Good Looks at the Raccoon Motel -- July 11.
Tuesday, July 11, 7 p.m.
Raccoon Motel, 315 East Second Street, Davenport IA
With their 2022 album debut Bummer Year boasting, according to Glide magazine, "a rich collection of songs" that "showcase strong songwriting and alt-folk rocking," the indie rockers and Texas natives of Good Looks headline a July 11 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, their first recording also praised by Atwood magazine as "a fun and spirited rock record that welcomes respect and repeat listens."
Future Good Looks co-originator Tyler Jordan, as explained in the band's biography at GoodLooksBand.com, "grew up in a South Texas coastal town dominated by the petrochemical industry, his childhood steeped in the tension between nature and industry, exploitation abundantly present and the wealth gap in eyeshot if you just crossed the street. His father’s church, described by Tyler as 'cult-like in its intensity,' was homebase and where he learned to sing. He snuck in harmonies where there was room, and where there wasn’t, and internalized melodies and structures. He bought into the content until he looked elsewhere and discovered a new obsession of studying lyrics for detail and intention.
"Paul Westerberg and Spoon were early influences before Tyler gravitated towards artists like Patti Smith, Parquet Courts, and Minutemen. They were all rock bands who had something to say in their lyrics, and more than that, were high expectations he could set for his own project. Tyler moved to Austin at 19 and spent his first few months busking on the loud and crowded drunken sidewalks downtown. 'I used to stand on 6th and Brazos and try to bounce my voice against the brick building across the street loudly enough to have it come back and fill the street below.' It was an exercise that helped him build confidence in his voice.
"A short time later, Tyler met and befriended his primary collaborator Jake Ames whose own relationship with music began in a Kerrville country radio station where his dad was a D.J. Barely able to reach the faders, he reached for any kind of stringed instrument he could put his hands on. They met in the late-night song-swap circles of the Kerrville Folk Festival campground (where they would also meet Buck Meek and Adrienne Lenker pre-Big Thief). Between volunteer shifts and string jams, Tyler and Jake shared their mutual love of the Texas hill country canon (Blaze Foley, Townes Van Zandt, and Willie Nelson) and discovered their parallel small Texas town musical trajectories. They shared a love of cheap diner food, thrift store baseball caps, and a healthy dose of harmless shit-talking. They began playing in bands together, backing up other songwriters and taking turns in the spotlight.
"Tyler was a fan of the albums coming out of Dandy Sounds, a recording studio about half an hour outside of Austin run by producer/engineer Dan Duszynski (of Loma and Cross Record). They met at Chill Phases, an idyllic showcase held at the tail end of SXSW each year on the Dripping Springs property the studio is on and talked about Julia Lucille’s Chthonic and Molly Burch’s Please Be Mine, records Dan had recorded whose layers and focused textures caught Tyler’s ear. Dan agreed to record and produce the songs that would become Bummer Year and added the touches that shaped it into a cohesive whole."
With Good Looks' Robert Cherry on bass guitar and Phillip Dunne on drums, the extensive work on Bummer Year has certainly proved worthwhile to music critics. Stereogum raved, "The Austin quartet’s incisive and thoughtful songs are seasoned with twang, dimmed by twilit melancholy, and full of lyrics as clear and resonant as their guitar tone." Undercurrents, meanwhile, stated, "Bummer Year is undoubtedly an excellent rock album, but it’s also the sound of a band finding the most effective ways of expressing both their outrage at unfair systems and their empathy for individuals caught in them. This is only the beginning for Good Looks, and I can’t wait to hear what comes next."
Good Looks plays their Davenport engagement on July 11, admission to the 7 p.m. concert is $15, and tickets are available by visiting TheRaccoonMotel.com.
