eastowners

Current Mood: Happy

The holiday continues, and so does my seemingly unending listening marathon. Today, our friends from Amazon dropped off a little package of joy that included the Harry Potter HD DVD set (Char’s XMas gift for herself) and a couple of CD’s including Donovan Frankenreiter’s “Move by Yourself”.

It’s jumpy bouncy music, contrasted by Donovan’s more-than-laid-back voice. Several of the tracks groove very hard for hippy white guy music. “Fool” could easily find itself on the soundtrack of a 70’s blacksploitation flick. The whole album is a great afternoon soundtrack; not a single track I find myself skipping past.

“That’s Too Bad (Byron Jam)” is one of the single best soul/rock songs I’ve heard in years. This album officially crossed into “heavy rotator” status upon hearing this tune. While he doesn’t really break new ground with this album, it is recorded well and is just plain good music to listen to.

I was first introduced to Frankenreiter on a television show called Live From Abbey Road on Sundance. His live band is amazing and he is as talented live as he is recorded. The recording engineers didn’t have to do much other than to make sure the tape was running.

I think Frankenreiter is unfairly compared to his buddy, Jack Johnson, simply because they are both surfers-turned-musicians and have a very laid-back Cali vibe. Frankenreiter, however, is very electric and blues/funk focused, more like G Love’s less hip-hop works than Jack Johnson. Though if you like Jack’s rendition of ‘Rodeo Clowns’ on G Love’s “Philadelphonic”, you’ll probably like this disc as much as I do.