John Davis of Title Tracks. Photo by Shervin Lainez / http://www.shervinfoto.com

Within the same breath of announcing the dissolution of one-album wonder Georgie James in the summer of 2008, co-creator John Davis revealed that he already had another project underway. Over the past decade Davis had shown that he could do high-strung hyperkinetic rhythms (as the drummer of Q and Not U) and more polished and melodic power pop. His newest outfit, Title Tracks, proves that Davis can be a driving musical force as well as a team player.

It’s not hard to connect the dots between Title Tracks tunes and the songs from Davis’s previous bands. The Tracks songs are upbeat, often poppy numbers that combine guitar and keyboard melodies for sounds that wouldn’t have seemed out of place on a California beach in the 1960s, or an Ohio home recording studio in the early 1990s. The songs are both catchy and timeless, and the seeming effortlessness in creating them make the title of the upcoming LP, It Was Easy, an apt one. Title Tracks solidifies what we knew all along: John Davis has become a D.C. music staple. This guy’s not going anywhere, and the quality of his work continues to be rock solid.

We caught up with John recently to talk about upcoming Title Tracks videos, his show on WOXY, and his hopes that his spring tour won’t involve missing every Caps playoff game.

See them next: With Ted Leo & The Pharmacists and Radio 4 at the Black Cat on Thursday night. The show is sold out, so consult your pal Craig.

Buy their music: On iTunes. Or anywhere that Dischord releases are sold.

Find them online: http://www.myspace.com/titletracksdc

If I remember correctly, Ted Leo opened on an old Q and Not U tour. Is this the first time you’re going to be sharing the stage since that tour?

No. That tour was April 2001, but I remember we played together on election night in 2004. We were in San Diego. That may have actually been the only other time Q and Not U and Ted played together after that, I think. And then Georgie James played with Ted several times. I know in Baltimore. We did maybe a week of shows together in Canada and the Northeast. So, we’ve done it a few times since then, but this is the first time that Title Tracks will be playing with Ted.

How long have these Title Tracks songs been around? There seemed to be no turnaround time between the end of Georgie James and the first Title Tracks shows.

The breakup of Georgie James was announced in the summer of 2008, but it was pretty much in reality, much earlier than that. I think I started writing the early Title Tracks songs in December and January. And I pretty much knew at that point that I was just going to play the last few months of shows with Georgie James and then pretty much stop as soon as we could. I was already really thinking of the next thing at that point. In a sense, I knew that Georgie James was not going to last much longer and kind of my nature is just to always be doing something like that; something musical. I wanted to start right away on a new project. So, I started writing the songs and they all came pretty quickly.