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Concert Mon Oct 08 2007
Finding Music The Old Fashioned Way
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In today's online music machine, finding quality, new music is easier then ever. Whether you are cruising around Myspace, checking out the blogs or getting a link to killer song from a friend via email, the Internet has made this generation the most exciting in music history. Word of mouth from people whose musical opinion you respect is the most effective way to find new bands in my mind. And that's exactly how I caught on to soon-to-be buzz band Dr. Dog, albeit in somewhat unconventional means. Some friends of mine are in a band called Lotus in Philadelphia. Last fall when they were on tour and came through Chicago they told me about another Philly band they were into called Dr. Dog. But they hadn't discovered them at a small club show, ran across an article in a local paper or even heard about Dr. Dog online. They discovered this off-the-wall group one night as they where leaving one of their apartments and heard an interesting sound coming from a house next door, a sound of a well-polished group of musicians. After introductions, one thing led to another and Lotus met Dr. dog and subsequently I started checking out clips and MP3s of theirs online.
Fast forward to February of this year and the release of Dr. Dog's fifth album, We All Belong. The follow up to the oft acclaimed Easy Beat and EP Takers And Leavers, Dr. Dog used their new found recognition for not and self produced the album but with better equipment then previous releases. What came of the sessions was a tighter, crisper sound but still some of the lo-fi feeling of their previous releases. Still crammed full of Sixties-era psychedelic pop, We All Belong doesn't delve as much into the flowery sounds as it does the oddities and abstractions of that genre, but the cheery aspects of the album are still evident. They bring their eclectic mash of sounds to the Empty Bottle tonight with equally psychedelic and varied in sound, Apollo Sunshine. Park The Van label mates The High Strung open.
