As a longtime fan of Denver band Pee Pee’s live shows, not to mention the demo CD they recorded and passed out at those some years ago, I’ve been eagerly awaiting this, their first official release, 'Castle Jackine Is Vooded At Broonus Mousin: Volume 1.' 

 

Pee Pee has been my favorite local band for years, and not just because I love their sound.  The very idea of an excellent anti-folk orchestra like this one calling itself by a name guaranteed to give the wrong impression of their sound and attitude strikes this reviewer as a rare and daring gambit in these hyper-literal (read: dumbed-down) times.  

Lead vocalist Doo Crowder (ex-Dinnermints), who conceived and founded the band, has always been an excellent songwriter, and that ability is apparent on this album, greatly aided by the incredible talent of each other musician individually and all together as a unit. 

The opening track 'Jaroline' is a gentle reminiscence of a friend absent in body but never in spirit, and an affectionate tribute to that constant presence. Next up is 'Madness Song', which opens with persistent knocking undeterred by Doo’s repeated shouts of  “Go Away!”  and  “Not home!”  before finding its melody, including electronic vocal effects uncharacteristic for Pee Pee but in no way contraindicated. 

Pee Pee are masters of this sort of sleight of hand. Indeed, the followup to that one, 'Love Needs a Quivering, Restless, Aching Fire to Lay its Head On',  notable for its cello is among the catchier songs I’ve ever heard, but without an ounce of pretense.  

'I Hope My New House Feels Welcoming For You' is plain-spoken and heartfelt, even gentler than 'Jaroline', in the very best of ways. 

Track five, 'Freakout Jam', is a testament to multi-instrumental improv, owing to influences as diverse as Sonic Youth and Woody Guthrie, and coalescing finally into an old favorite of mine from the shows, 'Pee Pee Song', which is a sort of attitudinal anthem for this ensemble. 

'I Love You 2 Much' is sung by Holly Jones, not Crowder, and has a whole different feel from the rest of the disc without interrupting or seeming intrusive to that. Castle Jackine’s final song, 'O Little Boy' written for Crowder’s cat, with its heartfelt refrain  “I need you forever”  almost brought tears to my eyes with its unabashed sincerity. 

As an added bonus, that one lapses into such classics as  'Hey Jude',  'Candy',  'Black Water',  and  'Brown Paper Bag' in its course.    Given this band’s deliberately off-putting name and generally anti-famous attitude, readers might think Castle Jackine’s  “volume 1” tag is incidental, but Crowder tells me an actual volume 2, designed as a commentary on the darkside of existence (volume 1 is intended as the opposite gesture) is planned — to include darker songs like 'The World Is a Wheel'  which I’ve heard at shows (The world is bad/it’s getting worse/ The world is a wheel on the devil’s hearse).  Coincidentally or not, Pee Pee’s anonymously-authored MySpace headline, posted years before Castle Jackine volume 1 was released or even dreamt of, is: “existential joy/sorrow/ugly vilence/porch-core.”  Conceptually speaking, I see this project — the as yet unrecorded part two included — as an attempt to encompass the spectrum described in that headline, the common factor to both being porch-core, the best summation of Pee Pee’s ethos I’ve ever yet heard. 

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