Smart Barker

Smart Barker is the reincarnation of the Philadelphia-based rock band Milton and the Devils Party, which had a brief shining moment of modest popularity and then faded into obscurity. The name of the band didn’t help matters—but that’s a long story.

MDP/Smart Barker was founded by Daniel Robinson and Mark Graybill at the beginning of the 21st century. Over the years, they have been joined in music-making by Bob Falgie, Pat Manley, Tommy Traddles, Martin Evans, and other great musicians.

Robinson and Graybill first began making music together in the 1990s as the duo Burton Ernie. In 2002 Robinson and Graybill formed Milton and the Devils Party, teaming up with guitarist Pat Manley and drummer Martin Evans. The quartet released their debut album, What Is All This Sweet Work Worth?, produced by Harris London, in 2004. In 2006 the New Jersey-based label, FDR, released an expanded and remixed version of the first album. Thereabouts, MDP downsized to a three-piece band, with the departure of Manley, who continued contributing on a part-time basis, and with the addition of drummer-vocalist Bob Falgie. During the next decade, Falgie, Graybill, and Robinson performed frequently in Philadelphia, New York City, and adjacent regions; they made two albums as MDP in Philadelphia with producer Brian McTear—How Wicked We’ve Become, released in 2017 on the Philadelphia-based label Transit of Venus, and You Must Contribute, Brain!, recorded in 2008 but not released until 2013 when the band independently released it with the help of a Kickstarter campaign. Shortly thereafter, the trio decided to drop the “Milton and the Devils Party” moniker for a number of reasons, chief among them, the inscrutability and/or pomposity of the name and the impression it gave, just or unjust, that the group was a band of power-pop intellectual poseurs or of heavy-metal Satan worshippers, or both. With Falgie becoming increasingly involved in other projects, Graybill and Robinson rebranded the band as “Smart Barker,” refusing, after the previous band-name debacle, to explain the significance of the new name other than its assonance and potential association with Robinson’s childhood idol Bob Barker or with Graybill’s dog.

In 2016, rejuvenated by a new song written by Robinson and Manley, “I’m Gonna Do It,” featured in the 2017 film Leaving Virginville, Smart Barker re-released its MDP catalog under the new name and on its new label, Milton Music. But the group also released several new recordings—live tracks performed by Falgie, Graybill, and Robinson, some tasteful covers produced by Robinson with Graybill and other musicians, and some remixes/edits of older tunes. Welcoming back original drummer Tommy Traddles, Smart Barker ended the otherwise traumatic year with its first holiday single, also its first instrumental and first Graybill-penned track, “Los Pantalones de Navidad.” In 2017, Smart Barker released a new version of “To Jane” (originally from WIATSWW), with a new vocal and remix, backed with another instrumental composition by Graybill, “Going to Grasmere.”

The even-more-dreadful 2020 saw Smart Barker return, after a break, with a cover of Olivia Newton-John’s 1975 hit “Have You Never Been Mellow” (Robinson’s personal theme song), a re-release of MDP’s cover of The Kinks’ “Victoria,” and a new original single, “The Future Sucks,” backed with a cover of the theme to the television series The Incredible Hulk.

Smart Barker will release its fourth album, All The Rivers In Hades, before the end of 2021!