Dr. Dog will be performing at Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater Thursday, November, 11 (SOLD OUT) and Saturday, November 13 with doors opening a 7 pm to the public. This show is for all ages with tickets being sold for $32.50.
Dr. Dog is an American rock band based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania consisting of members Toby Leaman on bass guitar, Scott McMicken on lead guitar, Frank McElroy on rhythm guitar, Zach Miller on keys, and Eric Slick on drums. The band’s musical styling of indie rock is strongly influenced by bands of the 1960s, such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys, but they have also touched upon more unrelated genres since their inception. Their earlier recordings show the influence of the lo-fi sound and pop sensibilities of indie rock bands of the 1990s, such as Guided by Voices and Pavement, although recent albums have featured more polished production.
The origins of Dr. Dog trace back to Leaman and McMicken first playing music together in eighth grade. The band began as an offshoot of Leaman’s and McMicken’s earlier music project during college at West Chester University, PA, called Racoon. began as a part-time offshoot of the more traditional indie rock act Raccoon. Over the course of several years, guitarist Toby Leaman and drummer Scott McMicken found enough free time to record the casual, sprawling 35-track set The Psychedelic Swamp in a basement rehearsal space, finally self-releasing it in 2001. As Raccoon ended, McMicken and Leaman transformed Dr. Dog into a proper band, with McMicken on guitar and Leaman on bass (the two shared songwriting and vocals), as well as guitarist Doug O’Donnell, keyboard player Zach Miller, and drummer Juston Stens. This lineup recorded 2003’s more focused and poppy Toothbrush, which — like The Psychedelic Swamp — received a low-key, self-distributed release.
When My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, a friend of Leaman and McMicken from their Raccoon days, hand-picked Dr. Dog to open for his band on an East Coast tour, the band’s almost nonexistent national profile began to rise. With O’Donnell replaced by former Raccoon bassist Andrew Jones and several Philadelphia friends making guest appearances, 2005’s Easy Beat was picked up for distribution by indie label National Parking. Following its release, the band toured again with My Morning Jacket and M. Ward and performed several well-received sets at the 2006 South by Southwest festival in Austin. The stopgap EP Takers and Leavers were released in September 2006 in advance of We All Belong, which arrived in early 2007.
Throughout the rest of that year, Dr. Dog began posting previously unreleased tracks on their website; the songs were later released as Passed Away, Vol. 1 in March 2008. In the summer of that same year, the group released Fate, which featured some of the band’s most polished productions to date. It also became Dr. Dog’s highest-charting album, peaking at number 86 on the Billboard 200 and earning positive reviews from outlets like Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly. After touring in support of the album, the group released 2010’s Shame, Shame, a modern album that featured more guitars than the band’s earlier work.
Golden Boots member Dimitri Manos, who had played with the band on Easy Beat, joined them as a full-time member and made his first appearance on a full-length album in 2012 with the release of Be the Void early that year. Following the album, Dr. Dog set to work building their own studio, a process that found them refreshed enough to release another effort, B-Room, in 2013. In early 2015 they released their first live album, Live at a Flamingo Hotel, and they revisited their cassette-only debut The Psychedelic Swamp, turning it into a tighter, polished, and altogether different album in 2016. After five albums on the Anti- label, Dr. Dog opted to release their tenth album, 2018’s Critical Equation, via their own We Buy Gold Records.
Dr. Dog
Thursday, November 11 (SOLD OUT) & 13
All ages
Doors: 7 pm
Tickets: $32.50
Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
801 Red River St
Austin, TX 78701
Purchase tickets here
More information here
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