Doco (Dramatic Oil Company), a band from North Carolina, played a house party here in Kirksville last night as part of their Science of Funk 2009 tour and pretty much grooved the place into oblivion.  (An attendee was grabbing onto the basement ceiling pipes and doing something he called the “horizontal stripper pole.”  I’ll let your imagination take over.)  I had gotten a tip from a friend that there was going to be a good show in town and that the band playing kind of sounded like Reel Big Fish.  In all honesty, I was expecting a decent college jam band that sounded exactly like Reel Big Fish.  Not so, happily.

There are some bands you see play and you know that they just get it: they get what a show is supposed to be, they get what music is supposed to sound like, how all the different elements that make a song work together within the span of a few minutes; they just get music.  Doco’s in that camp.  They’ve got a stage presenence that could teach a great number of bands out there a thing or two (makes me think of the The Black Keys) and a delivery M.O. that makes it easy–irresistible, even–to like them. My impression of their style was that it didn’t particularly fall into any genre; it was a blend of bluesy-reggae-rock, though I also picked up on some psychedelic and Mexi-border influences.  I walked in just as bassist Josh Booth began laying down a heavy hand on “Dirty South,” a Hendrix-tinged bluesy groove that might have been my favorite of the night. His brother, guitarist and vocalist Trevor Booth, clearly has his wits about him when it comes to playing and singing; there was a lot of love coming from that guitar last night.  Doco’s vocals are an asset, too: a lot of times the vocal stylings of the lead singer don’t match the attitude or sound of a band’s music, but Trevor’s works quite well.  Their drummer, Dave Burkart, successfully works the drums into becoming more than a mere background or stabilizing element; it should be noted that he had a fantastic solo last night during one of their songs.  

Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, so I didn’t get any good pictures of them playing.  You can check out their MySpace  Their album, The Potato Gun Massacre, is available for free download here, and you can purchase their latest album, The Fossil Record, and listen to some of their new stuff by visitng their MySpace page (I say make it on your list of websites to surf while avoiding homework today). 

Cheers,

Casey