Night Shop is the project of Justin Sullivan, who you might recognise as the drummer with Kevin Morby/The Babies, or as part of LA post-punk outfit Flat Worms. Last month saw the release of ‘Hello Take Me Anywhere’, a new single released as part of Dangerbird’s Microdose series that sees Sullivan take all of his musical experience and inject his own idiosyncratic sensibilities.
Powered by an upbeat rhythm, the song has an infectious tone, a kind of wry, lopsided spirit that’s equal parts playful and heartfelt. Sullivan conjures a spooling cadence, his vocals unfurling with a languid fluidity, rising and falling in conviction like those of a man compelled by his beliefs yet burned cynical once too often. “Everybody’s fighting off irrelevance,” he sings, “as if we won’t all become irrelevant. / As if your prominence was permanently earned. And when I listened to you there was nothing to be learned.” With Allison Crutchfield (of Swearin’) lending harmonies, the song builds up a real head of steam, coming off as a celebration of our existential foibles in spite of everything.
“But me, I got a dream, I’m gonna go real far. Gonna be the singer in a dimly lit bar.
And every night I’m gonna sit and wonder where you are.
Roaming around through the city at night, I’m just looking for the bookstore and the cafe lights.Hello, take me anywhere.
If you’re right as rain or you’re wrong and strange, I do not care.
If it’s all in my mind, then let me stay here.
Check out a video directed by Sullivan himself, with guest appearances by Crutchfield and Tiffanie Lanmon:
‘Hello Take Me Anywhere’ is out now via Dangerbird and you can grab it from the Night Shop Bandcamp page.