Alternate tunings — so fun, so impractical. But during pandemic times, with the horror of re-tuning excessively in front of an audience receding significantly, Spelling Reform lead singer and songwriter Dan Wisniewski dove in. An experiment in open G led to “Just Like Me,” a quintessential Spelling Reform tune that takes the band’s stutter-stop indie rock/power pop and matures it significantly (and also adds three guitar solos in four minutes for good measure). A driving chorus, big synth parts and humongous drums round out a driving anthem, a perfect final single before the indie rock’s band’s third LP, “The Real Giving Up,” is released on October 20.

Just Like Me

Unwritten band rule: The most single-y song is a single. Hence: "Wasn't Everything Great?" A total bop, this second single from Spelling Reform's upcoming third LP "The Real Giving Up" checks all those "Is it a single?" boxes. Up-tempo? Yes. Sounds (mostly) happy? Uh-huh. Has a chorus? … Mostly. We’re serving up harmonies over (almost) the whole song from bassist Tom Howley, a big (in the best way) piano line from keyboardist Jim Gannon, rock solid timekeeping from Mark Rybaltowski, and lots of fun overdubs (arpeggios left and right) from Dan Wisniewski to keep those ears perked. I’m not dancing – you are.

Wasn't Everything Great?

Maximalist Spelling Reform. That's The Real Giving Up, the Philly indie rock band's first full-length record since 2019's Stay Inside.

Painfully culled from the 27 songs that lead singer and songwriter Dan Wisniewski wrung out of his widow's-peaked noggin during the pandemic, The Real Giving Up's 35 minutes simmer and reflect on a very 2020/2021 headspace. Starring: depression, anxiety, desperation, clutter, profundity, an occasional odd sense of clarity. Also: loud.

A great-big collection of warm electric pianos, warm slide guitars and whoa-frigid analog synths piled high atop the band's careful arrangements suit these nine tunes just fine. Boring moments? Probably (maybe?) none.

The title track absorbs carefully placed synth after carefully placed synth amid its midtempo-sway acknowledging the futility of change ("I'm not brave enough to follow you through this world"). "I'm Interested" zwings up and down and all around, a veritable "you're not looking!" in open A amid well-loved arpeggios and the only song this year you'll hear namedropping "my microbiome." And "Just Like Me" durges with the best, self-propelled brutality amid self-effacing honesty: "It's just like me to give up."

Quiet stuff? Yessir. First-ever-for-the-band solo acoustic number "Make the Road a Little Longer" offers a quiet and calming yet ultra-clammy hand in so-weird-it-works Celtic tuning: "Signal to the rescue party that they can delay a day or two." And "Poison My System" sends us all home with those pretty-but-unsettling vibes Gen Z is on about: "When my world gets this small I begin to unfold in spectacular fashion."

It's late-30-somethings making a big record because there’s no reason not to. Those late-30-somethings: Mark Rybaltowski hits every drum exactly right. (Also: a tambourine.) Tom Howley lays it low on the bass and also hits those sky-high backing vox (more prevalent than ever). Jim Gannon's careful touch on the keys and melodic sense is envied by all.

Recorded at The Headroom with Kyle Pulley and mixed and mastered at Milkboy The Studio with Cody Cichowski, both geniuses of their time, which is this time.

RIYL: The Mountain Goats, Wilco, The New Pornographers, confusing your parents, hiding from your co-workers, eating too many mints, avoiding confrontation, being obnoxious unironically.

Spelling Reform is:
Jim Gannon: keyboards, piano, synthesizers
Tom Howley: bass, backing vocals
Mark Rybaltowski: drums, percussion
Dan Wisniewski: lead vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, banjo, percussion

All songs written by Dan Wisniewski. Arranged and performed by Spelling Reform. © 2023 Spelling Reform.

Recorded at Headroom Studios. Tracking engineered by Kyle Pulley at Headroom Studios, Philadelphia (www.headroom.studio). Assisted by Isaac Shalit and Christo Johnson, and Nkozi Cole. Additional recording completed at Sunnyside Studio, East Side Studio and Milkboy The Studio. Mixed and mastered by Cocy Cichowski at Milkboy The Studio.

Photographs by Dan Wisniewski. Artwork and graphic design by Dan Dinsmore.

Special thanks to Karrin, Liz and Liz; Kirsten Randle for lending me her Nord; Mark Wisniewski for lending me his drum mics (more than a decade ago); and Jim Gannon for lending me his Moog and his fancy guitar.

I'm Interested

Philadelphia indie rock/power pop group Spelling Reform has yet to find a song its members couldn’t fill with starts and stops. Those dynamics are there, for sure, on the band’s new single, “(I’m Believing) The Same Thing,” but the group also manages to settle into a rare tappable groove here. Propelled by the careful rhythm work of founding members Mark Rybaltowski (drums) and Tom Howley (bass), the song leans into the “pop” in power pop — especially in its super-full chorus — while lead singer Dan Wisniewski spouts off assuredly obscure asides about fact checkers and marathons that eventually reveal a contemporary push-and-pull story.

“The song digs into the passive behavior that makes up the worst parts of ‘male’ culture,” Wisniewski said. “The narrator keeps listening and believing his friend’s boasts about sexual exploits, even when they’re fabricated to some degree. Why does he react the way he does, and what is he doing with that mix of horror and fascination he feels? Like all the tunes on the new record, this song is less about judging someone else’s actions and behaviors and more about reflecting on what’s going on inside. Anyone who’s listened to other Spelling Reform stuff or my previous tunes with The Quelle Source knows that’s a pretty sizeable shift.

