Zach Gill's Stuff

iTunes Review

ALO's keyboard player and original frontman, Zach Gill has come a long way as both a singer and a songwriter since his Saratoga, California band Django recorded songs like the Huey Lewis inspired "Contact." The husky voiced Gill introduces his solo debut with surfer folknik Jack Johnson helping out via vocals on the playfully piano-heavy "Family," a bouncy blue-eyed soul-steeped ditty reminiscent of Lowell George era Little Feat. (Gill tours and records with Johnson.) The skipping Reggae rhythms and lighthearted lyrics on "Don't Touch My Stuff" make for a tune so funny and festive, it's not hard to believe that Gill got his start playing music for fun from inside a brown Chevy van which used to open its doors on weekend nights and entertain hungry folks in the parking lot of his hometown's Taco Bravo. Unfortunately "At The Edge Of The World" didn't show up here — it's a song Gill recorded with Aimee Mann and Talking Heads' Jerry Harrison for the Paramount Pictures documentary An Attic Tale. But songs like the subtly jazzy "Fine Wine" (which sounds more Josh Rouse than Jack Johnson) and the fawning, floating "Beautiful Reason" more than make up for it.