Mike Daly & The Planets

FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2012
THE RECORD
Music


MIKE DALY & THE PLANETS
* Local band to play at ‘Sounds of Hoboken’: On Sunday, Mike Daly & The Planets is one of more than 60 musical acts participating in the first-ever "Sounds of Hoboken," a free, citywide, family-friendly music celebration. Musicians will be performing at traditional and non-traditional venues throughout the Mile Square City between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m.

Daly, who grew up in Prospect Park, will play with his band for about 30 minutes at 1:15 p.m. in Sinatra Park, located at Sinatra Drive between Fourth and Fifth streets. The group includes Mike Daly, Jim Smith, Jim Van Sickle and Scott Van Sickle. For more information visit mikedaly.com or facebook.com/dalyplanets.

— From staff and news service reports - The Record/NorthJersey.com, Woodland Park, NJ

Bobby Butchka is well known around the Mobile area as a singer-songwriter and entertainer generally seen playing solo. But this weekend he’ll be on a different planet.

An old friend from New Jersey is coming into town, and the two are celebrating their long-running musical friendship in style: Butchka will take the stage as the lead guitarist for Mike Daly & the Planets, Friday on Dauphin Island and Saturday on Dauphin Street.

“I’ve done so much lately on just solo shows with the acoustic that I’m just really looking forward to plugging into a Marshall amp and letting it rip,” Butchka said of the two shows. “I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Daly is a longtime New Jersey pop-rock practitioner who, fairly recently, formed the Planets as a solo vehicle after years with the same group. An EP released last year contains four tracks of straight-ahead rock with live-in-the-garage energy. (For samples, visit www.mikedaly.com.)
Daly describes his Planets music as “the bluesier side of pop-rock.”

Butchka, the son of a Coast Guard helicopter pilot, was born in San Diego and spent a big chunk of his childhood on the Gulf Coast. He felt a strong enough affinity for the area that he returned at the end of the ‘90s to finish up a degree at USA. He remembers Kiss as the first band that made a big impression on him, but he said that when he got his hands on a copy of the Beatles’ “Rubber Soul’ in middle school, “That was it, I pretty much knew what I wanted to do.”

“Bobby spent a good part of his teens and 20s in New Jersey. That’s how we know him,” Daly said. “I was in a band called Every Damn Day and he was in two other bands up here, Fear of Falling and the Whatnots, so we shared a lot of bills together.”

“We never really played in the same band, as far as our main projects. But we were involved in a lot of side projects,” Butchka said. “We’ve been good friends of a long time. Mike’s one of my favorite songwriters.”

In November, Butchka paid a visit to New Jersey and laid down a lead guitar track on the Planets’ upcoming album, “Hero’s Trial.” Daly pitched the idea of a Gulf Coast get-together.

“Bobby’s a great guitarist, and it gives us a great excuse to come down and kind of open our market a little bit and get some exposure in a place where we normally wouldn’t get it,” Daly said.

Plans call for the group to appear 6-10 Friday, July 29, at Dauphin Island’s West End Tiki Bar, 3000 Bienville Blvd. Butchka said that show should give the group plenty of room to stretch out.

On Saturday, July 30, they’ll open for Johnny No at Soul Kitchen, 219 Dauphin St. in Mobile. According to www.soulkitchenmobile.com, showtime is 10:30 and cover is $7.

Given Johnny No’s rowdy take on the blues, it should be a good fit. Daly said he’s excited by the challenge of playing to some new listeners, and based on his knowledge of the local scene, Butchka said he thinks the group will be a crowd-pleaser.

“It’s pretty much straight ahead plug and play,” he said. “Lots of harmonies, lots of loud guitars.”

Daly said he’s also pleased to give his friend a chance to show off a different side.

