I first came across Davey Jones and his Lost Boy ? project at Northside Festival a couple of years ago. The band were playing as a 3-piece at Silent Barn as part of an Exploding In Sound showcase. I remember being drawn to Jones's noisy, lo-fi pop back then.
Then, Jones kept popping up at different things. He played as part of both Baked and Titus Andronicus when that show came to Asbury Lanes. He was the drummer for Wicked Kind, a band I saw as part of the Titus Andronicus #SEVENSEVENINCHES release show for one of their earliest ever sets. Little Dickman Records and I booked Davey Jones as Lost Boy ? to play one of our shows at the Carousel in Asbury Park. Currently, he tours with The So So Glos and Bueno as a part of each of those bands. Somewhere in all of that, Davey Jones found time to put together an album -- an addition to Lost Boy ?'s already extensive catalog of releases, everything played and written by Jones himself -- of some of the most alien-sounding, out-of-left-field, and infectious garage pop I've heard in a long time.
Goose Wazoo is a loose concept album that revolves around the title character, a detective who also happens to be a blob with a melting face. It opens with the twangy "Farmer Mysterious." The song sets the sci-fi, cartoonish tone for the rest of the record as it introduces us to a talking chicken from Tennessee.
...And I'm going to stop here for a second...
...A blob detective with a melting face...
...a talking chicken from Tennessee...
It all sounds kind of absurd. And I guess it is. But Jones is able to do that thing of using a bizarre, sci-fi premise to comment on some very down-to-earth concerns. And the songs are just so good, burrowing into and wrapping themselves around your brain, that it all works incredibly well.
"Replay," over the course of its one-minute running time, uses repetition and the mosquito buzz of Jones's vocals and guitar to capture the debilitating effect of going over and over that dumb thing you did or said (I can identify.). "Born 2 Lose," which premiered here and features a reference to Daniel Johnston's "Walking the Cow," is a countrified cataloging of a life that's been on a downward spiral. And, in an example of what Lost Boy ? is so good at, early single, "Love You Only," takes a straightforward love song and puts it through some sonic stretching and bending until its 50s-inspired song structure sounds like it came from a galaxy far, far away.
On "Pimple Sith," "S.O.S," and the almost spoken-word (over a police radio, or maybe that radio that plays constantly in your head, telling you what to do and how to act) "Detective Clue #1," I hear hints of Built To Spill and Pavement at their least jammy. The title track introduces Goose Wazoo by name and sounds like it could be the theme song to a psychedelically-animated television series.
"Have You Seen My Brain" sounds like a response to the advice in "Detective Clue #1" to "use your brain" to solve cases. Jones asks, "Have you seen mine? Does it make you sick?"
"Deja Vu" and "Crystal Ball" are a pair with Jones realizing he can shape his future through his dreams on the former and then realizing he "was chasing the impossible dream" on the latter. Album-closer "It Before," which we also featured, takes the point of view that there's nothing alarming or insane about intrusive thoughts. Everyone gets them.
Goose Wazoo sees Davey Jones employing a strange idea to get at some of the strangeness that swirls around in everyone's brain. Regret, depression, and self-loathing are things that plague us all at times. By using images of talking livestock, radio transmissions from inside your own skull, and a blob detective who can manipulate time and space, Jones makes all of those feelings -- which, in the still and darkness of a sleepless night, can seem kind of strange -- appear downright normal and mundane.
Goose Wazoo is out now on Little Dickman Records / State Capital Records, and the LP version comes with a comic book / lyric sheet by David Owen Beyers.
No comments :
Post a Comment