DOONSAYER: “King City,” the newest single from S.B. retro rockers Bonny Doon, aims to capture the fading-away quality of that drifty pit stop center along the 101. “The place feels like it’s always on the verge of blowing away into dust,” said lead singer and band main-brain Daniel Hopkins.
Bonny Doon, who recently played SOhO Restaurant & Music Club with Motopony and Wild Coast, dig deep into the dustier corners of music eras. Though all twenty-somethings, their sound has an out-of-time quality to it, grounded more in the sounds of the 1960s and ’70s than in anything contemporary. In fact, if he could, Hopkins would beam himself back not just to the ’60s, but the 1860s, where he could try his hand at a cannon — and, surely, pen pining war ballads of heartache and homesickness. In our present day, he and band make country-rock to befit wide horizons, sparse expanses, and contemplative road trips.
“I’m obsessed with everything Motown and Phil Spector, so naturally they’re going to bleed into my songs; Gram Parsons is my patron saint,” said Hopkins, who also credits soul and funk greats like Sly Stone, Otis Redding, Etta James, Marvin Gaye, and Curtis Mayfield among his holiest music gurus. But it’s more “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” than “Everybody Is a Star,” more soul-searching than party-starting. This is rock for reckoning days.