C.D. Singles Club # 26 – Electric Owls – Magic Show
Hit play on the lead single from the recently released Electric Owls’ record Ain’t Too Bright. Listen to that sweet acoustic intro, backed by a subtly dancing bell sound, punctuated by a hard rock power chord at the ten second mark, launching into sweet multi-tracked vocals ranting about telekenesis and so on. The rest of the song is clearly good, but the first thirty seconds or so are truly amazing. The interplay of soft and loud, the vaguely seventies vibe of the vocals, the grandiose nature of the whole presentation all hit me right between the eyes. The rest of the song vacillates between the two extremes established in that stellar first thirty seconds, floating from eardrum shaking loud to flowered blouse soft. There are even some manipulated vocals at the end to put a bit of an exclamation point on the throwback nature of the track. I have not heard the rest of Ain’t Too Bright, but I’m itching to get my fingers on it. At the very least, Oscar Gamble would give the track a thumbs up. (Not because the song makes me think of Foghat, but because Oscar Gamble is a noted music critic. Unbeknownst to many fans of both the Cleveland Indians and internet-based music-driven navel gazing, Gamble founded the off-line predecessor of Said the Gramophone during the 1975 season. He printed Orated the Omphalos as a five page fanzine that he hand mailed to paying subscribers; it was packed with pretentious vignettes about Nick Drake and shit. True story.)
One more thing in favor of Electric Owls: I’m lazy with the scroll bar, so I typically type a half-assed search term into the itunes to save some mouse work. For Electric Owls, I typed “electric” (obviously), which meant that Electric Ladyland played right after “Magic Show” wrapped up. Which means that “Voodoo Child” started as soon as that last “magic” faded into oblivion. Which means that I got a little unexpected dose of Hendrix with my indie rock today, which is always welcome.
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