New dimension with an old twangy sound
Young Rival frontman holds funhouse mirror to early rock
What’s the deal? “Wait a minute,” you’re thinking to yourself. “This handsome Favourite Thing of yours looks oddly familiar. He can hardly be New.”
Good eyes. Good ears, too, if you’re also thinking you’ve heard Aron D’Alesio’s eternally boyish voice somewhere before, he’s spent the past decade as the frontman and guitarist for rock-tastic Hamilton power trio Young Rival.
For the moment, however, D’Alesio is stepping out on his own, following up on the sporadic solo gigs he’s been playing off and on for a few years now, and a couple of appetite-teasing cassette releases, with the release of a one-man-band effort entitled simply Aron D’Alesio on Aug. 25 via Paper Bag Records.
Left to his own devices, D’Alesio inhabits a sort of funhouse-mirror vision of rock ’n’ roll music’s early years, a shimmering, surreal place bottomless with twang and reverb and ghosted by the youthful naiveté of Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, doo-wop and girl-group giddiness.
He calls it “weird ’50s guitar washout music,” but while D’Alesio is in thrall to the music of that period, what he’s doing isn’t entirely retro. Sum up what you do in a few simple sentences. “I was becoming increasingly frustrated by how long it would take to get a finished idea or record out and I was writing so much that I needed to find a new outlet so it would make sense to keep going. Up until that time I’d only recorded quick demos, so half of the time I spent making this record was spent teaching myself how to record in the first place.
“For me this record will stand as a snapshot in time where I personally faced a lot of resistance and pushed past it. . . . I am Aron D’Alesio and I am in a new dimension now.” What’s a song I need to hear right now? “Diamond Ring.” If Suicide venerated the Everlys over Elvis and occasionally allowed enough light in to nick an echo of a chord progression from Johann Pachelbel, it might sound a little something like this. Where can I see him play? At the Dakota Tavern on Wednesday, Aug. 23.