12 O'Clock Track: That Dog, "Old Timer"

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Thursday, May 31, 2012

12 O'Clock Track / Music 12 O'Clock Track: That Dog, "Old Timer"

Posted By Luca Cimarusti on 05.31.12 at 12:00 PM

That Dog

The girl-group-meets-punk-rock boom is certainly a thing that I appreciate. Best Coast, Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, Wax Idols, Colleen Green—I can't seem to get enough of that sound. I'm pretty sure it all stems from my obsession with That Dog when I was younger. The Los Angeles band, which existed from 1991 till '97, collaborated with and ran in the same circles as some of the biggest names in alternative rock (Beck, Weezer, the Rentals), but never really broke into the mainstream like their peers. Until they announced a string of reunion dates last year, they'd apparently been all but forgotten—you can find only a couple of their songs on YouTube and pretty much nothing on download networks.

Lucky for me, my That Dog discs survived the Great CD Purge of 2011, when I took two giant boxes of old CDs and threw them in a Dumpster as I moved out of my previous apartment. Their sound blends beautiful three-part harmonies by lead singer Anna Waronker (daughter of producer Lenny Waronker) and sisters Petra and Rachel Haden (daughters of jazz bassist Charlie Haden) with fuzzy, haphazard punk. Their final album, 1997's Retreat From the Sun, polished the sonics of the music but kept the attitude that made the first records so distinctive. It's impossible for me to listen any of the current girl-rock acts and not hear elements of That Dog.

Today's 12 O'Clock Track is "Old Timer," the only single from That Dog's 1993 self-titled debut. Oh, and does this Spike Jonze-directed video scream "the 90s!" much?