Column: Gordon Raphael #19, Oct 2004
By: Gordon Raphael, Matt Tomiak
Hello to rockfeedback readers: it's been a long, long time since I checked in with 'youse guys' as we say here in NYC.
Yes, that's right, I've been sequestered in fun party town USA (detect some irony?) for nearly six months as we now officially have begun to tackle 'the monster' - as Julian likes to refer to the recording of The Strokes' third album. There have been six or seven songs written this summer, and I've helped to record those as demos - but recently I have heard two new things that they are working on that sound utterly amazing. Out of left field have come these two new songs, which I can honestly say are possibly the best melodic and rhythmic themes I've ever heard emerge from these fine musicians. If the rest of the album can start off as exciting and brilliant as these two new ones indicate - well, we are all in for quite a ride. The general atmosphere in our little studio is very buoyant and friendly, with great concentration and a very harmonious relationship between all of us. We are all prepared to go to great lengths to find sounds and really take this album as far as we can go.
While exiled in the USA for this epic work, I am still concentrating on my own music with my new record called 'The White Album' by Black-Light. This fun, little psychedelic nightmare has taken me a year to complete, and the first 1,000 copies will be sent from a factory in North Carolina to me this week. The artwork turned out as trippy as the music, so I am hopeful that the world will join me in this musical mental onslaught. I am going to put some of my CD's in shops along the rock and roll corridor of St. Marks Street, in the same places that carried The Strokes' 'The Modern Age' EP when Albert used to carry small boxes of that record around way back in the year 2001.
I have created a video for my first single, '2-Track Mind', and plan to get it shown in some cool places, no matter what subversive means I have to use to accomplish this. I have noticed that America has vaunted some extraordinarily un-interesting bands and music to the top of their charts - and even the videos I am seeing on their MTV and VH1 seem to be less compelling and less artistic than the dog-food advertisements that follow them. I guess the new philosophy I am detecting in the American music market is, 'Well, if you want to sell records to Midwest shoe salesmen and Pizza Hut
employees, you had better sign bands that look exactly like them!'
Another interpretation could be, 'Well, if George Bush and his conservative war
mongering/Bible-belting Christian regime win the election, at least we can say that we've already signed the bands that would appeal to those voters!'
I'm serious - there has been some sort of moratorium on talent, style and rock-n-roll innovation here in the USA music scene. It's a desert.
On the UK front, however, my label Shoplifter Records has recently signed a fantastic new artist from New Paltz, New York named Char Johnson. She and her band play some sort of Hip Hop smoked rock, with lyrics and energy so infectious that we had to get our paws on her and snatch them up right away. After the fantastic response we've gotten both critically and amongst the listeners for Ms Regina Spektor, I thought that Char's music would continue the new tradition of powerful excellence and hyper-originality. Regina has been wowing NYC at her recent shows here, and in a glimmer of bright vision, has been signed in the USA by SIRE - the legendary label that launched The Ramones, Talking Heads and some other female vocalist of note, Madonna. I am pleased to report that the album I co-produced with Alan Bezozi and Regina Spektor - 'Soviet Kitsch' - will be the first thing that SIRE releases of hers in the USA. Regina will be coming to Europe for some very special concerts (Manchester Nov 9th; Glasgow Nov 13th; London Nov 15th; and Paris November 7th). 'Soviet Kitsch' is now widely available in the UK via the aforementioned Shoplifter Records.
Soon to be also available: Black-Light's 'The White Album' and Satellites' (my best friends from Mallorca, who now live in Stoke Newington, London) Third Album. Satellites also have many live dates scheduled in London and the UK (inclusive of their third appearance at The Basement Club on Thurs 25th Nov); I have been telling you all for three years that this band is not to be missed... trust me.
On the radar for very interesting new bands to watch out for: I have met a few new performers recently that I'd like to introduce. Sheiks of Sheba, featuring Giuseppe Cotteli is one of them. He is a wild card from Toronto, Canada, whose chord changes and melodies show an extraordinary sophistication for one so young as he. Not only are masterful harmonies evident in his guitar playing, but the young man has a sense of style and ability only matched by his absolute outrageousness and daring vocal techniques. There's a sense of a young Marc Bolan in an amazing suit, pressing the boundaries of what can be done in terms of attitudes and male singing styles. I suggest you go to his website and look/hear for yourself - http://www.3-hit.net/sos/.
I guess Canada is in this year, cuz another group - one I actually snuck
into a studio with here in New York - called The Nice Ones is really captivating my mind as well. The singer Genevieve is from Montreal and she has a way of serving up lyrics and an emotional projection that seems to me to be a perfect blend. The Nice Ones' guitarist is a very talented guy named Rich who lives in Brooklyn. We recorded two songs ('Heaven' and 'Grand') together and they also recorded a third one called 'Birthdays' with James Iha from Smashing Pumpkins at his epic studio, Stratosphere. During our sessions we were graced with the guest drumming power of Kevin March,
the kick-ass pounding force behind one of The Strokes' favorite bands Guided By Voices. Visit theniceones.com, if you will.
