For 15 years now, Steve Marion has supplemented his session work with the likes of Paul Simon, Miley Cyrus, and Amen Dunes with his own project Delicate Steve—a loosely defined instrumental neo-psych jam band that coasts on its mastermind’s creative genius just as much as it does on his quirky character. Following last year’s cover album of sorts Delicate Steve Sings (he doesn’t; hence the “quirky character” thing), this week’s Luke’s Garage also takes inspiration from one of Marion’s musical influences: his friend Luke Temple, formerly of Here We Go Magic and currently recording under the pseudonym Art Feynman.
Ahead of the album’s release on Friday, Steve is sharing one last preview of it with a track that evidently pulls from a very different source of inspiration: the Back to the Future universe. And no, I don’t mean Marty McFly’s “Johnny B. Goode” performance, or even ZZ Top’s saloon band in the acid-Western third film in the franchise, but instead James Tolkan’s dual role as Principal and Chief Marshall Strickland. The track’s music video sees Marion dressed as both characters while jamming the tune and watching the third installment in the trilogy, which he evidently classifies under the heading “childhood trauma.”
“A friend said of my new album, ‘Luke’s Garage is the portal and means by which we get to explore the innermost parts of ourselves—the suppressed memories, the childhood trauma, the people we are and the people we thought we would be,’” the artist shares. “I would say the music video is a continuation of that theme. Another friend said, ‘I like how it sort of feels like you are fantasizing confronting Marty McFly.’”
Check out the video below, and pre-order Luke’s Garage here.
