Dr. Dog keeps sound on a short leash

By Michael Hoinski
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Thursday, September 11, 2008

Saying a band sounds like the Beatles is like saying they sing and play instruments — it's become that passé of a reference. That's how Scott McMicken sees it, and he should know. You can't read press on Dr. Dog, the band he fronts with singer-songwriter associate Toby Leaman, and not get inundated with comparisons to the Liverpudlians.

"The only frustrating part about it," McMicken says, in advance of the Philly fivesome's Saturday show at the Parish, "is that it seems as though because the Beatles are such this institution, there's kind of no merit in being influenced by them at this point in time."

Of course, there are any number of ways a band can appear influenced by the Beatles. Gleeful vocal harmonies. Clever, economic production. Multiple poets at the mike. Dr. Dog's kennel of songs drools with all of the above, especially as pertaining to the Fab Four's late-'60s run. It's a universal pop combo made manifest as retro, which brings with it multigenerational attraction.

Don't fix it if it isn't broken is a command Dr. Dog obeys. Their sound has changed little from their endearing, ragtag debut, "Easy Beat," to their genre-skipping, sophomore breakthrough, "We All Belong," to their almost equally as awesome new one, "Fate."

"We're a band that can't really jump outside of our skin too easily into something completely different," McMicken says.

That admission relates to "Fate," an album whose exterior — cover art depicting Bonnie and Clyde, liner notes designed as an old-time newspaper called "Know No New News," a picture of the band dressed as Depression-era field hands — embellishes and ties together the songs inside. "The Breeze," a lilting McMicken number with woodblock and maracas-style percussion, plinking keys and unified doo-wops, implores putting the needle to the groove while asking, "Are you moving much too fast?" Meanwhile, on "The Ark," Toby Leaman contemplates life's constants — God, war, love, peace — with signature Joe Cocker yelps.

Combined with the other songs, whose titles include "The Old Days" and "Uncovering the Old," and augmented by a train metaphor that represents, for McMicken, a "get your hands dirty" work ethic found more so in a bygone society, "Fate" is seemingly deep with meaning. Let McMicken explain.

"It's not a concept album about outer space, or something," he says. "It's an attempt to make some of these really intangible things a lot simpler and a lot more manageable — general things about, you know, your identity, you know, your past, how you feel about the present moment and how much that is influenced by the decisions that you've made in the past, and how much are you willing to take responsibility for that, and how much are you really willing to be a better person ... how difficult is it for you to change. And then it becomes, like, a progressive issue of, like, where do I want to go, you know, what do I want to do next, who do I want to be ... how do I really feel about myself and the life that I live."

Confused? You're not alone.

"The more I talk about it," McMicken says, "the less I think I understand it."