Meet The Key Party

One of the innumerable bands that WOXY.com has introduced me to over the years is a New York rock band called The Great Shakes. The band's song, "Americana Bebop", is one of my favorite rock songs of the past few years, and in my opinion might be the best Clash song that the Clash never wrote.

Unfortunately, about a year ago, the Great Shakes announced that they were going on hiatus to "dream it all up again," whatever that means. And, given the fast-paced nature of the music world, that's pretty much the last time I thought about them.

So I was pleasantly surprised last week when I was listening to WOXY and heard a song from lead singer Darren Gaines' new project, The Key Party. While Darren's voice is as distinctive as ever, he's added a folk-singer aesthetic (think Billy Bragg or Tom Waits) and a heck of a lot of new instruments (trumpets, xylophone, etc.) to his songs. And it works damn well. The band has four songs streaming (and available for download) on their MySpace page. These are my two favorites:

The Key Party, "Last Call"
The Key Party, "Look Like Hell"

The Key Party's website is under construction, so I can't tell if they're planning on releasing a CD or playing any shows in the near future. Hope so. Until then, check out the songs, and go listen to some more Great Shakes here.