• They’re still out there, just waiting to be found.

I follow @wsjrock on Twitter and the other day, I read the following tweet:

wsjrock Jim Fusilli
Meet the Vaccines, who are enjoying a meteoric rise:on.wsj.com/otM7Wt w/audio samples @therealvaccines

The who? A meteoric rise? I had the click through and read more. The WSJ article gushes about the Vaccines and references some bands I like by way of comparison, so I listened. I was crestfallen. Based on the article, I was prepared to hear something really killer, instead, the music seeking to escape from headphones was derivative and stale sounding. And I started to wonder: are there any more great bands out there? Or even just great songs, true earworms you cannot get out of your head. Obviously, the answer is yes, but they are few and far between, that’s just a fact for me.

In a bit of funk following my Vaccination, I was lazing around on Facebook when I noticed that Dave Brogan, who sings a track on my album and plays drums on another, was in a new band called Brokedown In Bakersfield. I clicked through to a video. Wow. You should watch it, it’s up above. Killer. I admit, I was a touch bummed to learn that the song was a cover (yes, I’d never heard it before even though it was apparently a pretty big hit), but I can’t deny the power of this band. Listen to Brogan drive the groove, the chicken pickin’ guitar player, the lead singer, the guy backing her up, the slide dude laying down textures. Maybe it’s just me, but, damn, what a band. What a song. What a difference from the Vaccines.