Published on Dec 2, 1999
Swing swing swing swing swing… I’m running around like an
idiot right now, and no one is here to see me. 🙂 Where are you all
when I am seriously embarrassing myself?!
Indigo Swing is a band I have been into since before they had a
record deal, back when I was in high school and my friend at the CD
place in Greenbrae, California gave me a copy of their demo tape. I
wore that damn thing thin. Then, in 1998, when I lived in Seattle,
they came to play, and I ran out to get their newest CD (this
one… now they have a new release called
Red Light!). I went to the concert/dance, had my first swing
dance experience, and was fairly blown away. Indigo Swing is,
without a doubt, my favorite swing band. Brian Setzer? Big Bad
Voodoo Daddy? Wimpy wannabes.
All Aboard! starts off with a kicking,
make-you-jump-out-of-your-chair-and-scream number called “The
Indigo Swing” (this isn’t even their first album and they are
putting songs about themselves on it. Wow). “Check your hat at the
door / And move on out to the floor / ‘Cause you know what to do /
Man, the drums are callin’ you / Take your girl by the hand / And
move on up to the band / You can hear the boys sing / ‘The Indigo
Swing’.” No joke, people, if I had a hat, I would have left it at
the door about two seconds into this song and gone off to swing
dance with my invisible partner around the apartment. Wait, I did
that already. Oops.
The next track, “(Today’s The Day) I’m Glad I’m Not Dead,” has a
pretty damn weird title for a song about a guy who has finally met
the girl of his dreams. The refrain, in which Johnny Boyd sings,
“Oh, I declare today’s not like the other days / Livin’ life in the
same old forgetful ways / Spin the wheel and you see how your
number plays / Comin’ ’round to me” is charming and uplifting, and
makes me want to dance (although it’s not nearly as jumpy and jivey
as the first track).
The songs on this album are universally tight and awesome, even
the track “Baron Plays The Horses,” which is mostly spoken, and the
instrumental “Hot In Harlem.” It would probably be boring if I went
over all the tracks individually; instead, I’ll talk about the only
track I don’t really like: “Violent Love.”
Maybe it’s the lyrics that bother me: “I want to make violent
love / To you ‘neath the moon above / I want to make violent love /
To you.” Maybe it’s the fact that even disregarding these lyrics
(which are pretty scary, if you ask me), the song is sort of boring
and generic. Either way, they could have done well leaving this
song off the CD. I have fast-forwarded through it almost every time
I have listened to it, it’s that bad. And I like this bad.
As a swing group, Indigo Swing is tight. They work really well
together, with an intricate ability to weave improvisations tightly
between instruments. They are masters of the craft; they obviously
live the swing style. All songs on this album (well, all but one)
effervesce with romantic spirit and sensibility; listening to this
album simply makes me happy to be alive… and able to
dance.