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- CD release party for You're So Fine, Saturday, July 26 at the Backstage Lounge on Granville Island.
The Top Drawers perform Saturday, Aug. 2, 6 p.m. as part of the Cates Park Concert Series.
What happens when you mix a bit of Beatles, Beach Boys and some blues?
The four musicians in The Top Drawers have the answer. Their debut CD You're So Fine is a 12-song album made as an homage to the music of the 1960s. Listening to it, there are gentle echoes of some of the musical giants of the era. But the boys have also shaped a style to call their own. It is full of intensity reminiscent of the White Stripes, but smoother, without the grittiness.
They didn't mean to go that route exactly. But it's what happened when they started jamming: they easily blended together the sounds that inspired them as kids and guided them as adults, and it became a 60's retro sound -- think the Zombies, Kinks, the Who, the Rolling Stones.
That is how bassist Patrick Jacobson describes the band. Growing up, his parents listened to Simon and Garfunkel and other musicians from that era. But it wasn't until he reached high school that he realized he wanted to pursue a career in music. He found his passion and his niche.
"I started doing my own music with my own band, which became The Capitals. I did that for a number of years, and the demos fell into the hands of Kevin Kane, who was the frontman for the Grapes of Wrath," explains Jacobson.
Kane liked the music and introduced the band to the Odds alumnus Steven Drake who mixed the Top Drawers's CD. The band produced the disc themselves.
Several members of the band have deeply-rooted connections to the '60s -- a period that brought forth so many revolutionary movements. The band's drummer, Del Cowsill, is the son of Billy Cowsill of The Cowsills, an influential band that formed in the mid-1960s. The Drawers' front man, Eric Lefebvre, has studied the music of the Beatles, and has played drums for Terry Sylvester, who was a former member of the Hollies, one of the most successful bands of the British invasion.
All four musicians, including lead guitarist Phil Bell, have been playing for "a good 10 years, at least on the professional level," says Jacobson. Eventually they just gravitated towards each other and have been playing together as Top Drawers for just over a year, performing across British Columbia, Alberta and the Yukon.
What attracts Jacobson to music of the '60s is its purity, he says. "What I think was so great about the music back then is that it was literally just about the music. People aren't writing songs to be featured in music or Pepsi commercials. It was all musicians that were passionate about what they did, so they got together in the studio and they made their recordings."
What he's especially drawn towards is the sort of rawness in the records that is now often missing from the polished CDs.
"They got together in the studio and they made these recordings and they weren't always really great sounding . . . obviously with modern recording standards bands spend months in the studio perfecting every note, making sure it's crisp and clear," says Jacobson. But for him great music is about creating an energy and a vibe that lets the listener feel as though they are inside a venue or the studio, hearing the music as though it were played live.
That is why their record only took seven days to make: three to record, three for mixing and one for mastering. "We really wanted to capture that energy of having that band in a room. It may be a bit raw, and it's a little rocking in points, but it's great," says Jacobson. "I think we captured that feeling."
True to style, most songs are short, lasting only about two and a half to three minutes. The whole CD features about 30 minutes of music, says the bassist, who is taking arts and entertainment management courses at Capilano College.
And because all four have become close friends and identify with similar music, jamming together is more play than work. "With bands that I worked with in the past it's been a struggle to keep musicians together."
Not so with the Top Drawers. This time, "it's a lot less pressure, and it's a lot less stress."
For more information on the Top Drawers, go to www.myspace.com/thetopdrawers.
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