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Kansas City native, Doby Watson is a very interesting fellow to say the least. One of the most honest musicians to grace the internet’s airwaves in quite some time. Doby’s music is full of inspiration in these daunting times where many of us are living with our parents trying to make a life for ourselves. For those of us who went to college and spent those years getting wasted or high and in illustrious and jilted romances –only to either drop out or finish with ironclad debt — tend to wind up on our parents couch disillusioned and wondering what happened. Doby Watson’s Live-In Son said as much and didn’t even have to use words to usher in that feeling of adulthood’s ardor.
Doby said everything needed about the details of what happens after desire to numb out existence with drugs and alcohol has all but dried up in Live-In Son’s album trailer. It is a two minute video where Doby is featured in a very dream-like state, various shots included one where he was pouring beer on his head. In another, standing candidly in a large portrait hung above what the viewer could only assume are his parents. Doby’s dead eyed stare fused with the tired essence of the Mother, almost dryly seducing the camera while smoking a cigarette by the Father who couldn’t be bothered while reading a newspaper seem to emanate that guilty and judged feeling twenty somethings living at home often feel. The choice of the empty beer bottles sitting on top of books- perhaps symbolize youth evolving into adulthood or a failed college attempt exacerbated by modern day society, is a very brave “tip of the hat” to the culture of the millennial society.
Doby is pure DIY. And I mean it in the most literal sense. His album was made in a basement, for Christ’s sake. I have a great respect for artists that can create during great adversity and still manage to sum up the energy to produce thoughtful, evocative pieces of work without much attention. Artist’s such as that are an inspiration. Explicitly titled “Lesbian Girlfriend” is ironically soft and vulnerable, it sounds like an image. A lost photograph you find of an old lover sitting in a yellow tinted living room with a cup of tea — the sun setting. A fleeting essence of empty love. There is a great longing present in his music. Reminiscent of indie band Dear and the Headlights though more acoustically inclined. The first lines: “I know you won’t understand. I love you more than anyone else can.”
But a congratulations should be in order to this gentleman. After years of touring through the Midwest’s DIY circuit, and selling limited-run CD-Rs and tapes to fans, Watson is finally releasing his debut full-length. In a collaboration between Double Shift and Illinois-based Error Records, Live-in Son will hit online record stores on October 17.
Article by: Marissa Mireles
Photo credit: Alison Claire Peck
