ULTRA VEGA

John's debut CD release! Features 20 pop rock gems, including the great "Hens Gone Wrong", the power rock of "Ejecti Nova Speed", the beautiful soaring closer "So Very" and much more!
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MAGNET
Hidden Treasures 10 Great Albums Of The Year
Shough has recorded most of the Guided by Voices-related material over the past five years, and it's influenced his solo work. These 20 tracks explore the same classic pop/rock terrain as GBV (Shough's vocals, in particular, resemble Tobin Sprout's), though they veer off into more spacey, atmospheric directions, proving Shough is not only his own man, but also a first rate songwriter. - Eric Miller

THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH
By all accounts John Shough is a local hero in Dayton having worked as a producer/Engineer at the Cro-Magnon studios and produced albums by a huge number of local bands including Guided By Voices and The Breeders. Meanwhile, for a number of years he has quietly worked after hours and put together a colossal number of his own songs. Mainly working solo and playing all the instruments himself but occasionally teaming up with musical buddies, the result is that twenty of those songs have been brought together to create "Ultra Vega".

I guess the brilliance of all of this is how Shough takes the sum of his influences and lets them play out across the songs. There are plenty of sixties psychedelic sounds mixed into the groove and late Beatles loom large sonically and melody wise. Bands like Big Star and Cheap Trick come to mind as the album progresses but John Shough is still his own man so there's enough originality to make this a fresh experience. There's no way that this is one of those "heard it all before" albums but instead, it's a feast of indie attitude songs.

Hard to pick favorites but I'm going to try. "Hens Gone Wrong" is a lyrically and musical quirky acoustic driven track which reminded me a little of something that They Might Be Giants might do whilst "Gone Fishing" shines with a retro-pop sensibility. "So Very" glides along with an unforgettable melody and classic descending chord pattern which has driven a hundred classic pop rock songs.

It's like he sucked into his soul a thousand incredible classic rock and pop songs and by osmosis they have become a part of his creative being. Echoes of Lennon and the ghost of late British music that so influenced nineties Britpop float around in the background as Shough lets loose with his lo-fi pop and rock. It's not an album that will knock you over with its pulsating energy or shiny production but instead slowly and deliberately these eclectic songs slip into your consciousness and win the argument. Apparantly there are plenty more songs where these come from and other releases planned in the future and I can't wait. - Mike Rimmer

SPLENDID E-ZINE
John Shough is a producer and engineer at Cro-Magnon Studios, where he's recorded Guided By Voices, the Breeders, Tobin Sprout and a horde of other local bands. He's pitched in with instrumental help on many a Guided By Voices release (usually under the pseudonym "Johnny Strange") and his musical style, which embraces '70s power pop and British psychedelic influences, might as well be on loan from GBV honcho Robert Pollard. But the familiarity of "Ultra Vega's" sound doesn't mar its impact -- Shough has all the pop smarts and good ideas necessary to make his songs stick.

"Purged" opens the album with a rush of heavy guitars and Shough intoning the line, "Heaven throws a rope and it's six strings long," in a New Wave monotone. The dispassionate vocals contrast nicely with the evangelical fervor of the lyrics, and the contrast itself says a lot about Shough -- he's a regular guy with a day job whose enthusiasm for and love of music makes up for his lack of rock star swagger. He's closer in attitude to Sprout, the unassuming songwriter responsible for some of the prettiest moments on old-school GBV records, than he is to bombastic extrovert Pollard. Songs like the breezy, tuneful "Out To Sea" and "Icy" don't demand attention at first listen, but their gossamer quality belies their sturdy craftsmanship and sneakily memorable hooks.

Shough culled "Ultra Vega" from a pool of over a hundred songs -- the products of an especially prolific phase -- recorded after-hours at Cro-Magnon. Some of the album sounds tossed-off (like the McCartney-by-numbers of "Fool On A Rope" and the plodding "Holding Pen"), but the balance of the twenty tracks evince real thought and effort. The inspired "Gone Fishing" has a soaring chorus worthy of the Go-Betweens. Album closer "So Very" manages the trick of being rocking and wistful at the same time. "Hens Gone Wrong" sounds an awful lot like Bee Thousand-era GBV, but it's incredibly catchy nonetheless. The synthesized orchestral touches and far-off acoustic guitars of "How Square Am I" make the song a lovely late-album highlight.

It's easy to influence spot while listening to "Ultra Vega", but it's just as easy to shut down all critical faculties and enjoy the album as the well-wrought labor of pop music love that it is. - Scott Jacobson

TANGZINE
Whether you recognize the name or not, listening to John Shough's 20-song debut release, it doesn't take long to figure out the connection to Dayton, Ohio lo-fi legends Guided By Voices. A long-time producer/engineer for GBV and countless other Dayton area bands, Shough's Cro-Magnon studios has made a sweeping impact on American music through the numerous GBV records alone. Quickly into his debut effort, it becomes obvious that he has the same kind of skill for writing and recording his own music as he does one of the genre's all-time favorites. Sure, it's a similar '60s lo-fi pop vibe that has earned the aforementioned group plenty of free beer over the years and the influence is easily recognizable, but that shouldn't take away from the fact that his songs are just darn catchy.

"Out to Sea", one of the collection's longer players at just under three minutes is a magnificent blend of reverbed vocals layered over a happy-go-lucky rock beat carried by an equally friendly keyboard. "Ejecti Nova Speed," follows closely behind, a full throttle head shaking rocker that still maintains that happy tripped out vibe so prevalent throughout the album.

Not without its quirks, the album possesses a light-hearted quality that just continues to grow with each listen. Shough the songwriter is quirky and fun, his vocal style ranging from the high-pitched falsetto to the darker mellowed out whisper. The songs meanwhile escape redundancy and manage to fit perfectly into a diverse package that despite showing off a variety of unmistakable influences, never cross the line into the land of horribly mediocre and derrivative. On the contrary, songs like "Truly in Pieces" end too short at just over two minutes, yet just as you start to complain about the song being so short, another tune like "Take Me Back Home" comes in with an equally as exquisite charm. And what's even better is how he saves the best for last.

From the magnificently dreamy "How Square Am I," where Shough so elegantly restrains an aggressive outburst to the end, he promptly goes into the lofty "So Very." A marvelous tune that could stand alone as Exhibit A in a trial to determine Shough's quality as both a multi-instrumentalist, song-writer and engineer, it is the type of song that demands the listener to hit play and start all over again. - Matthew Ralph

SPONIC
Mr. Shough should be familiar to fans of Dayton bands, many of whom have recorded with him at his Cro-Magnon Studios. Shough has also played on quite a few Guided By Voices records, in fact, and his music is partially influenced by that. His excellent McCartney-esque melodies and shimmering guitar work propel most of these songs into the pop stratosphere.

It goes without saying that all of these songs (and there are tons of them) are exquisitely produced, with Shough playing nearly every instrument but drums. You can feel his accrued experience wrapping around our brain as you listen to catchy titles like "Laser Days" and "Ejecti Nova Speed." Although the arrangements here are mostly guitar/bass/drums, the layering and mixing implies a pop orchestra, especially with the keyboard & piano flourishes (bringing to mind The Flaming Lips) and various space effects (is that a theremin?). An excellent batch of songs from one of the most under-appreciated Daytonians. - John Wenzel