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Brenden Ramirez didn’t know he was making power pop. Nor did any of the original power-pop musicians, for that matter.
Difficult to define and fiercely contested even by its devotees, power pop developed when later generations of musicians emulated the sound of ‘60s British Invasion bands like the Beatles and the early Who, turning up the overdrive and leaning into the longing that was always bubbling under the surface of songs like “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
“The Beatles are a huge band for me,” says Ramirez, who records as Bory and whose debut, Who’s a Good Boy, comes out this Friday on Earth Worms. “But I don’t think I even knew what power pop was until I met Mo, which I think is a common occurrence for people who meet Mo.”
Mo Troper, the singer-songwriter (and sometime WW contributor) at the center of the Portland power-pop community, was one of the first musicians Ramirez got in touch with after moving to the city from Salem in 2018. When Ramirez found out Troper needed a second guitarist in his band, Ramirez signed up and was swept into a seemingly limitless universe of fellow artists both past and present who shared his love for short, sweet pop songs with ear-splitting guitars.
Born in Orange County, Ramirez was inspired by his musician uncle to pick up guitar “in fifth or sixth grade” and soon began taking it very seriously, studying under former Earth, Wind & Fire saxophonist Ira Raibon and eventually pursuing music at Willamette University.
Ramirez’s studies left him with an ongoing appreciation for music education. After graduating in 2017, he briefly went to Nepal to teach at the Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory, and he still gives guitar lessons. Yet it took some time for him to figure out what to do with everything he’d learned. “I was studying jazz,” he says, “and I don’t think I’m very good at jazz, or ever was.”
Ramirez played in rock bands throughout high school and college, but Bory—which Ramirez launched in 2019, a year after he started playing with Troper—is the first project where he’s taken the lead as a singer and songwriter. “I think I was scared—like, oh, I’m not good at it right away, I must just not be good at it,” he says. “Mo was a huge role model for me.”
In addition to encouraging Ramirez’s songwriting, Troper plugged him into the larger ecosystem of touring underground American rock bands committed to catchy songs and loud guitars. Ramirez played guitar and sang on Diners’ acclaimed Troper-produced album Domino earlier this year, and as a member of Troper’s band, Ramirez was able to tour and perform with the likes of Bay Area punk auteur Tony Molina and Philly emo stalwarts Slaughter Beach, Dog.
Bory’s first release, the 2021 EP Sidelined, was self-recorded. Who’s a Good Boy was recorded with Ramirez and Troper playing every instrument, and the difference in scale from Sidelined is apparent from the record’s opening seconds. Ramirez’s yearning voice and confident melodies cut through a wall of overdubbed guitars, both acoustic and electric, that sounds almost cartoonishly exaggerated at times. His writing is simple and direct, eschewing the hyperspecific references that are a hallmark of much indie-rock songwriting in the 2020s.
“The easiest way I can write words to songs is something very conversational,” Ramirez says. “The perspective of directly talking to someone seems to be the only way to write my words.” This songwriting style gels with Ramirez’s melodic sensibility, inspired not just by the Beatles but also artists like Elliott Smith and The Apples in Stereo, who brought ‘60s popcraft into the alt-rock era.
The last thing to come was the title. Dogs are poignant metaphors in rock for many reasons: their undying devotion, their incomprehension of their lot in life, their short lifespans, their association with childhood memories. Yet Ramirez insists nothing so deep motivated the name.
“It’s not my dog or anyone’s dog,” Ramirez says of the dog on the cover, which stares at an icy landscape like a figure in a Caspar David Friedrich painting. “The name was nice because it’s kind of funny, but also I think it does tie into the songs at least somewhat because a lot of my songs are really self-reflective or self-deprecating. It’s something I’m trying to work on, honestly.”