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Grafton
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| By
Vinnie Apicella
Early indications are
of a Social Distortive-overtone, wily and quick,
shotgun-riding Rockabilly swagger swinging from the vine of yesterday's
swing and sway with a back woods perspective and black and white
recollections. Don't quite get the name Grafton as we're not dealing
with an apparent band members' moniker but I like the song
titles-"Buckshot Girl," which ranks among the top two or three
here, but
stick around a while, there's quite a few-"Tom Sellek," not my
own
misprint, sans "C" and having nothing whatsoever to do with
the actor,
so I'll assume, but hey, could've chosen worse. though I did hear that
"Lee Horsley" was no longer available. Still like that
"Buckshot Girl"
tune from before, got the makings of a Rock radio hit though it'll never
come close without that all elusive break afforded hardly any an upstart
Indie-Rocker. The tunes are high "caliber", richly produced,
in fact
amongst the best I've yet to hear from this label, still churning out
some of the best Mid-Western Rock and Soul this side of. Diana Ross
singing the Star Spangled at Shea? Well maybe not, but I like these
guys, they got rhythm and they ain't afraid to get their hands dirty and
rub 'em on the pants of a catchy groove or Setzer-like six string break.
"Phineas Gage" is another for the thumbs up category where if
you can't
get into this groove-we're talking foot tapping, knee-slapping,
frame-thumpin' good time Rock comfortably at home at a backyard barbecue
or your neighbors garage with little evidence of identity crisis or
hum-drum hallowness quickly learned on many a new act with too much
digitized space to fill. "The Best Part Of La Grange" is.
well, I
don't know what it is but somewhere in the lines they're telling us I'm
sure but I'm too busy getting into the music to pick out the words-by
around this point lean years Replacements come to mind, say around
"Hootenanny" and "Tim" era stuff, less abrasive than
their Punk youth
and less polished than their Sire Records sell-out. Grafton has little
trouble following the lead of said acts who've built their names on
underground cred and emotive-Power Rock and Jive principles, yes Grafton
is a funny name and the old family photos do well to somehow draw
attention to their Southern roots but make no mistake they're arriving
at their earliest stage where many before them took two to three albums
to develop-and what else ya gonna say about a band conscious enough to
quote James Wright on the back cover. save your pennies and go out and
get the record; it ain't like ya gotta worry about them going out of
style, Hell this kinda music was never in style anyway, that's what
makes it so great-go ask the MC5 and if that don't work, go ask your
father!
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