LOVE TRACTOR - LOVE TRACTOR

Love Tractor is a band from a mystical land called "Athens, Georgia" - where people danced in backyards, ate barbecue, and formed bands like R.E.M. and Pylon. This here, their first album is 11 songs of purely instrumental, guitar driven hoopladashery. Some songs have a keyboard and others have a sax in there, but other than that, expect drums, guitars, and a bass guitar (note: bass guitar is a different instrument than a regular guitar - please consult the wikipedia article HERE for more information).

The guitars are all chime-y and the drums are just a constant dance beat that you can bop your head to or do the Peanuts dance to like I would (see example HERE). After a while, it's easy to confuse some songs with others, but since they are all fairly good, that's not a problem. There's also some whistling. As one listens more and more, it seems like the musick begins to grow (for a picture of music growing, click HERE). Err, something. Also, Bill Berry used to drum for them before this album. And the Feelies cover "Fun to be Happy" live sometimes...

So, what's the story?

Well, when I was in high school, I had this thing called the "Documentary Channel" and it was there I first heard the Pixies (in the doc. "Gouge") and then I saw one called "Athens, GA Inside/Out" where the description said "Profiles of early 80's rock scene in Athens. Featuring R.E.M. and B-52's" or something - so I watched it! And man, was it something! There was those two bands, Pylon and this band. There were a lot more, but I can't remember them. And I remember thinking "This Love Tractor band is kinda cool". Flash forward to this past March...after having some $43 in iTunes credit, I decided to buy an album and I thought of these guys because I bought some Pylon during winter break and that was awesome and I was probably listening to "Fables of the Reconstruction" a lot and crying while trying to figure out to do with the pile of dead birds in my 2nd closet in my dorm. So I bought it and thought "Man, this is cool"...Flash forward to today...I bought some stuff from Amazon this morning, including the "Athens GA" documentary and I listened to this while driving to Lil' Cher's Pist practice with Maques Stolarts, JB Holmesskillet and Davey "Crocker Pollard" Minnice. So I thought to review it.

OVERALL RATING - better than HARRY POTTER!
KEY TRACKS - Fun to Be Happy, Seventeen Days, Buy Me a Million Dollars