Vestavia

Welcome to Vestavia. Those in Birmingham, Alabama know it as a suburban escape. Underground pop journeyman John P. Strohm also knows it as an escape -- from reality.

"It's a real grim strip of malls, fast food joints, little subdivisions. The word sounds exotic," he says. "But it's a completely bizarre place." That Strohm chose Vestavia as his jumping off point for his 10th album is the mark of a songwriter aiming straight for America's absurd heart. Here, the contrasts between rich and poor, displacement and security, and tragedy and comedy are hauntingly vivid. Vestavia is where you'll find ex-football great Rosie Grier teaching teenagers about Jesus at a school assembly, drivers without cars stuck like fish without water, a park where crack dealers and exotic birds come nest, memories that haunt empty hallways, and a narrator wondering if the whole world would be better if he just didn't exist.

All worth celebrating for Strohm, since this album is his first real mark of independence. After building some of the most respected and well-received indie-pop projects of the late '80s to late '90s (Blake Babies, Antenna, Velo Deluxe, Hello Strangers), Strohm approached Vestavia as a chance to take all of his styles -- country, power pop, rock -- and funnel it into one distinct sound. Playing over half of the instruments with the help of engineer Ed Ackerson (Polara), Strohm locks together a classic pop feel of the '60s with a rough-edged, contemporary kick. In Vestavia, it's a union that works.

John P. Strohm was born to an academic family in the Big Ten town of Bloomington, Indiana. After playing drums in the punk scene there, Strohm relocated to Boston and soon switched to guitar. His then-girlfriend and drummer Freda Love joined him and, upon meeting guitarist Juliana Hatfield, the three formed the Blake Babies, one of the heavy players on the bubbling Boston pop scene which included the Lemonheads, Dumptruck, Buffalo Tom and the Pixies. After five years of relentless touring, critical acclaim and international record deals, the Blake Babies disbanded and Strohm brought his tuneful guitar crunch to Antenna, Velo Deluxe and even the country-fried Hello Strangers. Strohm also has been a frequent member of the Lemonheads on record and on the road, recently completing a year-long world tour. ("I'd be really happy being someone else's guitar player but it's necessary for me to write songs, too," he says.) His playing can also be heard on albums by Mike Watt and Polara.

These days, when he's not on the road, Strohm lives near -- but not in -- Vestavia, writing and playing with several bands. "I think my songs are better now. I'm more patient," he says. "I'm willing to wait out two weeks to write a song and not hammer it out straight away. I'm going to make records until I make a record that I know for certain is less good than the last one I made."

For an album that steers from upbeat pop to throttling rock to sensuous ballads and back again, Vestavia is a jewel that's as multisided as the term "pop" itself. "The label pop is something I do not shy away from," Strohm says, admitting to listening to very few records post-1970. "What is pop? Pop now is a three second sound byte and the rest of it is filler. Like a lot of people in my generation, I'm heavily influenced by the Beatles and what was going on with AM radio in the '60s. Eighties indie-rock was a combination of all these things."

Right now, someone, somewhere is coming home to their Vestavia. For Strohm, this Vestavia is a return home to his roots.