ a pair of gorgeously wistful, emotionally bruised ballads. And “Ho Chi Minh and the Brakeman,’’ a pedal steel guitar-burnished gem which name-checks the former president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, actress Mae West, and country icon Jimmie Rodgers, gets our vote for song title of the year. (Out now)
