Sunday, May 31, 2009

The dBs

Where did The dBs come from and what the heck became of them? In the days when I lived on student wages and the intrawebs were the fanciful dream of the cider-deluded engineering student, The dBs were band that cast a beautiful shadow. They never toured to Perth, though Peter Holsapple joined REM on the road, and never seemed to be written about. There was a lovely sense of mystery about them, not quite like early Belle & Sebastian but maybe not far off. Enough to say that The dBs played a style of pop that was embraced by many, including I think, Dom Mariani (then and still a charming man).

Anyway, tripping about the interwebs, invented thankfully in the intervening years, I found this delightful short film by Emily Hubley. Hublely has gone on to a successful career as an animator - and the dBs? Well, who knows, and if the song seems a little light on, well, such were the times.


2 comments:

bigsteveno said...

Holsapple was in a band called the Continental Drifters after the dB's, based in New Orleans, where he lived for 13 years. Like so many of us, he's a Katrina refugee, relocated now to his home state of North Carolina. He's got a nice blog -- http://halfpearblog.blogspot.com/ -- and I see he's got some stuff up there now about a recent trip back to N.O.

Alex said...

Chris Stamey has released a couple of great solo albums (including It's Alright in 1987 and Travels in the South in 2004) and Stamey and Holsapple released a very good album together the early 90s called Mavericks (and have a brand-new one that just came out about a month ago called Here and Now).

The dBs supposedly began working on a new album in 2005, but it hasn't seemed to be a huge priority and their website now says it may come out in "winter 2009" (which maybe means December).