PREMIERE: Whiskerman Channel Philly Soul on “Jackie & Delilah”

From the Bay Area group’s new album “Champions,” out May 20.
PREMIERE: Whiskerman Channel Philly Soul on “Jackie & Delilah”

From the Bay Area group’s new album “Champions,” out May 20.

Words: FLOOD Staff

photo by Riki Feldmann

April 29, 2016

Whiskerman // photo by Riki Feldmann

Oakland’s Whiskerman have been rolling around the Bay Area for long enough to pick up a little bit of everything that’s happening in that scene: ecstatic psychedelia, sturdily constructed pop-rock, pick-and-grin folk. On their new album, the forthcoming Champions, the group present it all as a single picture rather than a series of genre fragments, and we’re pleased to be premiering the lead single, “Jackie & Delilah.”

As that latter name might have led you to believe, there’s certainly a touch of The Grateful Dead in the song’s easy-morning groove, but the real calling card here seems to come from further east. Over soaring strings and a quiet-stab guitar line, singer Graham Patzner sounds a bit like Gene Ween at his most earnest, and the rounded piano lines that bolster the verses recall Matthew E. White and the big-room production of erstwhile Bay Area neighbors Girls on their swan song, Father, Son, Holy Ghost.

You can give “Jackie & Delilah” a listen below, then check out the album’s art and track list.

Champions track list

1. LouieWhiskerman-2016-Champions
2. Jackie & Delilah
3. Saturday
4. Troublemaker
5. Only One of Us Can See What the Universe Thinks of Beer
6. Buddy
7. It’s Easy Now
8. Law of the Hemisphere
9. Waking Up In Providence
10. Everything is Small
11. Champions
12. The Kingdom
13. Gold (I Don’t Mind It)
14. Wonder
Champions is out May 20 via Royal Oakie.