Dad, Come Home!
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Dad, Come Home!

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Music

The best kept secret in music

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"Daily Hampshire Gazette"

When fathers go musically 'loco'
BY KEN MAIURI
08/28/03 -- IF you have a full-time job, and you're married, and you have kids, then actually you have three full-time jobs. At least. Who's got time to relax, let alone rock?
The guys in Dad, Come Home! have found a way to add music to their day _ Friday nights, to be exact, which is when the four men congregate, celebrate and generate tunes. The band just released its second CD, ''Loco Parentis,'' a collection that mixes together rock-and-roll, boogie-woogie, power-pop, swing, and whatever else falls into their friendly blender.
The 11 songs are all originals, written by the band's frontline: guitarists Eric Stocker and John Hayman and bassist Richard Cahillane, all of whom sing. Drummer Alan Kurtz and keyboardist Bob Gould (who lives in New York City and augments the ''core four'') keep their lyric notebooks closed but their musical limbs busy.
Dad, Come Home! has been around since 1995; the band is based in Shutesbury, and they produced, recorded, and mixed ''Loco Parentis'' themselves at Stocker's basement studio. It took over a year and a half to create the album using their free time and Pro Tools know-how. The result is a record full of catchy songs with what Hayman smilingly called ''mature'' themes _ spouses, kids, love, paying the bills, feeling overworked, going dancing. Their Web site describes their sound as ''responsible rock'n'roll by guys your age.''
Stocker's ''Month of Mondays'' kicks off the record with a hooky refrain, ''We're closed / gone fishin' / gone home,'' and a tipsy horn section to blast away the dull daily grind. Hayman adds to the ''let's get away from it all'' feel with a surf guitar solo straight out of Dick Dale's ''Miserlou.''
Hayman's own ''Mama, Please Come Home'' is a catchy boogie-woogie rock-and-roll number that keeps up the good-time vibe. The refrain's melody is so simple and irresistibly fun to sing, you can plan on humming it for days.
Cahillane's ''Worried Blues'' is another dance floor filler-upper, its familiar-sounding chorus set up by quirky, wordy verses with cool double-tracked vocals. ''The humming from my amp is louder than a jet / I know I got a chord but I ain't found it yet,'' he sings, maybe offering a glimpse of the band's relaxed Friday night get-togethers.
''What's Not To Like'' is another catchy song in the party-rocking vein, with Jerry Lee Lewis piano, a Duane Eddy guitar lead and a sense of humor.
''She's Venus di Milo before she went bust / her daddy's rich and she's got a trust,'' goes one of the choruses, with the members chiming in with climbing four-part Beach Boys harmonies on the word ''trust.''
''Loco Parentis'' is not just a twist-happy party disc, though. ''Out From Under'' is a chipper swingy shuffle with diminished chords a la NRBQ's ''Dr. Howard Dr. Fine Dr. Howard'' to color the stormy relationship story. ''You just don't seem to care no more / your waves don't want to crash my shore,'' sings Cahillane.
Stocker's ''Too Far Gone to See'' has a great guitar riff and a groovy percussive feel that's like a New Orleans bossanova. Hayman's ''Lonely Street'' is the album's epic, a pleasantly spacious ballad with an awesome horn section harmony that climbs during the verses.
If the Monkees were a bar band, they might have come up with something like Cahillane's quirky ''Shake and Bake,'' full of fuzz guitar, bubbly percussion, burbling Hammond and weird lines like ''You got that hangdog look / like someone pissed in your Wheaties and left you for dead.''
''Waiting In the Shadows'' ends the album on an honestly anthemic note, with a Bo Diddley rhythm overpowered by a surprisingly loud wall of guitars and a speaker-shredding garage-rock solo. It's Stocker's ''9-11'' song, not an easy topic to write about well, or at all (I've heard some 9-11 songs that were horrifying for numerous reasons). Stocker succeeds by having the ''baby''-minded chorus seem unrelated, and then tying it all together at the end with a refrain that still leaves loose ends. It's a realistic _ and, yes, mature _ conclusion that has a surprisingly emotional kick.
Dad, Come Home! will next play Sept. 20 at ''Celebrate Shutesbury!'' on that town's common, and then conclude their hometown mini-tour on Sept. 27 at the Shutesbury Athletic Club, which will feature opening act The Shooks (whose members include radio man Joe O'Rourke, the person who came up with Dad, Come Home!'s name).

- Ken Mauri


Discography

CD Release from Dad,Come Home!
Are We There Yet-Cooleyville Records-2001
Loco Parentis-Cooleyville Records-2003

Photos

Feeling a bit camera shy

Bio

Dad, Come Home! started as a songwriter collaborative between John, Eric and Rich. Veterans of the Happy valley music scene, They needed a new vehicle to get their songs recorded. Alan Kurtz was recruited to fill the drum chair and they went to work. The band is joined by a number of friends to fillout the sound. Bob Gould pitched in on the first CD. He travelled all the way from New York city and by the second CD was a full fledged member. Alan's brother Steve plays sax on both CD's and most live shows.
The band is influenced by the Beatles (who isn't?), NRBQ, The Beach Boys, The Band, and a wide variety of pop rockers.