APRIL 2009 ONLINE EDITORIALS

Rob Drabkin - On These Heavy Feet

By Nathan Harper

If it were just the voice and not the phrasing, or just the phrasing but not the music, or some other combination therein, it would be easier to forgive the fact that Rob Drabkin sounds most of the time a lot like a Dave Matthews tribute band.

Most folk either know someone, or can themselves, do a decent Matthews impression, a sort of higher pitched, less garbled Eddie Vedder mock-up. Drabkin does it one better though, because he’s not merely impersonating, but directly channeling the Afrikaner’s vocal presence the way Grateful Dead acolytes Dark Star Orchestra wish they could wake-up tomorrow in The Haight circa ’65. There are acoustic guitars, violins and horns, and it all comes together in such a way that you just can’t think it’s a coincidence.

And yet Drabkin won Westword’s best Colorado singer/songwriter title last year and is also quite the dexterous guitar player, so if one is already a DMB fan or has the patience to look past the homage, repeated listens can yield some promise. Unsurprisingly, the less he sounds like Matthews, or occasionally Coldplay’s Chris Martin, the better the songs are. On “Girl From Country Floors” he eschews vague longing for the more definite experience of getting drunk, and he says it in a voice all his own. If this had been an EP of just Drabkin’s most Drabkin-sounding material, it would have been more palatable, so here’s to hoping that he can feel comfortable being himself someday.