Hope everyone's summer is off to a good start. As you can tell by our light blogging, we've been enjoying the lazy days of summer as well. But we'll try to get back in the groove of things. To help kick things off, we'd like to share a band we recently discovered from the deep south - of England! Tunstile Junkpile is an alt-country band from London who describe themselves as "a four-piece band influenced by alt-country, sixties soul, southern twang, a healthy disregard for the ageing process, and the finest Polish lager that their corner shop sells." No matter how you tag them, we like them. We're especially fond of "How How How" from their debut EP Everything Is Cheaper Than It Looks. The song has an irresistable banjo and drum driven melody with some nice bass and harmonica thrown in for good measure. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear these guys were another great alt country band from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. But knowing their true British identity, I detect the faint influence of Beggar's Banquet era Stones or Muswell Hillbilly Kinks. In fact if Ray Davies played banjo, I'm sure he would sound a lot like Tunstile Junkpile - and I mean that as a complement to them both. Like a Ray Davies song, "How, How How" has its share of cynical wit. Thumbing their noses at some unidentified son of privelege, they taunt, "Hey, hey, hey your daddy's gone away. Sixteen and boring and nobody wants to play." And if the message doesn't come through clear enough, they double down with, "It's time you realize your not God's only son..." They swagger through the rest of the EP showing off their self described influences of rock, country and soul to varying degrees. Although the EP may be "Cheaper than it looks," the music is every bit as rich as it sounds.
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