Tody Castillo

Yep, another one I’ve been very, very remiss in listing. Actually, Tody was on this very page once, what seems like a really freakin’ long time ago — he fronted a band called Tody and the Royals, who put out one excellent, excellent tape (yep, I said “tape”; there was a time before cheap CD-Rs, kids) of burnished power-pop, played a ton of shows around town, and then just kinda disintegrated. Which was a shame, because I caught their show several times, and they were pretty uniformly great.

I’m sad to say that I’ve got no clue what happened to Tody for a few years after that — he might’ve left town, for all I know (many do). In 2005, though, he near-miraculously popped back up in the music scene, seemingly effortlessly throwing his self-titled solo debut CD out into the fray. And holy shit, is it good. The songs hark back to the Royals’ infectious power-pop, but they’ve got a more sleek, practiced feel to ’em, almost akin to fellow H-towner Arthur Yoria’s awesome work. I can’t speak for everybody, but the songs burrowed into my brain, seriously, deep enough that two years later I find myself humming bits and pieces of different tracks. Not a bad thing, mind you.

He’s technically a solo guy, as noted above, but for the album he surrounded himself with some talented folks — songstress Cameron Dezen contributes keys and backing vocals, now-ex-Houstonian Mando Saenz contributes vocals, and veterans Paul “The Falcon” Valdez and Ryan Biddle show up all over the place (unless I’m really mistaken, by the by, Valdez was also a Royal; not sure ’bout the rest, though). The result is one damn fine disc.

And luckily, it finally looks like Tody’s got a followup on the way. Per his MySpace, he & his crew are partway through recording the new album, with the recording part of things done in September of 2007; no clue when it’ll be all done and released, but I hope it’s at least relatively soon…

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