Well, there isn't fuck-all in the way of information anywhere regarding this band, so I've carefully pieced something together after 15 minutes of frenzied Googling, so you don't have to! Apparently, Nectarine Pie is the main gig of Nathan Price, who most recently did time in Matthew Melton's ever-evolving Bare Wires lineup, and Melton himself plays bass on these two songs, along with recording them, and appearing on the cover looking, as always, like a young John Holmes. While Melton's music draws inspiration from NYC and Detroit for the most part, Nectarine Pie's debut single is California down to the bone, from it's mountains and sunshine artwork to the desert-baked sonics within.
Unlike a lot of modern bands that look to the 60s for inspiration, Nectarine Pie actually does a spectacular job of emulating the sound of San Francisco in 1968. Keeping with the theme of overall mystery, the labels on the 7" can't be bothered with anything so basic as printing the song titles on them, but since I'm a huge nerd, I can tell you that most pressing plants etch "A" or "B" next to the catalogue number in the dead wax, and this record is no different. Pretty much any information on any topic is available at anyone's fingertips at any time, and it's not like I make my monthly podcast playlists easy to find, so I definitely salute the attempt to make a listener have to dig up shit like that, instead of shoving it in their faces.
Speaking of saluting something shoved in my face, the guitar-work on this 7" is some of the best I've heard in a long time. Price layers on thick cakes of sinister, Twin Reverb-infused strumming in true Link Wray knife-fight fashion, while lead guitarist Billy Trujillo says to hell with pop melody and simply solos all through both tracks, bringing out the ghosts of John Cippolina, Jorma Kaukonen, and (ulp) even Jerry Garcia, showering everything with torrents of bendy notes and controlled fretboard shredding. "Dreamdaze" wouldn't have sounded out of place on Quicksilver Messenger Service's classic Happy Trails album, melding a bluesy bottom end and just enough exploratory lift-off to indicate that it would get twice and longer and wilder aired out in a live setting. Flipside "Chameleon" actually apes "Gimme Danger" by the Stooges a little too closely, stripping out the acoustic guitar and adding in layers of murky fuzz before heading off into the sun once again, while bits of Queens Of The Stone Age-style desert rock work their way into the sound.
Like Bare Wires, this is record collector rock n' roll at it's very finest. Listen to hundreds of songs, dig the depths, piece together the parts of a genre that resonate the most, then file them down to a fine point, and reconstruct them into the perfect songs you hear in your head. If it was 1971, Nectarine Pie would be labelled "biker rock" and relegated to the last page of the reviews section in your favorite rock mag, celebrated by Lester Bangs and Greg Shaw, and ignored by everyone else, then resurrected by bootleggers and Ebay scum as a great lost classic. Maybe that's why it's on white vinyl, limited to 400 copies, and harder to find than truffles in Saudi Arabia? This single is worth seeking out, not as a trophy, but as something to listen the fuck out of, and as a soundtrack to the next night you feel like getting out of your head.
rad! these guys rule!
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