The John and Spencer Booze Explosion

Spencer Moody (Dead Low Tide, Murder City Devils) and John Atkins (764-HERO, Magic Magicians) got together a couple of years ago at the Velvet Elvis Theatre in Seattle armed with a clever "band" name, a bottle or two, and drummer Joe Plummer (Black Heart Procession, Magic Magicians) to bash out some tunes and see what happened. Well it was fun for sure, but save for a melancholy girl group style song about a car crash after last call, that was about it. Present day, same armory, except this time also joining in on the barley wine-fueled fun is Phil Ek and Dann Gallucci (ex-Murder City Devils). Oh yeah, also in attendance were 6 cover songs hand picked by Moody, including a curious Bette Midler song penned by Ben Folds, a contemporary French pop song that Spencer heard on a free CD, a Fred Neil demo, a Jacque Brel ditty as actualized by Scott Walker, a Velvet Underground classic and a Nancy and Lee Chestnut burner. The five of them took the challenge of covering, uncovering and discovering the works with a sense of "art for art's sake" fun and an alliterated combination of inventive playing, production, and another p word and they had to rent a bucket for Christ's sakes. One onlooker noted that they rarely see so much laughing during such hard work, and even more rarely do you see someone rent a bucket. The sense that "this might never see the light of day but let's make this as great and fun as we can" permeates these dusty roadhouse driftwood nuggets.