“Bobby plays a lot of acoustic guitar down there,” he said. “People know how talented he is, but they don’t get to see him do much of what he’s going to be doing with us. He’s a very talented electric guitarist as well.” - Mobile Press Register

Band: Mike Daly & the Planets feat. Bobby Butchka, Johnny No
Date: Sat., July 30 with doors at 9:30 p.m.
Venue: Soul Kitchen, 219 Dauphin St., www.soulkitchenmobile.com
Tickets: TBA

Hailing from Passaic, N.J., Mike Daly gained notoriety playing with the rock outfit Every Damn Day (EDD). Daly and EDD became a local favorite in the Hoboken music scene and even performed at legendary venues such as The Stone Pony and CBGB’s. Along the way, they released several full-length albums as well as quite a few EP’s.

Scheduling conflicts in 2007 brought an inevitable hiatus. However, Daly felt the need to continue with a musical project during this break. This project would feature a veritable revolving door of musicians, which would allow him to put together a band for performance purposes at any time. Thus, Mike Daly & the Planets was born, but it does take some finesse making this band happen.

"I have a first line of defense of people who have first right of refusal for all gigs,” Daly said. "Whoever says, ‘No,’ I have a couple of other people per instrument that I can call.”

For their gig at Soul Kitchen, Daly has called upon Nappie Award winner Bobby Butchka to fill in on lead guitar. Most locals are familiar with his work on the acoustic, so this should be a special treat. Butchka and Daly crossed paths during their youth in New Jersey. The crowd can expect a set of old school alt. rock in the tradition of Elvis Costello. - Lagniappe

The New Jersey band Mike Daly and The Planets has created a theme song for those of us who have never liked Bozo or any of his ilk. I’ve been afraid of them (clowns, not Mike Daly and The Planets) since I saw a TV show as a child where some guy was haunted by a ghost clown. “Kill A Clown (No, Not Really),” has a catchy, guitar-driven arrangement reminiscent of Webb Wilder or possibly ZZ Top, along with some exuberant backup vocals. It’s filled with funny lyrics about offing people with fake red noses like, “I killed a clown in Kalamazoo/Made him choke on his own kazoo” and “Killed them clowns in Zanzibar/Ran them off the road in that tiny car.” The single is available as a digital download at the band’s website, Amazon, CDBaby, and iTunes. - Broken Hearted Toy

“Kill A Clown” by Mike Daly & The Planets is a delicious slice of power pop out of New Jersey with chunky guitars and perfecto vocals. Daly sneers it good like the clown killer he is. Complete with kazoo break and gunshot, it’s a visceral blast of goodtimey violence. Please note that no clowns were harmed during the recording. Daly’s a cross vocally between Graham Parker, Elvis Costello and/or Joe Jackson.

The single is available now in Amazon MP3, iTunes and CDBaby .

Details at www.mikedaly.com. - Atlas Jams

On the opening track of his first solo project after 20 years with Every Damn Day, Daly, a longtime Jersey rocker and former Aquarian Weekly editor, asks that musical question “how’d ya like to grab the knife that’s been jammed into my back?” “No Simple Task” is aggressively strummed acoustic Americana but Daly sounds like Elvis Costello. Then that mid-tempo strum is kick-started by an absolutely stinging electric guitar solo.

Four songs. 13 minutes. All muscle. Not a second of fat.

“Follow You” has Daly growling like Graham Parker in a syncopated effect-laden doozy complete with ample attitude (“Throw a rock at me, I don’t care!”)

The riff-happy “Broken” (“slice me dice me flush my soul down the drain”) is Jersey-centric barband ragged glory, the way it’s supposed to be done in this state.

The piano on closer “Mikey’s Lament” adds a honky-tonk, feel-good groove that belies the lyric “I’m keenly aware that time may be running out.” Sure, Daly ain’t gettin’ any younger; but like Keith Richards sticking his middle finger up at the grim reaper and continuing to rock, Daly is pondering his own mortality here but doing it joyously.

Every Damn Day will be staging a reunion concert at The Harp n’Bard in Clifton February 26.

In A Word: Rockstar
Grade: A

-- by Mike Greenblatt - The Aquarian Weekly