“Dad Rock”, as in, “my dad, in Ohio, who retired his tape deck ten years ago, will really dig this download code I’m about to text him”. I’m keeping the tape. It will sit right the fuck next to a J-Cardless copy of Billy Bragg and Wilco’s “Mermaid Avenue II” I found for fifty cents at the consignment shop near my house. Do you even remember how goddamn good Wilco was in the ‘90s?! “Summer Teeth”?! “Being There”!?
Well, William Carlos Whitten sure as shit does, I’ll tell you what!! He knows that everything after “A Ghost Is Born” was absolute and utter horse-shit, and that, with such an amalgam of incredible musicians, moving “forward” shouldn’t have meant “mind-numbingly vanilla”, right? Ok, maybe I’m projecting here. Maybe I’m definitely without a doubt bitter for what Wilco did to me…but now that that bitterness has faded, and with it, this here album has been released by William Carlos Whitten that takes all of the very best parts of BT & ST & infuses them with a touch of Malkmus-esque guitar quirkery and a rock solid vocal backing to each and every single line sung (with the exception of a blatant Harry Nilsson homage sung solo) and, daaaang, is alll GOOOOOD! Great summer jamz album, for sure!
--Jacob An Kittenplan
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