Philly band Dr. Dog treated us to a bunch of new tracks from their latest full length “Shame Shame” yesterday, including Jason Bentley’s favorite “Shadow People.” For the first time, the band built their album around playing it live – instead of recording it and then figuring out how it can work on stage — and those changes have definitely made them stronger. They were incredible.
What I love most about the band are the gorgeous harmonies of longtime friends and collaborators Scott McMicken and Toby Leaman. Those exuberant, ’60-style harmonies were thrown into jeopardy while they were touring around their last album “Fate” and, for the first time, we heard the full story about what happened. “It’s really dumb. Like all injuries, it starts from a point of pure stupidity. It was actually on my birthday which made it doubly crappy, “said Toby before explaining that he was laying on top of his wife on an inner tube while being pulled by a motor boat and they hit a bump and her head hit him right in the trachea. Ouch. Last time they came through the station Scott had to handle all the vocals and it was great to hear them together again.
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