This is the second installment of a five-part series this week documenting songs by “no-hit wonders.” Although these artists may have had cult followings and minor success on some of the “genre” charts, they didn’t even register enough mainstream success to really qualify as “one-hit wonders.” The tracks featured in this series reached the ears of TWTR podcast host Brian Kelley one way or another, and the objective of these posts is to hopefully focus some attention on some great songs that didn’t get the notoriety they likely deserved.
In September 2008, I attended a special Ben Folds performance at the SoHo Apple Store in New York City. While waiting in line outside the store, someone started handing out copies of a self-titled EP from a band called The Lost Tricks. After the Ben Folds show and spending some time in the city, I took PATH back to Hoboken, where I had parked my car. Because I couldn’t get any of my usual radio stations up there and there was too much interference to use my iPod’s FM transmitter, I popped the Lost Tricks CD into my car stereo. It turned out to be five tracks of piano-pop goodness. My favorite song was the one spotlighted above, “All Around U,” with “FreeMan” (see video below) a close second.
Lost Tricks (the “the” was dropped at some point) was the music project of actor/musician Trev Oswalt, who was based in Brooklyn when that EP wound up in my hands. However, he was originally from Oregon. A few years later, Lost Tricks was no more and it’s hard to find anything recent that refers to the band. BUT…I did find a Trevor Oswalt with a photography business based in Portland with a studio in New York City, and based on a profile photo on the company’s Facebook page, I’m pretty confident it’s the same Trevor Oswalt.
But, man…that Lost Tricks EP is amazing. It’s such a shame so few people ever heard it.
Tandem With The Random 