My Alt-Country ‘Tis Of Thee

Tony Peyser
Mirror contributing writer

   Falling Down Hard goes down easy. To Pike 27’s lead singer and songwriter, Dave Purcell, rock and roll is Bruce Springsteen and The Replacements —- not Metallica where crazed fans make goofy devil horns with their hands and go “Wooooo!” a lot. “Joe McCarthy’s Ghost” sounds like Blind Melon’s 1998 hit “No Rain,” but the rabble-rousing lyrics are something Woody Guthrie would have signed off on. It also suggests a collaboration between The Doors and The Byrds. “Wrecking Yard” hums like a vintage song by The Smithereens and “Baltimore” is like Tom Petty jamming with The Blasters. I’m not making these comparisons lightly. Pike 27 (who are from Cincinnati) are real comers who also know who came before them. If an album like “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” can spark interest in our nation’s traditional folk music, maybe a band like Pike 27 can rekindle excitement in no-frills, good old American rock and roll. Pike 27 brings to mind Ryan Adams, a musical Jackie Robinson who’s crossed over the alt-country line and become a bona fide rock star.
   Caitlin Cary sang, played violin and co-wrote songs with Adams in Whiskeytown from 1996 until the band broke up in 1999. While You Weren’t Looking is Cary’s second solo effort and is definitely worth checking out. These are heartfelt songs, more mature and less airy-fairy than what you often get from Sarah McLachlan and Natalie Merchant. “I Ain’t Found Nobody Yet” is an ideal song to end a movie where the male and female best friends —- who’ve just ended disastrous relationships —- suddenly realize they’re really in love. “Shallow Heart, Shallow Water” has a swoony feel from the start pulled along by her stirring vocal and the song’s cosmic romanticism. On the four-song mini-disc that’s also included, Cary lets Chris Robinson (of the fabulous but now-defunct band, The Backsliders) take a whack at “The Fair” which she sings on the main album. With his magnificently raspy voice, Robinson sounds like Sam Elliott’s rambling cowboy narrator from “The Big Lebowski.” What a wry treat this track is on a CD already filled with lots of tasty stuff.
   David Zollo’s The Big Night fuses together the sounds and mood of The Band, The Rolling Stones and early Gram Parsons. (Parsons, for the uninitiated, overdosed before he hit 30, which may explain why the term “late Gram Parsons” has never gotten much use.) “Respect (Ain’t A One Way Street)” will earn yours from the get-go. “Driftwood From Kerry” sounds like Counting Crows before Adam Duritz’s sincerity was overwhelmed by his high self-esteem. Zollo shows a spiritual side with “Eye Of The Needle” which I guess you could classify as alt-gospel. Whatever you call it, it’s a church where the aforementioned Parsons would get mentioned a lot in sermons. And “Why Don’t You Stop Me Now” has a Southern flair that The Allman Brothers would have admired.
   Miles of Music has Falling Down Hard for $12 and While You Weren’t Looking and The Big Night for $14.
   * The Goofy Band Name Of The Week is … Mumbo Gumbo.