A Memory Is Better Than Nothing

iTunes Review

Television Personalities’ Dan Treacy has lived a difficult life and his band has been a casual line-up of like-minded folks who find ways to fit into Treacy’s peculiar puzzle. A Memory Is Better Than Nothing is Treacy’s 2010 release and it could’ve been released about 30 years ago and felt just as magical and out of step with whatever mainstream music happened to be up to. The songs are delightfully accessible, just not very polished. There’s a gentle reverb and an unvarnished acoustic guitar supporting many of these tunes and when a pedal steel does perform back-up on “Walk Towards The Light,” it remains in the background as Treacy’s everyman vocals remind one of a time when bands such as Swell Maps (whose Jowe Head has played on many releases) ruled the indie-scene in the U.K. “She’s My Yoko” is a natural pop song. “Funny He Never Married” is a loose, barely in-key ballad where the amateurism holds a mesmerizing charm. So many cool, odd moments that only a man tending to his own garden oblivious to the outside music world could pull it off.