Birthday Blogpost!!!:the black watch--Innercity garden ep

Well its my nieces birthday today--she's nine, so it is my obligation to continue the time-honored birthday post tradition which began about a year ago. Though she lives nearly 2,000 miles away, we always remember her.

It's an inside joke

For some reason, whenever I see this album by The Black Watch, a great indie band from Santa Barbara, California, I'm reminded of her. This is a 4 song ep released in 2005 on the Pink Hedgehog label in Weymouth, England. Led by John Andrew Frederick, they have released a ton of great music over the years. They are a band with such artistic consistency that you could randomly pick an album of theirs and be pretty assured of excellence. But this post is about the Innercity, though two of the four songs wound up on the full length The Hypnotizing Sea.

They are a band that ably can straddle noise and pop. The title track of the Ep, Innercity Garden is a perfect example of this; a gorgeous racket of a storm, where acoustic touches drift to the forefront.




Song 2 is Dylan,Dylan,Dylan--a jaunty countrified love letter to Bob Dylan.
Yeah, there are a handful of songwriters who idolize Dylan and justifiably so. Only not in a cultish way, more of a songcrafty mentorship way, I guess.

Moonlight Thru Ivy is a beautiful acoustic folk ballad, another seemingly effortless pop excursion by the band, the other members of the band at this time being Tim Boland,Gary Sullivan and Scott Taylor.

Moonlight thru ivy
Comes thru the cracks in the door
& nothing forever
Is what it was before.

The Teacup Song Take Two is a terrific jangly pop confection, and a compelling reason why you would want to plunk some money down on this Ep. I'm reminded a bit of New Zealand's Verlaines here.

So in a nutshell, The Black Watch are one of the better veteran indie bands
operating these days. Frederick has a real knack for putting together a a great song, and is an equally strong lyricist. The band in fact just put out a new disc this entitled Led Zeppelin V, still working on a career long quality streak. For those of you who are on a tight budget but love music, many of The Black Watch recordings can be had for a pittance. They are definitely artists worthy of your support and patronage.

Oh, and once again, Happy Birthday! Hope your special day was as special as you are.