Smack Dab - Right Smack Dab
1994

No, this isn't a novelty song. All of Smack Dab's songs sound like this. Short, catchy, and a little bit silly. Ahh, but I love it! Smack Dab's charm can surely be pinned on the inimitable voice of the eternally childlike Linda Hagood, who sounds like a primitive, purer version of Joanna Newsom. (Guess Hagood should have learned to play the harp.)

Trouser Press has an informative write-up on the trio here, but I have a story of my own. I first heard the band when their second album, Majestic Root, was originally released in 1994 (containing the above song), but forgot about them a few years later. Fast forward to 2001; I'm living in San Francisco and one night I go to a bar in the mission with a friend. I sit down at the bar and the female bartender says--in a squeaky, cute voice-- "What can I get for you?" I nearly fell off the stool. "You used to be in Smack Dab, didn't you?!" I asked. Strangely, she didn't even seem that surprised. She was more surprised that I didn't recognize her from the Double U, a San Francisco based-band she was in at the time.

The above photo is a recent image of Hagood. I couldn't find any cool vintage photos. See, Google Images doesn't have everything.