Published on Oct 18, 2000
There’s not a lot I can tell you about Watsonville Patio, as
neither their personal website or the website of their record label
have any information worth the pixels to display it. Thankfully, I
don’t have to. It’s enough you know California-based Watsonville
Patio has released their third CD,
Population 02.
The band has an interesting sound. Imagine, if you will, 10,000
Maniacs where Stevie Nicks had succeeded Natalie Merchant, and
you’d be close; it’s a very folksy, comfortable sound, like a faded
flannel shirt or an easy chair you’ve managed to wear the
properly-shaped depression in. The sound washes over you, easy,
digestible, not terribly challenging.
Watsonville Patio has built up its fan base by touring, and it
shows; their music is seemingly designed to be performed live,
guitar-heavy without too many frills or fripperies. The
musicianship is competent, but nothing reaches out and smacks you
with its concentrated greatness.
Indeed, it’s hard to get smacked by anything at all on
Population 02. The band’s sound becomes homogenous to the
point of hypnosis. There are some standout tracks – “Perfect
Combination” is an intent, minor-keyed rocker that sounds like REM
crossed with the Cowboy Junkies; “First Stop Tucson” is a country
stomper that manages to sound bright and distinctive; and the
harmonica-laced “Changed Your Mind” has a good beat and a coherent,
strong sound.
Sadly, though, most of
Population 02‘s sound disappears into either a morass of
sameness, a funhouse mirror of sensitive indie female vocals, or,
worse, ends up sounding like a Fleetwood Mac tribute band. I’m
probably being a little unfair to lead vocalist Janice Grube –
after all, unlike Ms. Nicks, she can pronounce the English language
– but damn, it’s eerie how much she sounds like the High Priestess
Of Overproduced Arena Rock. Not even a cover of Van Morrison’s
“Into The Mystic”, otherwise well performed and arranged, manages
to dispel the ghost of Stevie.
I don’t mean it to sound like I thought
Population 02 was bad, because it’s not. There’s just
nothing notable to separate it from a hundred other albums of
similar genre and theme – and in today’s wide open music scene,
flat competence isn’t quite enough. There are a lot of people out
there who swear by Watsonville Patio’s sound – what web resources
on the band I could find involved their passionate, devoted fan
base. (Cool, maybe I’ll get more hate mail. It’s been a while.) I
don’t question that they couldn’t become a distinctive, talented,
unique-sounding band and produce a classic CD. Unfortunately, no
matter how much you want it to be so,
Population 02 isn’t it.