I Guess it's Insecurity that Tricks me into Deceit...Mega City Four Sebastopol Road

Well, July is almost over with, and what better way to end it than with a passionate, hook-filled 90's Alternative rock album. Sebastopol Road is the only album released in the States by Farnborough, England's Mega City Four, and it is a corker. Led by the late Wiz (Darren Brown) on guitar and vocals, (who died suddenly and tragically in 2006 of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 44), they were a beautiful anomaly. On this album they sound musically very American Midwest to me circa 1980's with an English singer grafted on top. Which is not at all a bad thing to me because the songs are very strong, with intelligent lyrics. The music is reminiscent of groups like the Replacements and Husker Du/Sugar yet distinctively Mega.

Bosch Spice

In addition to Wiz, the band was comprised of his brother Danny on rhythm guitar and vocals, Gerry Bryant on Bass and vocals, and Chris Jones on Drums. The album was produced by Jessica Corcoran. One thing that can be overlooked by the quality of the songs and the inspired big vocal chops of Wiz is the uniformly excellent guitar work on this album. And tastefully done, not articulated in passage after passage of guitar histrionics, but in small bits that often occur so quickly that you might not even notice them. For instance in the Beatley tune Peripheral he does a little double time guitar run that brought to mind Nels Cline from Wilco.

The album begins with the epic Ticket Collector, an anthemic, thundering pop song that starts Sebastopol with a big bitter roar.

I'll give you a break
I'll give you a clue
I was never the one for you
I waited for longer
Than I can remember
My ticket is well overdue.....



After that they change gears with twangy tune worthy of the 'Mats, Scared of Cats, which incidentally contains a huge Wiz guitar solo. Another huge song on the album is Clown--for all purposes an energetic rocker but then you listen closer and you find smart bitter lyrics about the difficulties of making sense of the world around you. Their song Stop is also another Husker-hued musical treat.

Before I answer I hesitate
I want to say the right thing
I guess it's insecurity that tricks me into deceit
But maybe the biggest deception
Is the trick that I play on myself

Other nice tracks here include the aforementioned Peripheral, the Mrs Robinson allegory Anne Bancroft,
and the speed pop of What's Up. This is a very strong album that ought to have garnered some attention in the US, but it was one strike and they were out, as the follow up album Magic Bullets was available only as an import. Even on Sebastopol Rd there is a lot of frustration and self-deprecation in the songs, notably the title of the closing song Wasting My Breath. Or the lyric "The price that I'm paying makes me feel worthless" from the ballad Vague.





But they put together a nice body of work in the time they were together and were one of the sharper bands of the era. And I've heard they were a fantastic live band. I don't see a lot of people disliking this album. After the band broke up in 1996, Wiz played in the bands Serpico and Ipanema, and even did a stint in Montreal's Doughboys. In memory of Wiz, a trust was founded in 2007 for the purpose of educating and assisting aspiring musicians, entitled Forward 4 Wiz. In fact Boss Tuneage records has recently released an anthology of Ipanema's music, and all proceeds are to be donated to the Forward 4 Wiz Trust. Nice.