Tuesday Tune: "Huntsville.ca" by Kevin Hearn and Thin Buckle

It's the dead of winter.  We all could use a little sun.

Kevin Hearn and Thin Buckle deliver the rays.

Starting with an unmistakable Ventures-style drum downroll* and an organ swish**, "Huntsville.ca" is an upbeat summery pop boogie set in a northern Canadian town where "it's forty-below."  Released in 2009 on the band's Havana Winter, it's an infectious song that throws us back to the 1960s, but keeps us firmly rooted in 21st-century snark.  Hearn is also a member of Barenaked Ladies--another import from up north, eh?--and there's plenty of tongue-in-cheek playfulness going on in this song (Hearn counts Randy Newman as one of his influences).

Walking through the city in the sun
Where are these people coming from?
Will they all disappear when the winter comes?
Will they all disappear when the winter comes?

Sun sun sun, here they come
Summer summer summer, fun fun fun
It's forty below, where did they go?
Shoveling shoveling shoveling snow

It's like the Beach Boys, except with parkas.  "Huntsville.ca" never fails to make me do a little butt-bounce in the seat as I'm driving down I-15 in southwestern Montana.  Even if it's twenty-below and frozen trees are cracking off limbs in the Helena National Forest, I've got a grin on my face.

The "Huntsville.ca" video isn't much to speak of--straight performance footage, enlivened only by drummer Bob Scott doing what looks like mouth pops with his sticks--but the groove is....well, it's pretty groovy.



If you'd like to purchase "Huntsville.ca" on Amazon, CLICK HERE.


*Not a technical musical term.
**Neither is this.