We’re a little late, but we only recently learned about this tasty Summer Suite because (listen up, artists) posting something on Fakebook and just leaving it there does not mean everyone sees it. Or do you not know how the Almighty Algorithm works?
Anyway, for those among you livin’ your best lives either out of school or sans little ones, Dave Cave is the real deal, sweet and salty. The singer-songwriter started recording the four tracks that make up his debut EP in the dark COVID times. Summer Suite has been lighting up all streaming platforms with its surfy, garage-rock goodness since May.
“I have a drive to work and play music, and sometimes you can meet kindred souls and throw music on the wall and make it stick,” Cave said. “I couldn’t be happier with the album. The goal of the EP is for something to listen to when you’re driving somewhere like the beach or in a romantic situation, perhaps.”
The kindred souls Cave is talking about are core members Reese Bailey on saxophone, Isaiah Harrell on drums, and Justin James on bass. Anthony Coker, Dee Harper, James Norton, and members of the jazz-rock collective Artemis Funk also played on the record, and Cave shredded guitar throughout while also handling some drumming and bass work.
Cave is an old Grottohead, having played a ton of open-mics at the dearly departed Cultural District venue along with international R&B sensation Leon Bridges and moody folky Cody Lynn Boyd. Cave started work on Summer Suite right before the big lockdown. Recorded with Bart Rose (The Toadies, Pat Green, Deryl Dodd) at his Fort Worth Sound studio on South Main Street with Joe Tacke (Gollay, Mean Motor Scooter, Bruce Magnus) manning the mixing board, the EP shares a lot of vibe with locals The Go-Go Rillas but is more like a zesty Beach Boys excursion minus the pristinely poppy, lovelorn vocals. Wipe Out and “Tequila” are obvious points of departure. The track “Tsunami” dates from 2021, and it still, uh, holds up, just as delightfully as, say, the yacht-rocking “Vampires on Main Street.”
Summer Suite, Cave said, is “an invitation to sit by the seawall with us and get into the rest of the story. … We all enjoyed making it, and at the same time, we were all kind of listening and enjoying the time making the music. The goal was to make an EP that you could start and finish in one sitting.”
Along with playing bass in The Plum Boys, Cave is dabbling in a couple other projects, especially his rock outfit VØXY. “What I want to do in life is create music and be a composer.”
VØXY
8pm Sat, Aug 26, w/The Wee-Beasties, SolShifter at Lola’s Fort Worth, 2000 W Berry St, FW.
$10-15.
