The News Review:
- Readers recommend: long songs
- … File: Light This City Gwar & More – News Story | Music…
- We Are Scientists – Gig previews & reviews – Music – Entertainment
Readers recommend: long songs
guardian.co.uk – Aug 25, 2006
Readers nominated 350 songs this week most of them in excess of 10 minutes. If I’d listened to them all I would have been up for almost three days and would be typing this from a padded cell. It pained me to omit Lou Reed’s Street Hassle Bowie’s Station to Station Can Mogwai Sigur Ros and more soul disco and electronic music than I could possibly list but them’s the breaks. I Feel Love by Donna Summer elongated to almost 16 minutes by Patrick Cowley is one of dance music’s ur-texts: a glittering testament to the ecstasy of repetition. Perhaps there’s some parallel universe in which it never ends. The influence of krautrock on song structure is incalculable from Can’s busy humid jams to Neu!’s airy proto-techno. The first track on Neu!’s first album Hallogallo launched their career with a gravity-defying rush… If the sepulchral clatter of Bela Lugosi’s Dead is goth then it’s unlike any other goth song before or since. It’s more as if dub had been hatched in Transylvania rather than Jamaica. Television emerged from New York punk but loved psychedelia’s wide open spaces so much that when Lester Bangs first saw them play he wailed: “This is just San Francisco all over again!” Marquee Moon still sounds wild and revelatory. Fairport Convention’s A Sailor’s Life was a traditional folk ballad that galloped off into psychedelic pastures. Some landmark epics leave you feeling that all bets are off. Recorded in one take Sister Ray translated the Velvet Underground’s toxic personal chemistry into blistering noise. It sounds like a revolution or a war.
… File: Light This City Gwar & More – News Story | Music…
MTV.com – Aug 25, 2006
Those songs are about what I think about that but really they’re more metaphorical songs and people will have their own interpretations. h and those constant comparisons to Arch Enemy’s Angela Gossow and Lacuna Coil’s Cristina Scabbia? Yeah she doesn’t quite get that. “I really respect them and I love to see women in music but it is kind of frustrating when you take influence and inspiration from your idols — like [At the Gates'] Tomas Lindberg [Carcass'] Jeff Walker and [the Black Dahlia Murder's] Trevor Strnad” Nichol said. “And then people will go ahead and compare you to someone who has the same anatomy as you. And if you want to do that it’s fine. I think Angela and Cristina are awesome. But to be fair Nichol’s voice is more menacing more intense and more passionate at times which she said “is what I’m going for… New York punk trio Spoiler NYC which features Life of Agony bassist Alan Robert on vocals and bass have finished their debut album Grease Fire in Hell’s Kitchen. The disc which will be released by year’s end was produced in New York by Robert. Four tracks from the album including the title track “Dead to Me” “Hung My Head” and “Every Person Is Corrupt” can be heard on the band’s MySpace page.
We Are Scientists – Gig previews & reviews – Music – Entertainment
The Age – Aug 25, 2006
The band have toured Britain six times this year. They spend somuch time there that many new fans assume they’re English. They got together in California six years ago initially as asci-fi-themed group designed to annoy punk rockers. Their set listincluded titles such as Mothra Versus We AreScientists. “Most of the songs had a first verse that established thevillain while the second verse explored our defeat of thatvillain” Murray says. “Some people got upset when we stopped doingthat but the thought of writing those songs for five years becameincredibly tiresome… “Some people got upset when we stopped doingthat but the thought of writing those songs for five years becameincredibly tiresome. The trio moved to New York in 2001 just before the placetransformed into new rock city and lived together for a while inMurray’s grandfather’s house near Coney Island working day jobs inManhattan and scrounging for gigs. They released two indie albums before playing the South BySouthwest music festival in Texas in 2004. Afterwards an excitableEnglishman shook their hands and insisted he take some of theirmusic back home with him. It was influential radio DJ Steve Lamacqwho championed them played their songs and soon enough saw themcome over for the first of many tours. Like the Strokes the White Stripes and Kings f Leon beforethem they started becoming much more popular in Britain than intheir home country. As they were by this point signed to a majorlabel it caused some problems.