The Rubber Room column is a weekly look at recent and notable releases that don’t fall into the rubric of traditional reviews or reviewed material—namely 7”’s, 12”’s, 3” CDs, EPs, cassette-only, DVDs and MP3-only releases.

Sharon Jones
I Just Dropped in to See What Condition Was In
[Daptone, 2005]

After her temporally anomalous heavy funk version of “What Have You Done for Me Lately” which made the original Janet Jackson version sound like the cover, and her awesome slow burn anti-Republican take on Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” here’s another killer to add to Sharon Jones’ growing list of unlikely covers. It’s not as throat rippingly out of control as one would hope, but it’s got enough slink to make returning the needle to the start of the record not seem like such a chore for a good fifteen times. Flip it and you get the instrumental by The Daptones. Now I’ve just gotta track down that Jerry Lee Lewis version…
[Patrick McNally]

The Happy Couple
Fools in Love EP
[Matinee, 2005]

The Happy Couple makes guitar pop that you just have to sing along to. Trouble is, the mix on this EP submerges the vocals, giving the likely good songs an amateurish feel on the recordings (all you budding rock stars take note: burying the vocals on a demo is a frequent and major novice recording mistake). "Hopeless Case" sounds entirely too muddied, which is a shame given that the song's bounce, lead guitar, and oddly jaunt chorus ("I don't love you, I don't love you at all") could make it a very radio-friendly track. For now the German duo are probably stuck in obscurity, but maybe some day after they've hit it big, we'll get to revisit these songs on a remastered compilation.
[Justin Cober-Lake]

Film School
"On & On" single
[Beggars Banquet, 2005]

Film School are unquestionably British, and part Brooklyn, despite living in San Francisco. "On & On" starts with Joy Division and builds layer of shoegazing guitar, shifting moods above some fine snare-based drumming. "Plus One" moves to the dreamier side of their sound while keeping the lights off. The track's lovely, lilting; that sort of thing, well-done but unexceptional, despite the mid-track upturn by the guitars, which open the song a bit without ultimately going anywhere. CD bonus piece "February" suffers slightly from its production. The spaced percussion again works well, but the song never quite gets off the ground. Film School sounds like precocious students, the kind who have learned the ropes quickly but aren't yet ready to move on.
[Justin Cober-Lake]