The world must not need great Rock music anymore. Otherwise the Dave Goddess Group would have stormed the charts! This band builds on the vision, sounds, and excitement of Tom Petty, Springsteen, Dylan, and Mott the Hoople to deliver something unbridled, urgent and reckless -- "Something New!" The group members hail from Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley and share the desire and abandon of a street gang. They consist of Dave Goddess (load vocals, guitar, keys, songwriting), Mark Buschi (bass, vocals), Tom Brobst (keys, sax, flute), and Tom Bazylak (drums).
I love the sly allusions to The British Invasion of the Sixties. The Beatles released an album in 1964 called "Something New." Dave Goddess breathlessly sings "Show me something new, something better, something wilder, something true, something deeper, something sweeter..." In 1967, the Rolling Stones released their hit, "She's Like a Rainbow," containing the line, "She comes in colors. In "Lucky Guy," the band joyously rocks, "Oh, I'm a lucky guy. She comes in colors and away she flies. She's given up secrets. I've given up my lies." The Beatles wrote many an ode to romance. So did Dave Goddess. "It's About Love" breathlessly proclaims "It's about love, not about money. My heart has it's reasons... People say love is a lie and people say money talks. But when the game's over, the king and the pawn wind up in the same box."
Goddess channels his inner Dylan on a number of songs. He laments in "Love Over Blue," "It's only love over blue and I want to call her young and I want to let it go. But I know deep down inside, she's not too young to know." Great flute solo. And finally, in the epic "Love Is a Mirror," the sax screams as he whispers "When you paint your face and tease your hair, straighten your Pearls, are you blinded by the glare? Do you ever wonder and do you ever ask just how much you like that face in the glass?"
Make no mistake. As bassist Mark Buschi explained to me, although Dave Goddess wrote all the songs, "This is a band." You can hear and feel the community in the grooves. Mixed and mastered by the legendary Ed Stasium, the record pops tight, precise arrangements sugar coated with soaring backup vocals. This is not the frustrated cry of youth but rather the desperate panic born of middle-age dead ends. Dig the drawl, the chest beating, the never say die attitude... "Can you hear 'The Call of the Wild' in your little home, in your little town? If hear the call of the wild, follow me down, follow me down..."
©2015 Roger-Z