Not only will Dr. Dog be performing live on Conan next week, but on the Team Coco website you can get a full listen to the band’s latest album: Be the Void (which has been making our workday significantly better).Their tour kicked off in Columbus, Ohio at the Newport Music Hall. From Ohio they’ll head westward to Kansas, then up to Boulder and through Utah and AZ, eventually up the west coast to Seattle. But don’t worry, they’ll be swooping back over to the east eventually, touring through March, ending in their hometown Philly–catch the full tour list here.
We were lucky enough to catch them rolling through the midwest twice last November, in both Bloomington, Indiana and Cleveland, Ohio, where we got a taste of the new album (mind you, this song was in our head for weeks; we later found it was “Warrior Man”): “I am the ancient warrior man, and I am from the ancient warrior clan/ I invented the computer man, hub caps and soda cans.”
Dr. Dog set at the Beachland Ballroom. November 2011
Be the Void is a definite sound switch up from their past records, and like always, there is a thread of nature throughout most of the songs’ lyrics, “in the heavy, heavy light/ in the heavy, heavy light/ the sea is within me and that’s ’cause I said so,” in “Heavy Light.” Their brilliant metaphors, “I am the youngest of a family of spiders; I’ve got a web of my very own weavin’/ I know where I belong and nothing’s gonna beat it,” coordinate with keys, drums, maracas, funky guitar riffs, and background vocals of all Dr. Dog sorts.
Scott McMicken, who plays guitar/sings vocals, said in an interview with Paste magazine Be the Void, “was reminiscent of when [they] were starting out and were these fearless weirdoes in a basement, so confident and reckless and bold.” Epitaph will be releasing the finalized masterpiece that was recorded in their studio in Philly on February 7, so you can have a copy of the newest from these guys–it’s expected you’ll see them popping through your city sometime in the next couple of months, so keep your eye out and have a listen.
