Drums and Tuba
Flatheads and Spoonies (My Pal God)
It’s about time someone stepped up to the plate and offered Drums and Tuba a primo film scoring gig. Their latest LP would be perfect for a grainy, arthouse take on an action movie that deals in photorealism instead of boffo explosives. As such, Flatheads and Spoonies rides a quirk-laden groove of big city weirdness that keeps you riveted to every note. The trio’s bare-walled fusion is partially fueled by a tacit understanding of the punk dynamic, but Tony Nozero’s rich, organic snare shots coupled with Brian Wolff’s boomin’ tuba blurts imbue the band with a well-steeped Crescent City street funk. “The Mummy” takes a Starsky & Hutch-style guitar workout from Neal McKeeby and overlays it across the pavement-pounding parade from Nozero and Wolff. The less-thematic “Dr. Small” starts with a thwacking rubber band guitar loop and builds temporally as the sun rises to a frenetic game time fervor. D&T gets downright eerie on “The Chicken,” which goes from a lone typewriter keeping the rhythm to an even lonelier epic battle hymn for the defeated. On the brighter side, the title track takes a playful party soul melody and fleshes it out with an ebullient guitar solo at the tail end. Jump back Zamfir — this is the real instrumental magic.
This article appears in Carol Keeton Rylander.
