Given that I have piles of notes for potential Star Tracks, somehow almost weekly I jot down new artists and songs that add to the list.

Because as John Peel once said “There’s always the possibility that you’re going to come across a record that transforms your life“

Music is compelling, all consuming and continually diverting! There’s a continual quest for the new. 

A high percentage of what I list on the Friday Music Spot is because it is something I have recently discovered. And I’m passing on the excitement of that new feeling ! 

Preamble over, this band falls firmly into this category because until a few weeks ago I had not heard of the American indie rock band from Philadelphia called The War on Drugs.

Paste magazine (see link below) described them as follows: 

Bonafide purveyors of shoegaze and staples of dad rock, The War on Drugs are a walking kush coma(*), cut on atmospheric echoes, roaring synths and guitars cracked out of their minds. When Adam Granduciel and Kurt Vile formed the band in Philadelphia in 2005, it was after they’d come into each other’s orbits and bonded over Bob Dylan. 

Now I knew Kurt Vile (see FMS #243 - who in fact left the band in 2008) and while The War on Drugs are not a new band everything else was news and ever since I've been constantly finding more 'new' tracks I like. 'Red Eyes' from 2014 was the first song I heard, so I'm going with that as today's Star Track, with a long list of others from down the years for you to check out. Easiest way to present this is to refer again to Paste magazine and their 'List of Best 10 songs' link - which has videos to those songs on their list. Personally I would add ‘Harmonia’s Dream’, a 9 minute hypnotic track nominated as 'Best Rock Song' in the 2023 Grammy's. Here 

The first thing that hit me was the great blistering 'fuzz' guitar from Adam Granduciel and his vocals often sounding just like Dylan. 

The band have a London gig this July at the Royal Albert Hall, already sold out !  

Video is Live on KEXP - can't make out the words, me neither - I love it !  

(*) A 'kush coma' is suppose to be a relaxing experience. Your brain will go on a vacation in the sense of you becoming calm and at peace. 

Some of today's info and quotes come as a result of my having just finished reading a book called 'iPod, Therefore I Am' by Dylan Jones - no doubt this will come up again fairly soon.