The News Review:
- Music & Nightlife | Ike Reilly
- The Mysterious Allure of the All-Girl Band
- Collage Rock – Music – The Stranger Seattle’s Only Newspaper
- Bordello a-go-go
- … Appoint Legendary Musician Steven Van Zandt-aka ‘Little…
Music & Nightlife | Ike Reilly
Silicon Valley's Metro – Jul 11, 2007
com Real Estate Relocating to San Jose or Silicon Valley? Let San Jose. com introduce you to some expert area real estate agents. “My view of punk is more philosophical than sonic” says Reilly. And what exactly is that philosophy? “It’s so punk it would be uncool to say what it is. Reilly is not a guy who takes himself too seriously. This was clear from the beginning when he introduced himself to the world on his 2001 major-label debut with the line “Last time I couldn’t make you come. ” So it’s kind of incredible that he claims “I continue to get less serious as I go along… It rips open with the first track “8 More Days Til The Fourth of July”—frenzied desperate punk as fuck. There are echoes of hardcore heroes but the sound reaches back even further to the era of the first rock wildmen a modern version of as one of Reilly’s songs once put it “Jerry Lee Lewis with his balls on fire in the back of a Rocket 88 with an out-of-state plate and an underage date. “I’m much more inspired by the danger that ’50s music emoted” says Reilly. Perhaps if time paradoxes allow the best description for Reilly’s vibe would be pre-punk sort of in the same way people think about Lou Reed. Reilly also has a song called “Heroin” after all—in fact substance abuse of all types runs rampant in the work of the man who wrote “My Wasted Friends. ” The new song “Valentine’s Day In Juarez” may take the cake with its laundry list of “cocaine oxycontin mushrooms marijuana vodka if you got ‘em he’s gonna want ‘em” rivaling Queens of the Stone Age’s ultimate drug song “Feel Good Hit of the Summer. But Reilly is so much harder to pin down than Reed.
The Mysterious Allure of the All-Girl Band
NPR – Jul 11, 2007
We love to divide things into groups and subgroups to give the world a sense of order. Music is no exception. For the casual listener we may… Music is no exception. For the casual listener we may lump large numbers of musicians into exceedingly broad categories like “rock” or “classical” but these are merely broad brush strokes that obscure the obsessive work of fans scholars and purists who separate musicians into highly specialized categories. Punk isn’t just punk for example. It’s a complex family tree with enough branches to bewilder the uninitiated: grindcore skate punk straight edge post-punk funkcore. And that’s just for starters. Yet no matter how many times you can parse rock ‘n roll into subdivisions – that was a Rush song wasn’t it? – there’s at least one category that transcends simple classification: the all-girl band. From the Runaways and the Go-Gos of the 70s and 80s to the Pussycat Dolls today the archetype of women-only groups still resonates with many fans as a class of music unto itself.
Collage Rock – Music – The Stranger Seattle’s Only Newspaper
TheStranger.com – Jul 11, 2007
The much-discussed Myths of the Near Future incorporates punk’s frenzy and distortion glam’s glittering excesses prog’s ren-fair futurist classicism and even faint echoes of northern soul (the wordless miasmatic pre-chorus of their biggest UK top 10 hit “Golden Skans”). Somehow Klaxons synthesize these elements into unique pop hybrids on record. If their shows are unpredictably varied—punk one night prog the next—it’s not because they have a repertoire of songs from each genre so much as a single set of songs that can swing off in any direction given the mood. “I listen to a lot of Todd Rundgren Utopia and Zappa” says Righton. “Simon [Taylor-Davis the band's guitarist] has been listening to obscure American indie bands that no one’s heard of—before they’ve even formed he’s heard of them usually. He just got back from checking out bands in Portland Oregon [home to Klaxons's West Coast tour mates Fist Fite]. Jamie [Reynolds on lead vocals and bass] has been listening to a lot of minimal techno… And writing doesn’t have to be like that. It can be anything. Just like the music you make—the music can be anything the words can be anything. Klaxons take that lyrical freedom to fantastic even nonsensical heights on Myths of the Near Future singing about cyclopes and centaurs and raiding the library for Aleister Crowley J. Ballard and Thomas Pynchon references—things that according to Righton don’t usually belong in pop music. But this studied amalgam approach is central to Klaxons’ mystic futurist sounds and cut-and-paste lyrical visions.
Bordello a-go-go
Detroit Metro Times – Jul 11, 2007
In between broken-English diatribes against consumerism conformity and rationality — spiced with some of the dirtiest sexiest swagger this side of Johnny Depp — Hutz uses the word “fuck” at least 15 times. But that’s Hutz — and Gogol Bordello. Since forming in 1999 in New York Gogol Bordello has made its name as a fierce eclectic live act on both the indie and punk circuits playing a couple years’ worth of Warped Tours as well as this year’s Coachella and Bonnaroo festivals. On its albums — including the recently released Super Taranta — Gogol Bordello thrashes through everything from “gypsy speedmetal dub” as Hutz calls it to hard-edged heart-wrenching ballads spurred on by Old World fiddling… Bare-chested and mustachioed the frontman wails in Russian moves with reckless abandon and crowd-surfs atop a bass drum. It’s a hedonistic bonanza that’s turned Hutz into a fan-frothy lust object — a status Hutz doesn’t deny. “It’s the only way I know how to perform music” he says. “If the way it comes out transforms me into a sex symbol so fucking be it. And I’ll take full advantage of that too. The inimitable Eastern European-born singer — also an actor best known for his role of Alex in the film adaptation of Everything is Illuminated — is backed by a cartel of eclectic musicians. There’s an Israeli guitarist two Russians on violin and accordion an Ethiopian bassist two part-Asian percussionist-cum-dancers and one token “all-American” — the drummer.
… Appoint Legendary Musician Steven Van Zandt-aka ‘Little…
Free with registration – PR Newswire – AccessMyLibrary.com – Jul 11, 2007
Celebrity Advisory Board to Select Hundreds of Artists Albums and Songs for Rock Band(TM) Catalogue SANTA MONICA Calif. B) announced today the formation of the Rock Band(TM) Music Advisory Board which will guide the Harmonix development team in the selection of artists albums and tracks to be featured in the music videogame both on the game disc and for digital distribution. Musician actor and record producer Steven Van Zandt a. “Little Steven” will head up the board as the chairman with a select group of celebrity musicians and industry experts to be announced at a later date.