Sometimes all you need to hear is an opening guitar lick. In this case, it is a lick somewhat muffled but familiar. An echo of the sixties. A dirtier, grittier cousin to The Monkees’ “I’m a Believer,” revved up and humming like a Mustang Cobra Jet, fueled by 500 hp drums and a heavy foot on the bass. I’d never heard of Garrett T. Capps and NASA Country until I came across their newest sone, “People Are Beautiful,” on the KUTX Song of the Day podcast. Then I heard the guitars. The bass and drum. The retro-synthesizer layering it all with a kind of feel-good psychedelic ooze. And the simple, straightforward lyrics bemoaning division, hate, and all that ails our broken nation.
“GTC is a Bad mofo,” it says on his website. And his music backs this up. It takes the best from country’s outlaw wing, sixties psychedelia, some rockabilly and some (self-described) German krautrock (think Kraftwerk). He and his band just flat out rock.
There’s not a lot else to say here. You have to listen for yourself. If you don’t like this cut, then you don’t like rock and roll. There. I said it.