Wednesday, February 12, 2020

The 1986 Listening Post - Drivin' & Cryin' - Scarred But Smarter

Drivin' & Cryin' - Scarred But Smarter




#412/2091
1986 Housekeeping
Drivin’ & Cryin’
Scarred But Smarter
Genre: Power Pop/Rock with a smattering of psycho/Rockabilly
4.75 out of 5


Highlights:
Scarred But Smarter
Keys to Me
You Mean Everything




The first time I’d ever heard the name Drivin’ & Cryin’ was also probably the moment I lost most of my rock cred with any of my musician peers and was most likely when anyone truly realized that I was just a tourist on the LA rock circuit. 
It was 2003. My band was playing a gig at Club Lingerie, a sort of dream of mine since that was where I saw Mojo Nixon blow the roof off the place at a show I covered for the LA Weekly. 
Sometime during the evening I made a comment to another front man of another band, Bobby Bognar of the Piper Downs, that I was going to have to start the search for a DJ for my upcoming wedding. He admonished me that I hadn’t thought to ask him if his band would consider playing. 
To be honest, it never entered my mind, mainly because I thought it would be too expensive. It was not. It was terrifically reasonable. 
And he made song set list suggestions. 
On that list was a song by Drivin’ & Cryin. It might’ve actually been the song of the same name. I don’t know. I believe I pretended that I knew them because, well, cred. 
My wedding was one of the best I’ve been to and that’s not just hubris. It was filled with music and joy and it was just a big ass Valentine’s Day party. One of the reasons it was so memorable: The Piper Downs played my wedding, man.

So, I never heard D&C. 

Fuck me, did I miss out. 

This is as strong a debut as I have heard and if you are of the REM fan variety, you will love this. 


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