BIG STIR RECORDS and producer/curator Carl Cafarelli bring you a very special collection saluting – and featuring – Power Pop Hall Of Famers THE FLASHCUBES: the all-new new album MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN! A TRIBUTE TO THE FLASHCUBES. Joining the legendary Syracuse band's three hit 2025 singles “Reminisce,” “The Sweet Spot” and “If These Hands” are 21 new covers of 'Cubic classics by a dazzling assortment of the band's peers from the '70s onwards (GRAHAM PARKER, THE SPONGETONES, SORROWS) and leading lights of the current indie pop scene (THE KENNEDYS, sparkle*jets u.k., CHRIS VON SNEIDERN, LIBRARIANS WITH HICKEYS and more). The album is set for a September 12 release on CD and Streaming, and it's available for pre-order and pre-save now:

https://orcd.co/flashcubes-tribute

Many will recall THE FLASHCUBES for their oft-anthologized classic early singles “Christi Girl” (1978) and “Wait Till Next Week” (1979) while others will know them from their recent, acclaimed covers album POP MASTERS or the fresh sounds of their new singles from this very year. Compilation producer CARL CAFARELLI, co-host of WSPJ's This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl and a noted power pop authority (Goldmine Magazine and his own Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) blog), has long been the band's preeminent booster, and he tells the tale best in his liner notes for MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN!

“The Flashcubes lit the spark of the Syracuse new wave rock 'n' roll scene, inspiring new groups and delighting delirious, giddy fans,” writes Cafarelli. “Guitarists Paul Armstrong and Arty Lenin, bassist Gary Frenay, and drummer Tommy Allen burned a hole through the roof of every venue the Flashcubes played. From The Loft in rural Middleville, NY to Max’s Kansas City in New York, the band blazed a rock 'n' roll trail from Syracuse to Boston to Detroit to Cleveland, to CBGB's, to Los Angeles, and even to Japan. Forty-eight years on, the band still features all four original members.”

Indeed, THE FLASHCUBES have been firing on all cylinders in recent years, and that's why they're one of the few long-running bands capable of stealing the show with all-new material on a tribute album to themselves. The trilogy of new singles from the band – the nostalgic but revved-up “Reminisce,” the soaring textbook power pop of “The Sweet Spot” and the drop-dead gorgeous ballad “If These Hands” – have been all over the global pop indie airwaves all summer long, and they're sprinkled like jewels across this album. MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN is thus a remarkable document of nearly half a century of kickass performances and songwriting alike.

And the songs, of course, take center stage here, this being a selection of fresh spins on decades of the band's material. What emerges is a songbook rich with a depth of craft and sentiment that is too often overlooked in favor of THE FLASHCUBES' melodic acumen and onstage firepower. That ends now, thanks to the amazing range of artists here (recruited from Cafarelli's own impressive Rolodex as well as the renowned roster of Big Stir Records, eight of whose artists including The Flashcubes themselves contribute tracks). Listeners will be treated to a variety and flexibility of styles likely to surprise those not immersed in the band's catalog. It's immediately striking that, within a genre so often thought of as a “boy's club,” women take lead vocals on no fewer than five tracks. All of them – Maura Kennedy of The Kennedys, Meegan Voss of The Verbs, Susan West of sparkle*jets u.k., Christina Bulbenko of The Armoires and Lisa Mychols in collaboration with Super 8 – reframe the originals in surprising ways, teasing out new textures ranging from sweet to fierce, and give wings to some amazing melodies penned by all three of The Flashcubes' world class songwriters.

Equally eye-opening are the artists who step outside of the expected genre boxes with resounding success. It's no surprise that the great Graham Parker, aided and abetted by Mike Gent of The Figgs, brings a gritty soulfulness to “Pathetic” or that The Peppermint Kicks get even more muscular with “Muscle Beach” than the original, but there's more. Who would have expected “Walking Through The Park” to be pushed into bossa nova territory by The Kennedys, Librarians With Hickeys transforming “Gone Too Far” into a garage-psych nugget, or a horn-fueled tear through “Welcome To The Working Class” fronted by SpongeBob himself, Tom Kenny? Elsewhere, Super 8 remodel “When We Close Our Eyes” into a lovely chamber pop shuffle, Dolph Chaney steers “Girl From Germany” down the Autobahn into Kraftwerk-land, and The Armoires veer onto Revolver terrain on “You're Not The Police”, blending in a nod to The Flashcubes' fellow Power Pop Hall Of Famers Cheap Trick as if to level the playing field of fame. And then there's Hamell On Trial's not-safe-for-work lo-fi acoustic re-working of “Got No Mind,” a truly delightful outlier that The Flashcubes themselves count as one of their favorites on this tribute.

That said, it will inevitably be asked: “is it power pop?” Of course it is, including all of the above, but if it's the pure crunch-jangle-hooks-and-harmonies sound you crave, sterling examples abound here. Just cue up genre master Chris von Sneidern's take on “No Promise,” Joe Giddings' shimmering “You're Not Grounded,” or Robbie Rist's majestically Queen-like whimsy on Ballzy Tomorrow's version of “Five Personalities.” There's more, but it's apt that the record closes with tracks from two of The Flashcubes' closest still-kicking analogues as power pop pioneers on the late '70s scene: SORROWS with “Radio,” and the 'Cubes' fellow Hall Of Famers The Spongetones with “Nothing Really Matters When You're Young.” Both bands and both songs stand as proof positive of the restorative and cathartic power of music... and so, of course, do THE FLASHCUBES themselves. All the evidence you could ever need is here, as all the artists – including the band being celebrated – MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN.

The full list of artists featured: THE FLASHCUBES, sparkle*jets u.k., LIBRARIANS WITH HICKEYS, CHRIS VON SNEIDERN, GRAHAM PARKER & MIKE GENT (The Figgs), JOE GIDDINGS, BALLZY TOMORROW, THE KENNEDYS, THE VERBS, DOLPH CHANEY, POP CO-OP, THE PEPPERMINT KICKS, TOM KENNY & THE HI-SEAS, THE CHOOSERS, HAMELL ON TRIAL, THE ARMOIRES, ROB MOSS AND SKIN-TIGHT SKIN, THE MAYFLOWERS, SUPER 8 featuring LISA MYCHOLS, CALLAN FOSTER, SORROWS, and THE SPONGETONES.