Kevin Bronson on November 10th, 2014

0

In 2010, about the time the wheels started to wobble for California popsters Rooney (who were releasing and touring behind their final album), the quintet’s guitarist Taylor Locke was just getting rolling. His side project Taylor Locke & the Roughs released two albums seven months apart. But except for launching the (great) cover band Rumours: The Ultimate Fleetwood Mac Tribute Show, Locke hasn’t been heard from much since. This week he returned, sans the Roughs, with “Running Away From Love,” the first single from a full-length he will release in 2015. The new album, titled “Time Stands Still,” runs along the same lines as his previous two – lovelorn ’70s power-pop, finely honed down to the last guitar lick and warm keyboard tone. It’s a solo effort, but as he points out, not really singer-songwriter fare. “I think the term ‘singer-songwriter’ sadly evokes a white guy in a coffee shop strumming a G-chord all day,” he “This record sounds more like a band record … The band just takes occasional smoke breaks.” And darned if Locke hasn’t come up with a chuckle-a-minute way to (ahem) roll out his new single out. The video is conceived as an infomercial for the Couch Car. Suffice to say, the streets of Locke’s Los Feliz neighborhood are no longer safe.

||| Live: Taylor Locke and his band perform Saturday night at El Cid.