Drums and Tuba Flatheads and Spoonies (My Pal God)

Drums and Tuba

Flatheads and Spoonies (My Pal God)

It's about time someone stepped up to the plate and offered Drums and Tuba a primo film scoring gig. Their latest LP would be perfect for a grainy, arthouse take on an action movie that deals in photorealism instead of boffo explosives. As such, Flatheads and Spoonies rides a quirk-laden groove of big city weirdness that keeps you riveted to every note. The trio's bare-walled fusion is partially fueled by a tacit understanding of the punk dynamic, but Tony Nozero's rich, organic snare shots coupled with Brian Wolff's boomin' tuba blurts imbue the band with a well-steeped Crescent City street funk. "The Mummy" takes a Starsky & Hutch-style guitar workout from Neal McKeeby and overlays it across the pavement-pounding parade from Nozero and Wolff. The less-thematic "Dr. Small" starts with a thwacking rubber band guitar loop and builds temporally as the sun rises to a frenetic game time fervor. D&T gets downright eerie on "The Chicken," which goes from a lone typewriter keeping the rhythm to an even lonelier epic battle hymn for the defeated. On the brighter side, the title track takes a playful party soul melody and fleshes it out with an ebullient guitar solo at the tail end. Jump back Zamfir -- this is the real instrumental magic.