Written, performed, and produced by Chicago musician, (and currently bass player for indie/prog rock band Wonka) Mike Grosso, in many different DIY "studio" circumstances, Doc Dabolu contains a sound that is as disorienting as diving into a basket of puppies.
"The Frivol" was recorded at places ranging from a radio production booth in the middle of cornfields, to the basements of houses where Doc was residing, to his bedroom in his apartment in Chicago. Some of the tracks contain instruments which were recorded in analog and other instruments within the same song recorded digitally just to make you feel confused.
Using acoustic & electric guitars, a bass, congas, a jaw harp, drums or anything that may at some time resemble a drum, sometimes vocals and any other thing that can make noise when hit/strummed/thrown against the wall, Doc Dabolu has made an album that is guaranteed to make your limbs jump around the room in revolt, and quite possibly even melt your brain if you're not careful.
If you have ever wanted music that has elements of folk combined with the sound of a chicken running in circles, then Doc Dabolu is for you.
One day I recorded myself scratching the floor with a fork, mixed it with drumsticks being dragged across cement, added in a piano being pounded on, and threw on a vocal track of myself saying "Eeb-oob-squiggly-sqawk-florpoothy" and played it backwards.
This became the introduction for the first song off of a cassette tape I recorded on my four track. I put together everything myself, playing all of the instruments one at a time, and creating something that was a strange amalgam of self-conscious sad songs and uncanny goofiness.
I made about twenty copies and sold them at a concert some friends were putting on, and that was that.
In the years to come, I would run into random people I didn't recognize, who had bought one of those twenty copies, and they would tell me that it was amazing and erogenous.
I got inspired, and in early 2004 produced "The Frivol," for sale at CD Baby - www.cdbaby.com/docdabolu.
Now is the part where you discover Doc Dabolu and tell your friends what you've found.
Go ahead, the sooner you do it, the sooner I can quit my day job.
Jim O'Rourke, Mike Patton, Secret Chiefs 3 & Trey Spruance, Ken Andrews, Lou Barlow, Ben Folds, Tortoise.
