Electric Owls, Ain’t Too Bright

Electric Owls’ Ain’t Too Bright is an album that I’d recommend to a dope-smoking pre-pubescent. If nothing else, you can expand your street drug vocab. From the song “Kamiakin”: “Summertime won’t be so bad / We can all get high over at my uncle’s trailer / He’s a real cool guy / except for all of those sex toys that he never tries to hide”…damn, that’s not nauseating or anything. The music and melodies here aren’t that bad — it’s just the songwriting that too often gets in the way (but probably not if you’re going through puberty while smoking massive quantities of dubbage…it’s totally subjective, of course).

In the same song, Electric Owls songwriter/frontman Andy Herod (formerly of The Comas) continues, “Come on over to Gee’s house / She knows how to fly / Y’know, I think she’s got a baby / I have heard it cry” — okay, that’s a little revealing and a whole lotta scary. Nuff said. At least they properly titled the album… Herod explains in his mini-bio that he had to get away from the pressures of living in NY, and that touring with his former band was ruining his life. I’ll throw him a bone for taking a reprieve and moving from the slime light of NYC to Asheville, NC, to eventually form Electric Owls. The band consists of eight members and an array of interesting instrumentation, including dulcimer, piano, glockenspiel, and Moog. Jason Caperton, guitarist from The Comas, has also joined Herod, and he was able to round up an additional four vocalists to assist on the album.

Herod writes, “the songs on the Electric Owls record came about in a 3-4 week period,” and this is no surprise. “Cannibal Superstar” contains some listenable music, although I could live without the words therein, like “She came home and I shot her dead / put her favorite pillow case over her head … I am not an evil man” — okay, I guess homeboy don’t know what “evil” is. His voice, unadulterated by the words, does have potential, though, and this song demonstrates that he can do some good crooning. Further on, “Us Weakly” is a personal look into girl troubles and a penchant for piles of cocaine: “Standing on the corner waiting for the cocaine man / I guess I didn’t want those shoes or gas inside my van.” I don’t think he meant that to be funny.

“Put, The Candle, Back!” is the most poppy song and one that I could imagine hearing on Houston radio — a three-minute exploration into a lusty love affair that most likely lasted just as long (in his head, that is) and includes the line, “All my friends be say’n that you’re only a tease / but something more than that has got me weak in the knees / and I would do most anything to make you mine / even if it’s only one time.” Hmm…I wonder what’s making him weak in his knees? In the wise words of the Church Lady, “could it be…Satan?” Not something that will be recorded in my memory for much longer than, say, one or three minutes.