With just one day before Gorillaz’s new CD “Plastic Beach” hits stores nationwide, I’ve been going back and reminiscing on this band’s wonderfully crafted music (and videos). We all know “Clint Eastwood” (I ain’t happy/I’m feelin’ glad/I’ve got sunshine/in a bag…) and “Feel Good Inc.” (Windmill, Windmill for the land/turn forever hand in hand…). But Gorillaz is not just a band, it is, in my opinion, one of the most creatively genius works in the history of music.
Gorillaz - Noodle, 2D, Russel, and Murdoc
Created by former lead singer of Blur Damon Albarn and “Tank Girl” creator Jamie Hewlett, the band is composed of cartoon characters (2D, Murdoc, Russel, and Noodle), each with back stories and interesting facts. In 2001, their first CD (self-titled “Gorillaz”) rocked the charts as a combination of hip-hop, rap, and electronic, with hits like the aforementioned “Clint Eastwood,” slow, urban track “Tomorrow Comes Today,” and hip-hop glory “Rock The House” (featuring Del The Funky Homosapien, who plays a minor character in the band’s backstory). The second CD, “Demon Days” (2005), was a major success for the band, bringing in major celebrity guests to rap, sing, and even read for the tracks (De La Soul, Bootie Brown, MF Doom, Shaun Ryder, Dennis Hopper, and Danger Mouse, who helped produce the CD). “Feel Good Inc.” hit the charts and quickly rated higher than any of their other hits, soon followed by children-anthem “Dirty Harry,” solemn “El Mañana,” and dance-worthy “DARE.” Now, 5 years later, Gorillaz has collaborated once again with “Plastic Beach.” Unfortunately, the only songs I’ve heard are “Stylo,” which is the first single off the new CD, featuring Mos Def and Bobby Womack, and “Superfast Jellyfish,” featuring De La Soul once more.
The music is really original in that it mixes different genres together to create a new type of sound. From “19-2000,” which uses techno, hip-hop, and reggae to sound like a bubblegum pop song, to “Don’t Get Lost In Heaven” paired with “Demon Days,” which uses a full string orchestra, choir, hip-hop, and reggae to sound epic and gorgeous, the band reinvents the world of urban music.
However, what makes them so interesting is the story behind the band, how they advertise themselves, and their use of advanced technology to create a fully-animated band.
Back in 2006, the “band” put out an autobiography called Rise of the Ogre, which not only chronicled the band’s successful music career but also the band members’ lives and personalities in and out of the band. For example, we find out that 2D has black eyes because Murdoc ran him over in a car, which dented one of his eyes… so, because he thought he looks silly with one black eye, 2D dented the other one. We learn about the truth about Noodle, that she is really a secret Japanese government weapon, triggered by the words “ocean bacon.” We find out that the ghost of Del The Funky Homosapien possessed Russel, and Russel had it exorcised out of his body before working on “Demon Days.” We learn about Murdoc’s obsession with being a Satanist and how he truly is an evil person.
I mean, sure, this may not sound like a lot. But considering that this is all made up to coincide with a few CDs, that’s pretty incredible!
But that’s not all… to create this image of a fully-animated band, high tech equipment have made it possible for people to really feel like the members of Gorillaz are actually real. For the 2006 Grammys, the band performed a mash up of “Feel Good Inc.” and Madonna’s hit for the year “Hung Up” live. But, because of the band’s animated appearances, a holographic projection unit was set up on stage, allowing for the band members to look as if they were standing on stage. Madonna, was also holographically projected for the first part of her act as she moves around the characters to interact with them. This is one of the first, and greatest, technical feats ever for a band to make.
Also, because of their animations, the band RARELY plays live shows (in fact, the only one they have lined up so far for their new CD is Coachella 2010). So, of course, each of their live shows out-does the other. The “Demon Days” tour included panels of changing colors, hiding the live band from the public, while the “guests” were on stage in front, brightly lit. On a large screen in the middle, pictures and video played to help visually attract the audience. Simplistic, but incredibly creative.
Personally my favorite part of the band’s creativity is what they put into their website. To help promote their band and to get their fans psyched about the band itself, they launched an interactive game on their website to explore the confines of their home Kong Studios. With the coming of each CD and hit came an update to the website… and as the lives and appearance of each character changed, the studio reflected it. For example, in the video for “El Mañana,” Noodle supposedly died at the end of the video (it was later revealed that she had not died, but was instead dragged into hell). After the video landed, Noodle’s room in the virtual world was stripped and began to fall apart every month. As the truth came out that she was actually trapped in hell, the basement of the website’s virtual Kong had a transmission of Noodle in a room, exclaiming that she needed help. Soon after the announcement of “Plastic Beach,” Kong was in ruins, with none of the rooms available. Thus, Plastic Beach was born: the newest interactive online game allows you to tour Plastic Beach, with new rooms opening pretty much every month. If you’re interested, go to the website!
So yes, Gorillaz has great music, but it goes beyond that. I mean think of it this way: 2 guys created a FAKE band with FAKE names and FAKE backgrounds… they used incredible technical equipment to make these FAKE characters REAL, and even set up strange situations for said FAKE characters (as in their Plastic Beach website). Gorillaz is no ordinary band. It is a work of creative genius. And, to quote one of my favorite Gorillaz songs, “Yeah, yeah, yeah I’ll pay/When tomorrow/Tomorrow comes today!”
