Tacks, the Boy Disaster

Oh, Beatrice

Software can now deconstruct songs to determine their “hit” ability. Feed it “Frozen Feet.” From the mid-Sixties and for roughly a decade after, if you’d fed Top 40 radio the leadoff track of this young Austin quartet’s debut – presto! Communal love song (everybody loves it). Today, there’s the FOX network and iPod commercials. Move over Band of Horsemeat and What Made Milwaukee Famous, meet the new kid in town: Tacks, the Boy Disaster. The Motown clomp and hypno jangle – a quick string twinkle in the other channel – then a voice drunk on love, regret, and nostalgia. “The sky was falling down upon itself, you were wearing Orion’s belt. To keep your drawers from falling down.” Cue the organ, and Zombies pastoral. “So we moved along the outside, the eastside to the westside. We went up towards the hillside.” Oh, Beatrice, what a sluicing hook! The second track, “Paris,” is a guaranteed follow-up, and the remaining tracks: piano, Beach Boys, Beatles, clarinet. “But if we wait too long, it’ll be too late. And when the sun comes out, it’ll be too late. And when the clock strikes 12, it’ll be too late … in the day … too late in the day … too late in the day.” Repeat ’til No. 1.

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This article appears in July 21 • 2006.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.