FEAR OF GOD, MEATBOT & GO DOG GO

GO DOG GO

That Dog in the Garage Why is the harmonious triad of guitar, bass, and drums, sometimes augmented by a Farfisa organ or a cheesed-out Wurlitzer, such a timeless pleasure? What makes it so? The classic configuration has held down basement floors and automatically opened garage doors for more than half a century. And yet, the joy of encountering a fresh, spirited, and jagged guitar riff, a clangorous but tight backbeat, and a less-than-perfect, but oh-so-fitting voice on top of it all remains one of the prime reasons to keep on living. There are few forms of uplift this pure, this ecstatic, this…enduring. Go Dog Go has kept that joy going for much of their considerable lives. You can feel it on their latest collection, Pleasant Living, an homage to their hometown. The assembled remnants of bar-legendary Baltimore original bands (Beaver’s Cleavers, Elements of Design, Square One, and Zehn Archar, among others), the foursome features three people old enough to know better, plus one acolyte/upstart to whom the drumstick has been passed. Skins-pounder Brandon Breazeale caught the bug from listening to his old man Greg’s Beatles and Ramones records, and then noticing some licks in Arctic Monkeys and Strokes tunes that kept something vital alive for later-arriving generations. His focused violence propels Go Dog Go through a variety of grooves —everything from early-‘60s girl group splendor to Blondies power-pop to recycledelia worthy of the Seeds or the Fleshtones. Greg Breazeale come along for the ride, adding bass to the rhythm mix, as well as writing nine of Pleasant Living’s 14 songs and lending his on-target tenor to about half of them. Like his son, Greg got hooked on the Ramones at an early age, and then devoted his stage life to punk and the lacerating shards that came in its wake. You can hear Nuggets-style influences in the writing too—everything from The Blues Magoos to the Woggles. Julie Smith can make her keyboards sound like anything, but especially like the waves and wash of surf music, or at least an earnest and eager Farfisa. Her rich contralto carries her songs, typically centered on things like her neighborhood, a cruise around town (“Sunday Driver”), and “Yard Work” into a realm where and the mundane and the sublime connect. Adding dimension and sometimes distortion, Tom Cohan, a lanky coil of energy who not just plays but commands his Telecaster, powers through both anger and melody as he sings Greg B.’s workaday punk classic, “Walk Away.” Go Dog Go has moved beyond Charm City to grab the national airwaves—you know, like they’re the Ramones or something. Palmyra Delran, the cryptic enchantress on SiriusXM’s “Little Steven’s Underground Garage,” regularly spins Greg’s rollicking minor-key anthem, “Party Parade.” Rock radio legends Rodney Bingenheimer and Bill Kelly regularly give them some airtime too. And the band has hit the indie charts several times in the past three years. All of which goes to show that, in an age when “rock heroes” hang on for dear life mainly just to milk the cash cow a few more times, a band that can give its listeners a genuine reason to believe can thrive. This isn’t revivalism or nostalgia or yet another empty exercise in pop irony. Go Dog Go is a good time you can enjoy in the here and now. Long may it bark.