Pottery - Texas Drums Pt I & II

Song of the Day
Hosted by John Richards
Today's Song of the Day, as chosen by John Richards, host of The Morning Show on KEXP, is “Texas Drums Pt I & II” by Pottery, from the 2020 album Welcome to Bobby's Motel on Partisan Records.
written by Janice Headley

Montreal-based quintet Pottery won over audiences last year when they set out on tour opening for Parquet Courts. With their debut album Welcome to Bobby’s Motel out soon (April 10th via Partisan), they're sure to win over some more. The band recorded with PC's previous producer Jonathan Schenke at Montreal’s Break Glass Studios, infusing more of a new wave-influence to their post-punk sound. 

Via a press release, the band introduce "Bobby" to the masses:

Who is “Bobby,” you ask?

Enter Pottery. Enter Paul Jacobs, Jacob Shepansky, Austin Boylan, Tom Gould, and Peter Baylis. Enter the smells, the cigarettes, the noise, their van Mary, their friend Luke, toilet drawings, Northern California, Beatles accents, Taco Bell, the Great Plains, and hot dogs. Enter love and hate, angst and happiness, and everything in between. Beginning as an inside joke between the band members, Bobby and his “motel” have grown into so much more. They’ve become the all-encompassing alt-reality that the band built themselves, for everyone else. So, in essence, Bobby is Pottery and his motel is wherever they are.

But really, Bobby is a pilot, a lumberjack, a stay at home dad, and a disco dancer that never rips his pants. He’s a punching bag filled with comic relief. He laughs in the face of day-to-day ambiguity, as worrying isn’t worth it to Bobby. There’s a piece of him in everyone, there to remind us that things are probably going to work out, maybe. He’s you. He’s him. He’s her. He’s them. Bobby is always there, painted in the corner, urging you to relax and forget about your useless worries. And his motel? Well, the motel is life. It might not be clean, and the curtains might not shut all the way. The air conditioner might be broken, and the floors might be stained. But that’s okay, because you don’t go to Bobby’s Motel for the glamour and a good night’s sleep, the minibar, or the full-service sauna. You go to Bobby’s Motel to feel, to escape, to remember, to distract. You go for the late nights and early mornings, good times and the bad. You might spend your entire life looking for Bobby’s Motel and just when you think you will never find it, you realize you’ve been there all along. It’s filthy and amazing and you dance, and you love it.

Check out the video below starring the unibrow-proud gang, directed by band members Jacobs and Shepansky alongside Meagan Callen and Charlie Coote.

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