“I don’t whose baby you are,” sings Roadside Graves, and I’m like, what? Really? You don’t know whose baby Liv Tyler is? Liv Tyler? You’re having a laugh, right?
Liv Tyler by Roadside Graves from Travis Huggett on Vimeo.
But maybe the young men of Roadside Graves know all about her father, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, but really don’t know anything about her mother, Bebe Buell. Maybe they’re too young to remember Cracked’s Monster Party featuring Nanny Dickering, a pulchritudinous reporter modelled after Ms. Buell (who even appeared as Dickering in some Cracked photo-comics). Cracked is mostly remembered as a second-rate Mad Magazine, but they were not without their merits, especially when it came to artists like John Severin and Bill Ward, who both contributed to Nanny Dickering’s exploits.
Regardless, “Liv Tyler” is a minor epic rock masterpiece. For the most part, Roadside Graves sounds a lot like the National, but they’re a little looser, their singer kinda does a Bono thing sometimes, and they jam this song out like the Stones mighta done on Exile. “Liv Tyler” is meat & potatoes rock, but o, what meat! O, what potatoes!
mp3: “Liv Tyler” by Roadside Graves