PRESS

Pale Blue Dot "Western Scene" (Independent 2006)
Reviewer:  Del Day - Americana U.K.
Reviewers Rating: 9 out of 10
Date review added:  Tuesday, March 27, 2007

" A little bit folk, a little bit rock, a little bit country, a little bit not"

"East Nashville’s Pale Blue Dot have a links page on their website that includes Badly Drawn Boy, Bill Hicks and David Icke. it’s a strange mix don’t you think? What it has to say about the band or this excellent record is debatable but there is obviously a sub-conscious link there that probably holds the fundamental ‘meaning’ as to what this band are all about. A simpler route would be to buy this record at the first opportunity and just let these fourteen pop nuggets cast their own spell on you. Reference points? Think a stoned-out Neil Young with the wit and deviance of The Kinks. Tracks like “Things That Aren’t Even There” - a riot of “Rainy Day Women #12” proportions in its sharp humour and raggle-taggle approach - and “Married Woman (Heart On Fire)” are essentially folky-pop that is retro in feel yet wouldn't be out of place on, say, Mark Radcliffe. You can’t help think that given the right ‘cool’ label and marketing spend Pale Blue Dot could well be a happening band. The Collins family - Scott, Justin, and Kim - have clearly got the formula just right in creating music that is full to the brim with cute melodies, endless singalong choruses, and a sound that flits between modern day whimsy and rock’s more salubrious past. Inevitably, in all reality, this is the sort of band that will probably release a couple of records, be ‘massive’ in their home town and have about as much a telling impact on the musical world as Blazing Squad. But playing again the anthemic “Ode to Joy” or “New York Crush,” quite simply 2007’s best pop song so far, and the tear jerking closer “Countless Rings” it is clear what a sad loss that would be. A couple blips aside Western Scene is a mighty fine effort indeed and will be on the kitchen play list for many a moon I betcha. "

"The Collins family and Pale Blue Dot fuse poetic folk and harder sounds into music with scope, depth, and texture." (Nashville Scene)

"It's a family affair when East Nashville's Pale Blue Dot roll in to town with their gritty garage folk and toe-tapping, boot-stomping live show..." (The New Yorker)

"...I quit drinking because of songs like these." (Chattanooga Enigma Weekly)

"High energy rock that socks you in the gut." (Nashville City Paper)

BIO
The Collins family band Pale Blue Dot hail from East Nashville, TN USA. They play "garage folk", "schooly rock", and "dead country ". It has been said that Pale Blue Dot make you feel like you're riding in the back seat of a station wagon in 1975.

PBD's musical collaboration began in 1999 when Scott left New York City to join his younger brother Justin in East Nashville, where they busted ass writing and rehearsing songs in an abandoned trailer with no electricity thirty miles outside of town. (When asked why, they simply responded "I don't know.") The synergy, sometimes described as a "southern Fleetwood Mac", was furthered by the addition of Scott's wife Kim, a multi-instrumentalist with a mystifying knack for harmony, and then finally rounded out with shoe-string bassist Mike Whitty and washboard toting drummer Kyle Walsh. Once dubbed "the white Sly and the Family Stone" for their fearless live energy, PBD rely more on gut than technique and possess a demanding presence and distinct sound that is a result of who they naturally are, not what guitars or amps they arm themselves with.

On the recording side of things, Pale Blue Dot's most recent composition put to tape, Western Scene, scatters remnants of raw classicism from The Kinks to Ziggy Stardust to Tonight's the Night Neil Young, notably an effect of collaborating with both Rob Clark (Neil Young, Emylou Harris) and Chad Brown (Bob Seger, Steve Earle, Cerys Matthews, Ryan Adams). Western Scene's release date is August 5, 2006. Expect plenty of barnstorming live dates to back it up.

Pale Blue Dot's previous LP's include Big Plans, which was recorded at Scott and Kim's home in East Nashville on a 1970's 1/2 inch 8-track analog machine, and the self-titled debut Pale Blue Dot.

 

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