“Musically, the song embodies most of what I think makes the record a step forward (or at least a step to the side) for us: longer songs, more choruses, more synth. I’m particularly fond of the engaging but not busy instrumentation, the melodic tremolo’d guitar solo, and the subtle but crucial synth work from me and our newest member, Jim Gannon.”

Stay Inside

(I'm Believing) The Same Thing

Feel Unwell

The Second Coming

Breezy, patient, measured — these are not words to describe the 11 barn-burning songs on “No One’s Ever Changed,” the acclaimed 2016 LP from Philly indie rock/power pop band Spelling Reform that was recorded with Hop Along’s Joe Reinhart. But those adjectives do adequately describe “The Chicago Board of Trade,” the second single from the band’s new LP “Stay Inside.” 

Across four wide-ranging minutes, the group masterfully plays with dynamics, adding and removing banjo, church organ and electric piano in creating a rare (for the band) mid-tempo amble that nimbly moves toward a gear-shifting denouement. Like many of the songs on “Stay Inside,” the song ends far from where it began — in this case, amid a series of massive Drop D riffs. 

Lyrically, lead singer and songwriter Dan Wisniewski explores two disparate memories (including one involving the iconic architectural masterpiece of the song’s title) before a bitter reveal. “There’s a joy in reliving specific thoughts and feelings, and there’s a sadness in realizing how common those seemingly unique memories can be,” said Wisniewski.

The Chicago Board Of Trade

174 Degrees

What's So Hard About Pretending

All The Fun Parts Sanded Off

There Is No More Future

Fog Shrugged Off

Meriwether Lewis On The Divide

On Stay Inside, the second full-length record from Philadelphia indie rock group Spelling Reform that was released in April 2019, the band unveiled 10 introspective, mature and quiet-loud missives and character studies.

Purposefully left off that record was "Somewhere Back There," lead singer Dan Wisniewski's rumination on his parents as 20-somethings. Finding release as a standalone single in November 2019, "Somewhere Back There" adopts an energetic power-pop backing as Wisniewski reflects on what he's heard about his parents' young lives among a series of distorted guitar solos.

---

Somewhere back there my Dad is smoking cigarettes with his friends and playing basketball.
Skipping church and sleeping late. Studying to be a weatherman and running marathons.

Somewhere back there my Mom is hanging out at a McDonald's with her friends after school.
Learning to write in shorthand. Coming home to find her Dad dead...

I can never know them.
I can never speak to them.

Somewhere back there my Grandmom went to Egypt with my uncle.
Taking care of my granddad wilting in a hospital bed…

Spelling Reform members performing on "Somewhere Back There":
Tom Howley: backing vocals, bass
Mark Rybaltowski: drums
Dan Wisniewski: acoustic and electric guitars, lead vocals, synthesizers

Recorded and mixed by Kyle Pulley at The Headroom (theheadroomphiladelphia.com) in Philadelphia, PA. Assisted by Chance Halter, Jax Savage, Brendan Simpson and John Heywood. Additional recording done at Sunnyside Studios in Philadelphia. Mastered by Ryan Schwabe. Released by Black Rd Records (blackrdrecords.com).

Song written by Dan Wisniewski. © 2019 Spelling Reform.

Photograph by Dan Wisniewski. Artwork and graphic design by John Cassidy.

Say hi at spellingreformband.com.

Somewhere Back There

On Stay Inside, the second full-length record from Philadelphia indie rock group Spelling Reform that was released in April 2019, the band unveiled 10 introspective, mature and quiet-loud missives and character studies.

Purposefully left off that record was "Somewhere Back There," lead singer Dan Wisniewski's rumination on his parents as 20-somethings. Finding release as a standalone single in November 2019, "Somewhere Back There" adopts an energetic power-pop backing as Wisniewski reflects on what he's heard about his parents' young lives among a series of distorted guitar solos.

The song is backed by a demo of Stay Inside track "What's So Hard About Pretending?" On Stay Inside, the song is a showcase for drummer Mark Rybaltowski's kinetic drumming and a dynamic ebb-and-flow- arrangement, but here, the song's multiple, intricate synth lines shine, as does an ear-splitting guitar solo.

----

“Make it a double” — that’s something I’ve never said to anyone. I’m up in the morning with the best of them. Who are these people who can go forever? I’m tied up tight with moss in my sweater.

I’m never throwing my things away … OK, I could come around. What’s so hard about pretending?

I’d like to have a panic attack in the stairwell but I can’t — the inside’s locked for security reasons. I’m always three drinks away from a good time but three drinks in, I’m hating every season.

I’m always making it about me … OK, this one’s actually about me. What’s so hard about pretending?

I have made believe that everybody thinks of me.

Every once in a while I think, “OK, maybe it’s time to stop thinking.” What’s so hard about pretending?

----

Dan Wisniewski: acoustic and electric guitars, handclaps, synths, vocals 

Song written by Dan Wisniewski. © 2019 Spelling Reform.

Photograph by Dan Wisniewski. Artwork and graphic design by John Cassidy.

Say hi at spellingreformband.com.
license
all rights reserved

Whats So Hard About Pretending (demo)

Nasal indie rock, stutter-stop power pop, pleasantly bent indie pop. New LP "The Real Giving Up" out October 20.

Spelling Reform

Popular tracks