Donovan's Brain – "The Boy Who Cried New Town" (2005)

Sitting in my garden

It’s another wet, gray, and rainy day

Wednesday marked the 15th consecutive day that there was measurable rainfall at Washington’s Reagan Airport.

I’m writing this post just before midnight on Thursday, and I’m not sure whether it rained at Reagan Airport today or not – so the streak may have been officially broken.  (I spent most of the day riding my bike on the W & OD trail in suburban Virginia.  It was gray and humid all day, but didn't really rain while I was riding.)

My new Trek 7.3

As Mark Twain famously said, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”  

Actually, Mark Twain never said that.  But everybody thinks he did, and there’s no use trying to persuade the majority that it’s wrong.  After all, the majority has picked Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, despite the fact that anyone with a lick of sense wouldn’t vote for either one for dogcatcher.

(This is the best we can do?)

Going fifteen days without seeing the sun is more than any man or woman can bear.  Given that I have so many other things in my life that are unbearable, I find it particularly objectionable that I’ve been asked to bear so much rain – especially in May, which should be our most pleasant month.

Despite the gloomy skies that greeted me this morning, I persevered with my plans to take the day off for a long bike ride and visits to several microbreweries.

I’m a big believer in delayed gratification, so I did a lot of riding in the early afternoon and saved most of the drinking for the early evening.

My last stop was Caboose Brewing, which is located just off the W & OD Trail at mile 12.

Caboose (which has an impressive food menu as well as a dozen or so beers)  attracts a fun-loving crowd:

 Yes, we are!

I ordered samples of four of Caboose’s in-house beers.

The first was Crossroads, a Vienna-style lager that was a good example of that style of beer.

One down, three to go

Next was Commonwealth, a rye common lager:

Two down, two to go

My third selection was the Casey Jones rye pale ale.  It was a little hoppy for my taste – I go for malty beers, not hoppy beers – but it was good.

Three down, one to go

Finally, I sampled Hobo, an 8% ABV stout with a lot of coffee and vanilla-bean flavor.  It was delicious, but I was glad I only had a four-ounce sample — like most stouts, it was so heavy and strongly-flavored that a full pint of it would have been too much of a good thing.

All gone!  :-(

* * * * *

Donovan’s Brain is has been described as “a rock band with a revolving-door policy.”  

The band’s name was taken from a 1953 science-fiction movie starring Lew Ayres and Nancy Davis (who later married Ronald Reagan).  The movie tells the story of a scientist who keeps the brain of a megalomanic millionaire alive in his laboratory after the millionaire’s plane crashes:

The 1942 novel of the same name that the movie was based on inspired two other movies – The Lady and the Monster (1944) and The Brain (1962).

Ron Sanchez is the only musician to have appeared on every Donovan’s Brain record, but Sanchez is adamant that each of the many other musicians who have contributed to Donovan’s Brain over the years deserves just as much credit for the band’s music as he does.

2 or 3 lines discovered Donovan’s Brain through our old friend Deniz Tek, whose role with Donovan’s Brain has grown over the years.  He was a major contributor to the band’s 2005 album, A Defeat of Echoes, which includes today’s featured song.

“The Boy Who Cried New Town” is somewhat reminiscent of Pink Floyd, while “So Far Gone” sounds a lot like Radiohead.

Here’s “The Boy Who Cried New Town”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: