Sugar Stems “Sweet Sounds of the...” 2010. Bubbly upbeat power pop out of our town, Milwaukee, and, a bit oddly, this copy (their first full-length) is an import on Bachelor Records from Austria; other releases are on the Milwaukee-based Dusty Medical Records. Later releases by Sugar Stems are on Dusty Medical as well as another now-Wisconsin-previously-Portland, OR-based Dirtnap Records. Anyway! It’s super-catchy, hooky and bright, nods to the 60′s girl-group pop sound and with two women in the band (lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Betsy Heibler and bassist Stephanie Conard, both previous members of The Flips) and that sound, comparisons to the Go-Go’s are inescapable. The two men in the band are Drew Fredrichsen (Jetty Boys) on lead guitar and Jon Heibler (Teenage Rejects, Catholic Boys, others) on drums. My top tracks are “I Don’t Wanna Be Around You Anymore,” “Wake Up” and “I Gotta Know.” I was just now going to write that I didn’t think I had ever seen Sugar Stems play live but as I was digging around on YouTube I found this video of them playing “I Gotta Know” in 2009 at the Pumpkin Pavilion event, something that we attend every year because it’s in the park less than 2 blocks from our house. So I probably did see them and also my memory clearly sucks.
