Alex Dupree and the Trapdoor Band - Alex Dupree and the Trapdoor Band

Last year, Donald Miller played a song for me, a solo acoustic song by a gentleman by the name of Alex Dupree. Don had met Alex in Austin, and asked him to close a reading he was conducting during Rez Week.

The song itself was arresting, a catchy track by the name of “Guaranteed Wintertime Blues” with an anthemic chorus, “I am ready for/I am ready for/Somethin’ to change,” and I loved the song immediately.

But there are plenty of songwriters out there with catchy tunes, and the folk singer-songwriter genre is seriously played. Like a pyramid scheme, there are a few great ones (Tim Easton, Ryan Adams, Scott Miller and the Commonwealth), a minivan-load of mediocrity, and an ocean of inferiority. What did Counting Crows say? “I wanna be Bob Dylan”? You get the picture.

So when Alex sent us his album a few months later, I wasn’t expecting much.

And sometimes low expectations yield the most wonderful surprises. From the first drumbeats of “Wexford Arch,” I sat stunned, probably a similar sense to the first astronomer to spot a comet on collision course with Earth. No one knows…

Now, I’ve already mentioned Alex Dupree and the Trapdoor Band’s self-titled debut on this site. The album was number ten on my top ten albums of the year list, but I mentioned then that the album was not available anywhere that I knew of (short of me giving out Alex’s email address). Since then, The Trapdoor band has launched a minimalist site (you can find Alex’s email there), they’ve been the subject of an article on NPR.org, and they’ve made their album available through the Portland-based indie music hook-up, cdbaby.com.

So go, buy the album, revel in the Lyle Lovett-esque, back porch twang of “You Are My Best Friend Now,” the taut “Ramona,” the communal jam of “Dawn in Thailand is a Sunset in New Mexico,” the bright and slow burn of “Sarah is Rising,” the lovely ballad “So Many Ways” and, of course, “Guaranteed Wintertime Blues.” Guys like Alex Dupree, thoughtful and immensely talented musicians, need our support. Otherwise, Ashlee Simpson wins.

Posted on May 15, 2006 12:00 AM