Luv Damage

Philly’s Dr. Dog Lights A Psychedelic Brushfire With We All Belong

originally published June 13, 2007

Don’t let Philadelphia area rockers Dr. Dog fool you. They’re not British, and they don’t intentionally sound like a mash up between Mott the Hoople, Pavement and a dozen other motley melodic champs of days past. And they aren’t a shifty-eyed pack of vinyl seekers whose sound depends on what landed atop the community turntable that particular week.

Dr. Dog is, however, a young five-man band that’s belt-buckle deep in sharp melodic structure, big but invitingly warm anthems and seriously love-damaged lyrics. Since putting out 2005’s Easy Beat, they’ve also tightened things up considerably. Whereas much of that album made Dr. Dog’s Pet Sounds lineage a little more pronounced, the band’s latest We All Belong walks a topsy-turvy sidewalk littered with jagged, fuzzy guitar riffs, randomly broken hearts and, of course, some damn sweet vocal harmonies emerging from both the forefront and backdrop of the new songs.

“People do love to pick out the influences in our music,” says the band’s guitarist Toby Leaman. “It’s a little surprising and a little annoying at the same time. Annoying when people peg us as recordphiles directly trying to sound like some other band. We’re not really into making one part sound like it came from this obscure old band or something like that. I don’t know anybody who does that. But it is pretty interesting to see what people come up with, always telling us we’re into bands we don’t ever listen to.”

Founding bassist Leaman and vocalist/guitarist Scott McMicken, with keyboardist Zach Miller, drummer Justin Stens, and guitarist Sukey Jumps, make up Dr. Dog’s current membership. With around 20 or so interloping members having infiltrated their ranks over the years, it’s a little tough to keep track.

“Scott and I started playing together a long time back, probably about 14 years ago,” recalls Leaman. “He and I have always written together, and we were fortunate enough to most always have a four-track recorder around to play with. The harmonies are just a way to make the songs a little bigger, a little more interesting. Our old guitarist, Doug O’Donnell, had played bluegrass music his whole life, and I would play upright bass with him on guitar and a guy on banjo. I was able to learn a lot of vocal harmonies that way, and, when they finally released Pet Sounds on CD some years back, there was a separate part with just the vocal tracks on it, and we would practice with that. It was definitely a concerted effort to learn vocal harmonies.”

To say Dr. Dog is not a vinyl-obsessed pack of nostalgists is mostly correct, though they do have soft spots for some of the AOR biggies. The Pet Sounds harmonies Leaman and McMicken cultivated early on pop up in sunnier selections like “My Old Ways” and “Weekend” from the new album. The sparse, woozy “Die, Die, Die” sounds like the greatest miserable breakup song Lennon and McCartney never wrote, with McMicken croaking “I don’t wanna die in your arms, I just wanna die” over tipsy slide guitar and drums, while the fade out/fade in between “Keep a Friend” and “Alaska” sets the stage for an undoubtedly cathartic eight-or-so minutes of stage time. The guys in Dr. Dog may build certain sections of their house from found parts, but they’re also mapping out a hook-filled, analog-friendly - and flat-out enjoyable - sound of their own that makes even the chilliest heartbroken lyric reverberate with warmth.

“We just really went for it whole hog on the new album,” says Leaman. “We were trying to get a live-in-the-room sound, which is totally untrue, because just about everything on there is overdubbed. Having a big tape machine, like the 24-track that we used, just lends itself to creating a warm sound. Just about everything was plugged straight into the board. When you’ve worked a lot on a little eight-track machine, there’s not really the luxury of doing it full band. We’ve just gotten so used to overdubs, so I think it’s what we’re best at. Plus, trying to put all these different pieces together without any overdubs could’ve certainly created a horrible mess instead!”

Michael Andrews

WHO: Dr. Dog, The Empties, Apollo Sunshine
WHERE: 40 Watt Club
WHEN: Wednesday, June 13
HOW MUCH: $8