Pride of Transylvania?

Music Row
By Brian Rademaekers

Some of the best musicians are those who can lead you to the edge of madness, weaving along that nearly imperceptible line between chaos and beauty until both worlds blend together, a swirling mass of pleasant cacophony lodged in the consciousness.
Splendor in chaos, and vice versa.
Like Captain Beefheart’s howling about fish-pond streaks and a harvest moon, all amid shrieking horns, the lack of attention to coherent thought can be a liberating thing.
Here in Philadelphia, one up-and-coming band taking that twisted path toward musical nirvana is Aunt Dracula, a trio hailing from the city’s East Poplar section.
The band consists of two guitars, a drummer, and what frontman Scott Daly describes as "a truckload of stuff" that the music filters through on its way to becoming the whacked-out melodies that are Aunt Dracula’s songs.
In recent months, the band received a bit of attention for a weird stunt that involved having a guy in a wolf costume make fresh waffles at the side of the stage.
Daly said the group has since retired the waffle wolf, but that projected imagery and other mind-tweaking visuals are a consistent element in Aunt Dracula shows.
That throwback to 1960s-style gigs suits their sound — a blend of shimmering guitars, frantic vocals and spacey samples — quite well.
Daly says that’s no coincidence.
The local musican, who provides lead guitar and vocals for Aunt Dracula, cites the flower-child psychedelic sound and Brazilian "Tropicalia" as strong influences.
Tropicalia, an eclectic take on the 1960s psychedelic sound that emerged out of Brazil in 1967 and ’68, has recently taken on a new life among American music buffs, and it shows up palpably in Aunt Dracula’s sound as well.
Daly also said he can "relate to the energy" of other, more modern psychedelic bands like Animal Collective.
"That’s probably the stuff we relate to most, as far as modern music is concerned, but I’m pretty tired of that whole ‘weirdo’ and ‘trippy’ label," says Daly. "I just try to write songs that sound like they come from another planet."
Indeed, the songs of Aunt Dracula do hold a strange, otherworldly quality to them, something that Daly describes as syrupy, noisy pop with a dark edge creeping through it.
"Even though our stuff can be a little out there, I like to think that there are still some elements of pop buried somewhere in there," says Daly.
Another quality that runs through the work of Aunt Dracula is a pervasive, nearly schizophrenic and rollicking chaos. It’s maddening and addictive, but Daly said it also is something that comes about only after much orchestration and practice.
"I want every track we do to be something new and different," says Daly. "People think that it just magically comes out sounding that way, but it’s all very much thought out and planned and a lot a hard work."
Those efforts are starting to pay off.
Daly, who joined with guitarist Ash Andrien and drummer Dan Pell to form Aunt Dracula last March, said the band has been busy working on an album with ace engineer Jeff Zeigler.
Tonight they’ll play their last Philly show before heading off on a national tour. Daly hopes their debut album will be ready in early 2008. To him, the music of Aunt Dracula is an attempt to prove that beauty and chaos and darkness can exist together.
If there ever was proof that such a cocktail is possible, it is wonderfully present in the music of Daly and Aunt Dracula. ••
Check it out . . .
Who: Aunt Dracula
What: Experimental psychedelia from the city’s East Poplar section.
Where: The Khyber, Second and Chestnut Streets in Old City.
When: Thursday, Oct. 18, at 9 p.m. Tickets are $8.