This will come as no surprise to any of you, and it will undoubtedly make me sound like a caricature of myself, but listen: I am a middle-aged white man who loves folk/Americana music with lots of acoustic guitars, hoarse melodic voices, and the occasional banjo.
I’m just going to let that shocking revelation wash over you.
I also like Bill Lawrence’s shows. I enjoy more Westerns than I’d care to admit. I get teary-eyed when I see my teenage children bonding. I like craft beers and making wings. Oh my god, do I love to make wings. Every kind of wing! Send me your wing recipes, because making wings is firmly planted in my top ten greatest pleasures of all time.
And sometimes — sometimes — I like to do so while listening to the music of Caamp. Do you know Caamp? I’m so sorry to report that they look exactly like you think they do: Trucker hats, not-great facial hair, slightly unkempt nice guys from Ohio who sing about “coffee as black as iron” in ways that reach into your chest cavity and give your heart a hug.
Caamp performs the theme song for the new Apple TV+ series, Stick, which stars two middle-aged men—Owen Wilson and Marc Maron—trying to recapture the glory of their youth through an aspiring golf pro while working through their own grief. I know, I know. We’re so very predictable. The show even comes from Jason Keller, who wrote maybe the most popular and beloved Dad movie of the last decade, Ford v. Ferrari. Scale of 1-10, and be honest: How annoyed are you right now?
Of course, the theme song had to come from Caamp. Mumford & Sons already did the theme for Ted Lasso, and they got the Death Cab for Cutie guy to do the Shrinking theme. But my god, do I love this song. I love it so much that sometimes, I’ll pause the show just to listen to Caamp for 30 to 45 minutes before restarting the series—which I genuinely like. Predictably.
If those first two lines from “And It’s Gone” open up your soul just enough for the banjo strings to sneak in, you might just love Caamp. They’re my favorite kind of indie folk band—the kind that never gets huge, but stays popular enough to play 1,500-seat auditoriums for decades. One day, someone much bigger will cover one of their songs, make a billion dollars off it, and Caamp will live forever on royalty checks. It might even be Noah Kahan.
If you like “And It’s Gone,” you’ll probably like my favorite Caamp song, “By and By.”
And if you’re like, “Dude. Really? Go away with this bullshit!” maybe I can interest you in a Fleetwood Mac cover?
Anyway, if you like what you hear, you can listen to them each week before watching Stick, or you can find them on tour—just not at Thompson’s Point here in Maine, because life is unfair. Otherwise, you can find them on your favorite streaming music platforms.
For Fans Of: The Head and the Heart, Zach Bryan, Son Volt, The Avett Brothers, Of Monsters and Men, Noah and the Whale, beer coozies, and reading under the shade while chickens walk about.
