Everything Must Converge in Todd Capps’s Popping World

Multitalented Musician Todd Capps Releases a Polished and Potent Solo Album Debut, ‘Everything Must Go’

Album Cover for Todd Capps's 'Everything Must Go' | Photo: Courtesy

At the risk of aging all parties involved, I belong to the elite club who eagerly lapped up the well-turned phrases, melodies, and musical vibes of Todd Capps’s cassette under his band name Holden. That was in the mid-’90s.

Fast-forward to now, and the multitalented and multifaceted Capps, now 58 and fully engaged in his musical path, has officially released his debut solo album, Everything Must Go. One of the finer albums produced in our fair town, Capps’s coup is a polished, well-crafted album fortified by infectious hooks and good spirits, but also injected with proper pop punk energy, richly layered vocals, and smart designs all around.

Bad Astronaut in Australia | Photo: Courtesy

Capps’s musical life has found him playing for years, recording and touring with the indie band Bad Astronaut, and lending his keyboardist savvy with various projects, including Lagwagon and the kitschy-cool lounge project Swinging Moods with singer Spencer Barnitz. Over many years, he secured his place in the world of film and TV scoring, but the inner pop maestro had to emerge, which it does masterfully on the new album.

As keyboardist, bassist, studio wizard, and overseer, Capps is very much the centering force on the album, but its successful recipe is partly supplied by his most excellent musical allies, guitarists Tim Cullen and Thom Flowers and smashing drummers Kye Smith and Santa Barbara’s man for all musical reasons Austin Beede.

Everything Must Go, not to be confused with Steely Dan’s sardonic 2003 swan-song album, bubbles over with musical mettle and affirmative life and love odes. The opening title song, about the transitioning process of a move — literally and/or metaphorically — builds to the key line, “Useless worlds will disappear / Love will find its place in here.”

Todd Capps | Photo: Courteesy

The pop-perkiest track on the album is “Jake’s Girl,” a clever twist-up on, and sly reference to, Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl,” involving the temptation of a girl whose affections are bouncing between boys. Cullen peels off a steamy fine guitar solo to close this party favor with cheek and muster to spare.

Part of the sonic palette on Everything involved Capps folding in economical retro synth parts, as on the deliciously Cars-y “Turn Over,” with its parade of symmetrical lyric lines, from “This is the penny that derails the train” to “This is the shadow you can’t explain.” Capps’s acoustic piano playing has brief moments in the unaccompanied spotlight, through Ben Folds–y passages in the middle and outro of “The After.”

My personal favorite song is “Any Time Now,” arty by degrees and speckled with surprise turns of lyrics, harmony, and song structure. With its rechanneled echoes of Queen and David Bowie, this would be a hit in a more just and hip musical universe.

Capps, who has exercised his love of ska in a cover band with ska as the in-house groove, surprises us by capping off Everything in a perky ska mode with “Distracted.” A nostalgic lyric recounts gigging in the olden days and basking in “a skanking state of mind.” Limber trombone lines are supplied by “Skabone” Stan Middleton (longtime member of Spencer the Gardener), and Sky High the Mau Mau is a murmuring hipster in the background, as Capps advises we “leave that trip at the door / Salvation lands on two and four.”

Insider musical references continue, right to the end of the song and album as he sings about “the record skipping halfway through, ever revolving and never resolving,” just as the song abruptly ends on a suspended note/chord.

Given the confident thrust and artistry of his debut album, it’s natural to come to the conclusion that now everything must begin in Capps’s belated career as a solo artist. What’s age got to do with it?

See toddcapps.com for info and ordering.