DAN SOTO “Yeah Sure” (King Pizza Records)



Following in the wake of the pizza movement, whose trailblazer, the Pizza Underground, burned too fast and half as bright, comes Dan Soto of Dan Soto and the High Doses fame. The jokester from Stamford, Massachusetts, a town I know strictly because of the American version of The Office, does not take anything very seriously. Make of that what you will – I make of that a recipe for a swinging good time.

Yes, you turkeys, if you don’t like humor and a healthy level of brotherly camaraderie, then what are you doing here? What are you doing with your life? Who cares if Dan and his bros are total hipsters, it’s the principle of this tape that rings universally true. You have a few brews, a few rips from the bong, you make music. You put your arms around each other’s shoulders. You smile. It’s the spirit of Nathan Williams before he became a total d-bag. (Check that – Nathan Williams has always been a total d-bag.)

The smiling, mustachioed cartoon character on the front cover pretty much says it all: if Bob’s Burgers was a show called Bob’s Basement Jams, it wouldn’t be culturally out of place in the slightest. I mean, seriously – there are two songs about birthdays, two songs about thinking and/or knowing things, one song literally only about liking pizza (called “Pizza”; sample lyric: “Pizza, pizza, why not have a piece of pizza?”), and another called “My Baby Face.” Gang, don’t think, just do.

The album gets its name from pre-song banter, and many of the songs feature snippets of studio dialogue at the beginning and end, reinforcing every notion one would have that this is light, breezy, enjoyable fare. I had a lot of fun listening to it. Macaulay Culkin probably would be jealous of it. Ditto the Wavves team. Whatever. I’m hungry.



--Ryan Masteller