100 Albums That Make Me Love Music: 91. Punchy's Pilots - Otter Space

Every Tuesday I cover One of the albums that made me love Music

91. Punchy’s Pilots: Otter Space

This is the first of at least two (possibly 3) albums released by local bands. These will mostly be much shorter as the albums are harder to find/enjoy.

Punchy’s Pilots I discovered through another band. I had booked them for a show in West Chester, PA and they asked me if I could put their friend’s band on the line-up. I listened and instantly fell in love with the band. I immediately put them on the show.

At this point Punchy’s Pilots was a duo. It was also the only time I’d ever see them as a duo. I’d book Punchy’s PIlots over and over again throughout the years but from there on out it was always just multi-instrumentalist Thomas Barford with an acoustic guitar and an old accordian.

The best band to compare them to was They Might Be Giants. The songs were goofy and strange (in a musical sense) but lyrically there was always a deeper brilliance to them. I mean the album is called Otter Space for crying out loud. Look at how adorable that cover is!

The stand out tracks for me are the opening and closing songs To and Fro and Describing The Moon. In fact since hearing this album I’ve written countless unfilmed scripts, but my favorite is titled Describing the Moon. The whole soundtrack was (supposed) to be done by Punchy’s Pilots, specifically opening with Describing the Moon and closing with To and Fro.

Describing the Moon is quite literally a song about the moon. I asked Thomas once what it was about thinking the lyrics were symbolic and he simply said “once I was driving I thought ‘man that moon looks really big tonight’ and wrote a song about it”. Meanwhile To & Fro contains the lyrics like “I’ve got to find what I hid so many months ago/Did I leave it in a tree top, did I lose it in the snow/It’s too important to forget like I did three years or more/Would you aid me in my search or would you teach me to let go”. Without knowing what the songs about, I’ve always related to the words. Plus it has an awesome slide-whistle solo.

Check out this interview with Punchy’s Pilots on my podcast and feel free to contact him on his myspace (which he might check) and if he still reads it he’ll probably send you a free CD.

When he's not listening to classic albums about 30 years too late Matt is tweeting, hosting his podcast The Saint Mort Show and writing for Geekscape.net (check out his Guilty Pleasure this week on Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever)

< ---- 92. Queen: Sheer Heart Attack

90. White Stripes: White Blood Cells ------>