Washington Post - February 2006
Title: Live Review

Pilotdrift

Heirs to a longstanding tradition of Texas pop-music eccentrics from the 13th Floor Elevators to the Hugh Beaumont Experience, Texarkana's Pilotdrift didn't look much like weirdos at the 9:30 club Sunday night. More like serious young men, bent on re-creating their sprawling, wonderfully warped musical universe in a 45-minute set opening for English trio Supergrass. Impressively, they did it, adding a vigor and rhythmic propulsion that their recordings barely suggest.

On last year's CD "Water Sphere," Pilodrift mutated strains of Vangelis, Pink Floyd and even Roy Orbison, coating them in an addictive, gauzy somnolence. Sunday they didn't bother with dreamscapes, hammering at the tempo shifts in songs like "Caught in My Trap" and "Elephant Island" with garage-band muscle, suggesting that their complicated arrangements were the product of long hours in the practice space, not studio trickery. That was thoroughly refreshing.

Lead vocalist Kelly Carr shuttled between guitar and keyboards (often mid-song), casting a frenetic air over the equipment-cluttered stage. But it was the steady pounding of drummer Ben Rice and the stinging electric guitar of John David Blagg that made songs like "Late Night in a Wax Museum" and "So Long" sizzle. The latter song ended the set as a clattering, five-man percussion jam, and the former first pranced, then pulsed, rippling with a tension that actually evoked its silly title. Pilotdrift may float back into a dreamland for its next record, but for one night at least, watching the band snap its whimsical notions to strict attention was a joy.

-- Patrick Foster