Some may know The Brokeoffs as the backing “band” co-credited on the recent records of veteran Brit singer-songwriter Holly Golightly. The quotation marks above relate to The Brokeoffs’ existence as one gent, namely Lawyer Dave, and he’s just getting around to releasing his first single. It sports two covers; one surprising and triumphant and the other an attempt to conquer a seeming ubiquity. A 10-inch picture disc, it’s out September 25 in an edition of 250 via the UK label Damaged Goods.
Up to this point The Brokeoffs’ name has been noted almost exclusively in connection with a geographical/stylistic turn in the career of Holly Golightly. In the midst of last decade the ex-member of The Headcoatees and prime solo exponent of the ‘90s garage scene moved to the States, cultivating a partnership with the Texas-bred multi-instrumentalist known as Lawyer Dave while taking a detour into the Americana field.
The duo’s eighth album Coulda Shoulda Woulda is out next month, denoting the relationship with Lawyer Dave as a fruitful one. It should be no shock to folks familiar with Golightly’s beginnings that her immersion in the rural musical richness of the USA preserved her grit and sass, but Lawyer Dave’s input more than backup; blending honky-tonk and back-porch blues, they could sometimes come off like Wanda Jackson hooking up with C&W-era Hasil Adkins in a wood-paneled dive bar in the hills of West Virginia, the duo intermittently possessed by the disembodied spirit of Joe Hill Louis.
Golightly recently visited the UK and the byproduct was Slowtown Now!, her first full-band album since 2004, so it only makes sense that Dave gets to do a little branching out as well. Serving as The Brokeoffs’ solo debut, the picture disc sports a photo substantially intensifying the aura of one-man band-ism as its grooves present a wrinkle; specifically, while Golightly and Dave were not averse to adapting tunes, they did generally focus on their own material.