Charlotte Observer
On the Dillon Fence
By DAVID MENCONI, Staff Writer
By now, Greg Humphreys has gotten used to it -- meeting someone who will sheepishly admit to a secret guilty-pleasure admiration for his old band, Dillon Fence. The most recent instance came at a festival Humphreys played with his current band, Hobex. A member of the jam band the Blue Rags sat in, and later told Humphreys that he used to play "For Awhile" (a song from Dillon Fence's 1989 debut mini-album) in a band in high school.
"And that's the first song on our best-of," Humphreys says with a laugh, speaking by phone from his home in Asheville. "I've talked to a lot of musicians over the years who have told me privately that they covered Dillon Fence songs in their high school bands. Not that they'd ever admit it to a certain crowd they were trying to appeal to, but it's there. I know because they told me. Moments like that make me feel like I'm carrying something on and handing it off to other people, who then go off in whatever direction they can pursue."
During Dillon Fence's early-'90s heyday, it was the band's misfortune to be tuneful and popular at a time when both were decidedly out of fashion. The band's shows always drew well, and it made some very fine pop/rock records. But back when Chapel Hill's music scene was being hyped as "the next Seattle," Dillon Fence never got much respect in its hometown. The band called it quits in 1995, then watched longingly as the similarly styled South Carolina band Hootie & the Blowfish scaled the charts with the 16 million-selling "Cracked Rear View."
Nine years after breaking up, Dillon Fence is getting back into action on a part-time basis. The group is releasing a two-disc album, "Best +" (MoRisen Records), consisting of a 16-track best-of plus a second disc of seven new songs -- which fans of the band will be please to know are in the same ballpark as vintage Dillon Fence. There's also a tour including dates Saturday at the Lincoln Theatre and Aug. 7 at Cat's Cradle.