Album Reviews

Mose Alison meets Steely Dan meets Gary Wilson is the best I can do to describe this hipster member of Hollywood's famous Dragon family's recent CD. 

Dad Carmen was best known for conducting The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra during the 1950s and he also composed the music for the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The kids, Dennis, Doug and Darryl grew up in a Laurel Canyon home  during the '60s and became part of that era's incredible music scene there.

They had a band called The Dragons and played backup for The Beach Boys. BFI, an experimental album The Dragons made in the late '60s was apparently ahead of its time. No one wanted to release it. Thirty seven years later it was "discovered" and released. 

Daryl hooked up with Toni Tenille and became "The Captain."  

Doug moved to Hawaii to then to Australia and lived a "gypsy's life" he says he doesn't regret, playing clubs, opening for touring bands and obviously having a great adventure.

Last year he made this record with a bunch of talented musician friends and his brother Dennis producing, engineering, mixing and mastering. 

The vibe is definitely low key keyboard and guitar oriented jazz/rock reminiscent of Steely Dan with a dash of Gary Wilson drollness thrown in, though it's probable Dragon doesn't know our favorite Endicott weirdo. The grooves are deep and tuneful and when you combine them with the Becker-like guitar parts, horn and chick singer backups , you can't miss the Dan connection.

Dennis's production is notably clean and well recorded and mixed in the best  early to mid '70s tradition. The bassline is deep and clean, stage well organized and there are actual dynamics and instrumental timbres you can recognize. The musicianship is fine too. 

Doug's cool but burnt-out and wobbly voice requires some getting used to. He talks the lyrics as much as he sings them. His preoccupations run the gamut from love, to ecology to, nuclear pollution, to The Swine Flu.

Sometimes he sings, other times he raps a '50s hipster rap rhyme scheme.

You can tell the laid back Mr. Dragon has spent a lot of time at the beach. He sings and observes like a guy sitting in a chaise with the sun glasses on, passing judgement on what passes in front of him, even when singing about America's foreign war adventures, or the Pine Beetle infestation, which he manages to do maintaining his detached, bemused state of mind.

Yes, this is a vanity press of music that's of little interest to what's left of the major record labels, or the young music consuming public for that matter, but Doug's got the music in him so he had to get it out. 

"Are we an obese nation?" he sings on the second tune. Does he even have to ask?