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SOUND
AFFECTS
The Strokes are well on their way to taking over rock 'n' roll ROSS RAIHALA Originally published Nov. 2, 2001
I have seen the future of rock 'n' roll. And its name is the Strokes.
OK, maybe not the future future of rock 'n' roll, but it sure looks like at least the next six months or so will belong to this particularly photogenic fivesome from New York City.
The band played a blistering set last month to a nearly sold-out crowd that packed into Tacoma's Temple Theater for the occasion.
The fact that this still unknown-to-the-mainstream band could almost fill a small theater, coupled with the presence of numerous Seattle alt-rock elite (including at least one Murder City Devil) proved that the immense hype surrounding the Strokes is working.
And because of that hype, I was prepared to be underwhelmed.
But the Strokes owned the place. Even though the album had been out in the States only a week, kids were singing along to every song. And some of those kids were even dressed like the band.
The energy, the songs, the looks and the sheer charisma of the five guys up on stage reminded me of seeing Oasis play a packed-to-the-rafters First Avenue in Minneapolis back on the band's first U.S. tour.
The Strokes first started making noise in England earlier this year on the strength of a three-song single released on London's Rough Trade Records.
The normally hyperbolic British music press switched into overdrive and rushed to praise the band.
"At this exact moment, the Strokes really are perfect," read a typical feature in New Musical Express. "A band like (this) only comes along once in a lifetime. You should be grateful that they've come along in yours."
All the while, naysayers began loudly wondering what the Strokes had done to attract such attention. And these were men of clear privilege. Lead singer Julian Casablancas is the son of Elite modeling agency founder John Casablancas, and the band members met while attending a pricey private prep school in Manhattan.
Amid all the fury, the Strokes rode the attention to great heights overseas, selling out shows and landing high-profile spots in various end-of-the-summer English festivals.
The furor ended up helping other acts as well. As the British press scrambled to discover "the next Strokes," Detroit's White Stripes earned a whirlwind of attention that ended with the two-piece signing a deal with England's XL Recordings (Badly Drawn Boy, the Prodigy) for a rumored $1.5 million.
There's a vital difference between the Strokes and the White Stripes, however. The latter have now put out three records, each better than the last, and show no signs of running out of ideas any time soon.
The Strokes, meanwhile, have released one record, "Is This It." In concert, they typically play all 11 tracks along with "New York City Cops," a song replaced at the last minute for the version of the record that was released in this country. And that's it.
Now that MTV has started to play the band's video for "Last Nite," a nationwide breakthrough for the band seems possible. Some music critics have even suggested a Nirvana-like wave of fame awaiting the Strokes.
Whatever the case, it looks like, at least for the near future, the Strokes will be hard to miss. And that's not a bad thing.
A Hole new sound?
When the Strokes played Los Angeles last month, they attracted just about every behind-the-scenes mover and shaker in the music industry alongside a number of famous faces including Beck, X's John Doe, one of the Hanson brothers, Johnny Knoxville from "Jackass" and our old pal Courtney Love.
Love's been a busy lady as of late. Last week, she premiered a number of new songs during a pair of shows in Los Angeles, the second of which was an opening gig for Jane's Addiction.
She was joined by a makeshift band that wasn't Hole, nor was it her new act Bastard. Instead, it was a cobbled-together group that included Steve McDonald of Redd Kross and Patty Schemel from Hole, among others.
Depending on which Internet reports you believe, the new songs "All the Drugs in the World" and "But Julian, I'm a Little Older Than You" (a song about Love's encounter with the Strokes' lead singer) are either proof that Love is guilty of "unfathomable self-indulgence" (AllStar) or that she's now more "vital (and) important (than) at any other point in her career" (NME).
New York Post gossip columnist Liz Smith recently wrote that Universal Records -- the label with which Love is currently trying to break her contract -- heard recent Love demos and offered her $18.5 million for them.
After Love's abbreviated opening set for Jane's Addiction, she refused to leave the stage -- even after the sound was cut and the lights went up -- and later ended up playing several songs for a major-label president in a backstage bathroom at the venue.
Lovely.
Jane's Addiction, sans Love, will play the Stadium Exhibition Center in Seattle Wednesday night. Tickets are $40.50 from Ticketmaster.
The hot Gossip
Olympia's own Beth Ditto -- lead singer of the fab trio the Gossip -- shows up in the pages of the November issue of Jane.
Ditto contributed a brief piece singing the praises of Mama Cass and Missy Elliott and bemoaning the lack of similar-sized women in rock:
"Now that I'm all grown up and I'm a queer fat performer, it's hard to find a female role model," Ditto writes. "The fact is that the industry would rather see a starved woman wearing an ugly outfit ... than see someone like me -- a real woman, at 220 pounds and 5 feet 2 inches tall -- sing her guts out and shake her ass the way rock and roll was intended."
With any luck, young and aspiring female rockers will clip out the foxy photo of Ditto as inspiration for the future.
Ross Raihala covers music for The Olympian. Send news and Top 10 lists to OlyRoss@aol.com. The Olympian Copyright 2001 back to main SOUND AFFECTS index
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