Walk up to anyone on the street and ask them if they like The View. Most likely they’ll say something along the lines of “Rosie’s fat”, ”Star Jones is fat”, or “Barbara Walters talks funny”. While that all may be true, that ain’t The View you should care about. 

 

You should care about the four young upstarts from Scotland who are on their way to being the greatest band to come out of Sean Connery’s nation since Primal Scream. Their first album, Hats Off To The Buskers, was one of the best debuts of ‘07. The band hails from Dundee, which apparently is the fourth-largest city in Scotland (behind Glasgow, Edinburgh, and, uh…the one where Shrek’s from). I hear Falconer and Webster, the band’s Lennon and McCartney (though Doherty and Barat is far more applicable here) sing in genuine Dundee accents, but considering most people know Dundee as the second word in the title of that Aussie movie from the ’80s, you can be forgiven for not realizing that.

 

The lyrics are enough to put a smile on even the bitterest (most bitter?) of music geezers. In Same Jeans, Falconer spins a yarn about heading out to clubs in your shittiest pair of dungarees. Leadoff single Wasted Little DJs contains what I believe to be the first chorus ever sung in pig Latin. However, it’s the bitter-kissoff-masquerading-as-a-cutesy-love-song Face For The Radio that wins in the lyrics category. The title is explanation enough. And just to show what kind of lads we’re dealing with here, our boys admitted to writing the tune about a local DJ with less-than-satisfactory visage.  

 

The tunes themselves are good for the most part and Falconer and Webster sound like they were drunkenly making up the words as they went along. And I mean that in the best way possible. This is rambling, raggedy, loose, cool music. So put on a kilt, take a swig of your best Scottish ale, and enjoy.