Jericho – Retrospective 1995-1998

It seems that these days you just can’t get rid of Danny McDonald… thankfully!

His catchy hooks are all over the scene, be it the power-pop soundtrack to an endless summer of his band P76 or his own solo stuff, the glammy garage sounds of The Stoneage Hearts and now Jericho, that actually takes us back to his earliest days when it all began.

Of course, had this been the first one that I heard of his works, I’d be much more thrilled, now that I know that he can do even better, I can only enjoy the development of the pop-master-in-the-making.

Still, there’s a coupla stand-outs that will make me get back to this collection every once in a while like the usual “big starry-eyed” power-chords of Coming Down, Talking To Myself or Tell Me Something I Don’t Know (well, they did name one of their EPs Radio City did they?!), the infectious guitar riff of Everybody’s Fool.

Or the jangly “flight” of the teenage-byrds in Don’t Know What Comes Over Me and it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise learning that he was saving Washed Out for the rainy days, so that he can “survive” by offering it to the Gallaghers, for their “come back single”.

Anyway, this is another “pop boomerang” that will keep coming back no matter how hard you try to throw it away.

[Released by Pop Boomerang 2003]

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2 Comments

  1. As lead guitarist and backing vocalist for Jericho, I didn’t get to contribute many songs to the list, which was fine. But I did write a few decent ones, and interestingly, two are mentioned here. “Washed Out” and “everybody’s Fool” are both 100% my compositions both musically and lyrically. I cannot say that I am overly impressed with them being passed off as Danny’s songs and I am interested to know exactly how this came to be. Looking forward to your reply.
    Regards, Leigh Thomas.

    • Hi Leigh,
      Well, as you might’ve expected, there’s not much more to it but simply me not paying enough attention. I met Danny (virtually) as a solo aritst while doing my Popism radio show and writing reviews relating to that, and it was only after a while that I’d learned about Jericho. Having in mind that he was a solo author at the time, and also the main songwriter in Jericho, must’ve made me overlook the fact that he was not the only one. Even though it comes no less than 15 years after the review had been written, there’s nothing left for me to do but deeply apologize for my ignorance. I hope you find the fact that, in spite of the majority of songs being Danny’s, I found two of yours to be sticking out, at least somewhat compensating for the injustice done to you.
      Best regards
      Goran

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