Albert and His Dreamboats

Welcoming you in with the gregarious porch-hang manifesto Cheap Beer and fare-thee-welling on the post-romantic I Don’t Love You, Albert and His Dreamboats’ debut album Glad We Spent the Time effortlessly pairs high musicianship with lyrical wit in an odd brand of honky tonk that is half Roger Miller, half Frank Zappa, and kissed all over by the Southern Californian sun. Prior to the Dreamboats, all the members— Thomas Berg, Robert Anderson, Lincoln Mendell, and Albert himself— were crackjack studio musicians, trained to nail down an album in a matter of days. So naturally when Albert gathered up these long-admired talents and locked them into the Dreamboat line-up, out would pop tightly-arranged songs gleaming with flourish— New Boots, Friday Nights, and I Think You Kinda— all produced and dialed to effect by Jason Soda down at Palomino Studios. The album consists of roughly two halves: one for the pals, the other for the gals. For the gals are the songs of tender uncertainty— I Think You Kinda or Ready for Someone— that warble with the negotiations of love. For the pals are grinning numbers like California, New Boots, John Wayne, and Friday Night, all about loving life— even when that life consists of napping after a TV dinner or cruising up the generally-unappreciated 405 to Northern California where “the air is brisk and clear. All the girls are playing bongos are rarely ever wash their hair. You can find me up at the Fisherman’s Wharf with a brown bag bottle of beer.”