Reviews

Review of Strangest Places by Mark Fisher

Erie, PA (Lake Effect Hardcore baby!) based Telefonics are back with Strangest Places. While the band are still slightly undone sounding (always a good thing in my book), they manage to incorporate a lot more pop elements into this album and the result is pretty amazing. - more...

Review of Strangest Places and CD Release show by Silverfish Magazine

This cheerful, boistrous seven piece band hails from Erie, PA and has been pepping up the indie New Wave/Pop/Experimental scene in town since 1999. - more...

Erie Times Review—by Dave Richards

You can tell telefonics love pop music on "Strangest Places", the band's third CD. This Erie band servces up its most focused batch yet of catchy, exuberant pop nuggets, occasionally dipped in feedback and psychedelic detours. - more...

Showcase Article—by Dave Richards

Remember "Fractured Fairy Tales," those offbeat shorts during "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show"?

If they were set to music, they might feature the fractured pop of the Telefonics. The group's best songs are sugary and give you a sweet, blissful rush -- yet subversive, too, with how they fold in noise and feedback. - more...

Tangent Review—by Mike Caggeso

Music writers have recurring nightmares about being outsmarted by that which they write about.

And it's easy to tell when that happens. First, it's usually a band that they are bonkers about. But primarily, all you have to look for is their use of indigestible, over-the-top terms such as "post new wave," "paisley-swathed," "neo-psych," "hallucinogen-enhanced candy of swirling melody" and "immersed in a sweet-psych revisionist Brit-rock history" that leave readers scratching their head re-asking the innocent question: "So what does the music sound like?". - more...

Dug Review—SkratchMagazine.com

The psychedelic rock from Erie, PA's Telefonics, might be cooler than anything on either coast. Guitarist/vocalist John Johnston has found a direction in vintage Velvet Underground music. - more...

Mark Fisher Review—1340mag.com

This is another solid release from Erie, PA’s Basement Transmissions label. Telefonics are a female fronted, off kilter indie rock band. You know the kind, the ones that are more influenced by Lydia Lunch and The Stooges than the heroes of nineties alternative rock. - more...

Dave Richards Review—Erie Times News--Showcase

Pssst! Don't tell the Telefonics' John Johnston that his band just issued a great pop record. You'll freak him out. - more...

Mike Shanley's Music Review—eResource Magazine—Pittsburgh PA

TELEFONICS
HIP FLIP COLOURS
(Basement Transmissions)

Erie might not strike anyone as a town with a fertile independent music scene. In fact, on the surface, it makes Pittsburgh look like Austin or San Francisco by comparison. - more...

Pittsburgh City Paper - 11/17/05 - by Justin Hopper

From inside a stately home on a broad but otherwise quiet avenue in the twisted lakeside town of Erie, Pa., guitars moan and tambourines rattle like the pitter-patter of little ones’ feet. - more...

Scene and Heard Music Zine-Toronto, Ontario

Colour Delux

Campy, atmospheric pop that combines late 80s-style keyboard effects dotes Telefonics latest indie release, Colour Delux. - more...

Music Morsels On-line Zine

Telefonics - Colour Delux

When you hear the lead track from this Erie, PA band you think of Blondie's "Rapture" and also of the B-52s. - more...

Art Voice--Buffalo New York

Erie, PA's Telefonics, like Johnson Big band, are also a sort of interesting art project. - more...

PlayErie.con Review from Bleu Kat's 2

Telefonics opened the show tonight with danceable, new wave influenced pop. - more...

Review of Colour Delux by Mike Rep of Old Age/No Age Fame

Just letting you know I am enjoying yor CD - I think "Hallowed Ground" is my favorite cut - the samples from "Day The Earth Stood Still" were fun too - I have a T-Shirt of that movie! - more...

PlayErie.com CD review of colour delux

Telefonics list Blondie and the Velvet Underground among their influences, and that is an accurate starting point for describing this band to the uninitiated. - more...

Pittsburgh City Paper—CD Review

Telefonics - Colour Delux - Methopop Records

Swathed in layer after layer of feedback, immersed in a sweet-psych revisionist Brit-rock history, Telefonics is probably the closest thing to My Bloody Valentine to ever come out of Erie, PA. - more...

Telefonics: Pop with a Twist

The Erie group explores the terrain where sunny melodies meet dark swells of distortion and waves of feedback.

Preview by Dave Richards--Staff writer--Erie Times Showcase

John Johnston says "Heroin" changed his life, but don't call the cops. He means the harrowing Velvet Underground song from their 1967 debut, which broke so many pop rules they should have been arrested. - more...

Hooked on Telefonics -- Interview with Scene and Heard Zine

Toronto's first snowstorm, and the Telefonics hit on the city on the same night

By Sam Toman

Last Saturday two things descended upon Toronto. One came from above in the form of Toronto's first snowfall; the other came from below - south of the border - in the form of Pennsylvania pop act Telefonics. - more...

Pittsburgh City Paper—January 15th-22nd

Stephen Dusenberry —Second Opinion—

“Dead Air” by the Telefonics, from Colour Deluxe (Methopop Records, 2002).

This song sounds like Abercrombie, when you walk in the store and you hear a song that’s not quite pop music, but it’s trying to be like that fake, artsy pop music. - more...

Telefonics - Colour Delux--Review by Music Morsels Zine

First full length CD by this Erie, Pennsylvania band has a heady mix of psychedelia, modern alt, pop punk and other styles, weaving influences as diverse as No Doubt, Velvet Underground, OMD and Jesus & Mary Chain. - more...

Reviews of Silver Plastic Space Bag

From VS Planet Records 2 CD Compilation

Easily my favorite song on this cd. If it were a record I’d have a major groove worn in this spot. I love the bass line on this song. - more...

Live Review of Telefonics at Docksider playing a benefit for the Great Lakes Film Festival
with the Johnson's Big Band (from Pittsburgh)

Tonight's event at the Docksider was billed as "Movie/Music Vol.1" and was sponsored by the Great Lakes Film Festival. - more...

Live Review of Telefonics at Docksider with the fabulous Bicycle Monarchs and our pals from Pittsburgh the Hope Harvey's

Telefonics continue to get more interesting at every show we attend. They have been honing their chops over the past couple of months playing out of town in places like Toronto and Pittsburgh. - more...

Live Review of Telefonics at the Beer Mug -10/18/02

The Telefonics show tonight featured the band as a six piece with the addition of vocalist Matt Thompson. - more...

Live Review of Telefonics from their CD release party of Colour Deluxe--7/26/02

July 26th - 10:00 Friday night. It's time for the Telefonics CD release party. Time for pigtails and maryjanes cause I'm out to see the telefonics, a new poppy-punky band of neo-underground velveteens. - more...