Necktie Second

Though he hails from the Pacific Northwest, Pete Droge neatly eschews the proto-punk grunge sound indigenous to the area and has a style that owes more to Tom Petty and Neil Young than to Nirvana and Mother Love Bone. A laid-back, mid-tempo album, NECKTIE SECOND covers the same rootsy ground that Droge's contemporaries the Jayhawks and Joe Henry do. Life on the road is a favoured topic, whether its hopping on a "Northernbound Train" or roaming the countryside while clutching a Kerouac novel ("Straylin Street"). Droge's vocals range from a Dylanish drawl on "Sunspot Stopwatch" to a Petty-like twang on "So I Am Over You". Although the mood gets heavy on "Fourth Of July" (a tribute to a suicidal friend), things lighten up on the toe-tapping "Two Steppin' Monkey". Appropriately enough, Droge's twin themes of wanderlust and heartbreak wrap up NECKTIE SECOND on "Hampton Inn Room 306" which was recorded on a DAT machine and a cheap microphone, giving it a more effective ambience.|