My best friend Anna Mercedes is fronting a new project in London called Demeter. She is in top form with her singing, and looks amazing as always. Demeter is heavily atmospheric with the combined assault of (electroclash producer and synthesizer wizard) Andy Chatterley and the guitar-god rock of Finnish/Londoner Toni Haime (who lords his considerable rock ability all over my own album). There is an esoteric magickal theme running through this music, with influences of Aleister Crowley and alien conspiracy theories lurking menacingly below the surface. The shows often have video projections which add a very distinct and aesthetic command to them. Watch out for any live concerts of Demeter in your town. www.demeter.tv - a single, EP and video will soon be available in the UK, Europe and Mexico.
Bear with me for one more introduction and a heads-up... please. Margarita Shamrakov (yes, http://www.MargaritaShamrakov.com) contacted me through mutual friends here in New York. She is (get this!) a young, Russian lady who plays piano fantastically well, and sings crazy songs. Sound familiar? No it's not at all Regina part two, but I must admit being very thankful to meet two containers of that certain Russian 'something' that makes music so riveting (hell, I am of Russian descent so maybe I'm just sensitive to it, or a magnet?).
Ballet Russe, Nijinsky, Rachmaninov, Shastakovich, Sergei Eisenstein, Stravinsky, Scriabin - well, those are some of the most powerful names in the history of music, film and dance. Have you researched the works of these humans? They are all part of the things that I have experienced that informed me about sound and vision. It's also why I am so harsh and anti-everything mediocre and boring that gets put out as 'music and art' in our modern culture. There's something throbbing and a bit divine in these artists' work that one could say is almost completely missing in most things
that try and pass off as creative expression these days. Is it because of government/social repression? Or do people not feel as inspired to discover new powers and abilities in life? I think many people just don't try hard enough, or even believe the struggle is worth it.
But I digress, I often do - Margarita has a lot of burning ambition and has developed her musical sense through much hard work and dedication. The songs she showed me are gigantic productions of a kind of massive-rocking-hip-hop style. Walls of guitar, very deep beats, and very layered vocals that sound extraordinarily creative in their melody, while remaining urgent emotional expressions. A good trick for those few that can figure it out.
Usually, big productions bury the meaning and urgency, as layers of gloss and sugar substitute or hide the fact that there is nothing there to begin with. Producers (myself excluded, thankfully) are usually offered the impossible challenge to decorate and augment some piece of music that's really nothing special, and hired by an 'artist' that really has minimal talent developed and almost nothing real, new or interesting to say. I would venture to declare that in my mind, most of pop music in the last ten years is guilty of this horrible crime against art.
I can hear people laugh carelessly and say, 'Well, that's a perfect reflection of the lifestyles and world views of the people that really make up our western and westernized societies.' And I think that's true. Perhaps there is a frightening majority of humans on this planet who - like cattle - are thick and kinda stupid and buy music as a soundtrack to their repetitive braindead 'non'-existence. Yes, I have a very difficult time in seeing the humour or enjoyment in how music has been created, marketed or consumed by the 'masses'. When I see magazines or television and music is involved, particularly my genre - ROCK - it looks so manicured and neutered and 'advertised' and socially competitive, that it's almost a complete, hollow parody of the potential power that it could present. Listen to a little old Iron Butterfly, Stooges, Motorhead, Rolling Stones, Hendrix, Leonard Cohen, and disinfect yourself from what psychic slime attaches itself to modern music...
Ah, more ranting from the head Shoplifter. I have listened to Margarita Shamrakov's songs and it's fantastic to hear someone who really has worked hard to explore where harmony can go that is new and vital. She is young and has a long road to travel to realize her potential and to play the kind of shows she dreams of. I am grateful to have met her and to have heard at least five of her gigantic works in progress. She also won the John Lennon songwriting award here in America, and it was given to Margarita by none other than Yoko Ono herself. That fact got my attention right away.
In the heads-up department: my dear friends from Seattle, Sky Cries Mary, are re-releasing two albums that were created when I was a member of that project. 'A Return To The Inner Experience', and 'This Timeless Turning' are available through http://www.skycriesmary.com. This group was the first and only signed band I was ever in (except for playing in The Psychedelic Furs for one US tour) and we rocked Seattle in
particular and America in general during the 1990's. It was a seven-piece band with a male singer (Roderick) and female singer (Anisa) accompanied by guitar, bass, drums, me on 'space-noises', and DJ Fallout rocking beats and samples to add to the heavy/poetic mayhem. We had an authentic multi-slideshow, film loops and oil projections - making for a very 'transportative' 60's-style happening right in the middle of the grunge movement. Perhaps Shoplifter Records will get some distribution rights for the UK and Sky Cries Mary will finally make their tribal space-rock known on British shores.
OK, thanks for your patience and support during these many months of my return to New York. Happy birthday - two years for The Basement Club run by me and Toby L, this month's line-up; The Subways and Hope of The States exemplifies the freaky magic touch that Toby has (by the way - his own, new band are really stunning - they sound like soul brothers of the kind of cutting-edge bands that were always bubbling underground in Seattle before the big hype... Toby can really sing and writes a mean, lean tune as well! Cheers for that). I don't think I can jet over in time for that night as I predict a very busy and killer week with Fabrizio, Nick, Nikolai and the gang...
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