Pitchfork has released an article announcing that Andrew WK and one of my personal favorite hip-hop groups, People Under the Stairs, have collaborated and created a new variation of Danny Elfman’s Simpson’s theme song. It will air in the end credits on January 16th’s all new episode. Will you check it out? I know I will.
Dan deacon gave the kids of Eugene a taste of the East of Coast’s ‘wham city’ last night with his beautifully absurd performance at the Wow Hall. Despite false rumors of a fourteen-piece ensemble accompanying Mr. Deacon, the morale of fellow observers was higher than I anticipated. In the furry of week four I found myself almost studying through the show, but decided to drop everything and let myself get a little sweaty.
As a relative newbie to the Dan Deacon legacy, and a virgin to his live performances, the show dominated my expectations. I was comforted with Deacon’s familiar staples of oversized eyeglasses, grainy backdrop videos and that glowing green skull as I nestled into the crowd. From the start he had us on our knees smacking kisses onto each other’s foreheads, making us countdown to fifty before the music came. Set up on ground level he led our newly founded dance community with his digitally synthesized orchestra. Fidgeting with his light fixtures just as much as his switchboards, Deacon’s symphony of sound and light consumed the lower floor of the venue. The high pitched hum of his voice rang through the modulators along side the electronica waves. By his instruction we all partook in a tag-team dance contest, formed a synchronized interpretive dance and made a human tunnel that wrapped around Wow Hall. His social experiment/dance party glory left us all a little lighter.
It sometimes takes a sparse, whistling overture to wake up out of that late-summer malaise. “Black River Killer,” a standout song from 2008’s Furr, joins six other Blitzen Trapper songs, sold only on CDRs at their live shows, to make the Black River Killer EP, out August 25 on Sub Pop. Short at just above 17 minutes, each song carrying just above two minutes of listening time, the EP keeps the quick songs bound together along an imagistic spine.
The seven songs, stacked seemingly in happy/sad alternation, push forward an agenda of slightly pessimistic exploration into America’s faded pastoral landscapes. It must be the economy, right?
Soft, burbling electronic tones guide the listener from the rural account of spiritual warfare in the opener “Black River Killer” and through the rest of the EP. Similarly, “Going Down” manages a happier note of corroded morals accompanied by an Air-approved, far away synth line.
On “Shoulder Full of You,” the harmonic melody playing over the comparatively restrained acoustic guitar line, causes a break in the low-down tone of the song, like an occasional passing view of rusted grain silos on a desolate highway.
“Preacher’s Sister’s Boy,” the next song on the EP, has the same light-hearted, electronic whistle and a tambourine-laden beat that has all the swaying of the road home with suddenly a lot more to see on the way.
Taking this into consideration, the next song “Black Rock” drops the listener into a chanting melody repetitive like a word association exercise for the entire first minute, which is actually about half the song.
But still, like most good EPs, Black River Killer gets ahead with the help of a strong tailwind at the end. The last song “Big Black Bird” substitutes the requisite electronic sub-tune with a lonesome harmonica and an unprecedented bassy swagger. In a word, or two literally, it’s country music.
Rated: 7 passing glimpses of grazing cows along the highway out of 10 endless, yellowed fields.
Swede Jens Lekman performs tonight at the WOW Hall starting at 8 p.m. Lekman, formerly known as Rocky Dennis, is a singer-songwriter who blends melodic guitar with digital samples (think Andrew Bird) to produce a sound that can be experienced here. Heavily influenced by Modern Lovers front-man Jonathan Richmond and the Scottish rockers Belle & Sebastian, Lekman is now on Secretly Canadian and is on tour in support of his epic 2007 album Night Falls Over Kortadela. His performances often take different shapes ranging from just him and his guitar to a cappella to a full choir and string quartet. While I have no insider information to what he’ll pull from his bag tonight (Save for comedian and actress Tig Notaro as an opening act), I’m sure it will be well worth the $15 inside the WOW Hall tonight. If you’re not engulfed in course work, check it.
I’m only twenty for three more days, and the terrible age still plagues me. I got a tip-off about this band playing at Indigo tonight, but I can’t legally attend. After listening to their album last night, I want to hear the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey spit fire. I want it so bad! I’m telling you this because I expect you, if legal and able, to attend this show tonight. I hope to live vicariously through you, because I know you will love the experimental, jazzy madness that will envelope your entire body when you hear it. The Oregonian blog even used the word “soundscape.” Woah. Not yet convinced? Look at this hot picture of the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey wrapped in caged lights. Jazz blazer, jazz hair, jazz light. You have to go.
If you ever get your hands on a flux capacitor-equipped Dolorean, forget the 50s. Set your sights on Atlanta, 2003 and find a Black Lips show. The sound will be kind of shitty – duct tape will do that to a PA – and the Lips’ songs will still be miles away from the dark country and doo-wop infused “flower punk” that landed their latest release, Good Bad Not Evil on just about every top 10 list for 2007. No worries though, you’re not there for the sound. You’re there for the spew—the cocktail of spit and piss that might make its way out of guitarist Cole Alexander’s pursed lips. You’re there for a shower, a little mist of history because it was, after all, these stage antics that earned the Black Lips nationwide notoriety and a spot on the blacklist of damn near every club in the South.
Recently, the Lips have traded in flying fluids and faulty equipment for trans-Atlantic tours and a whole slew of praise from the hippos at Pitchfork. Even without the piss, Rolling Stone anointed them one of the best live acts in the country.
While The Voice won’t compete with The Stone in terms of tits-per-issue, we still scored an interview with Lips’ drummer and co-vocalist, Joe Bradley. Ask him about anything we missed when the Black Lips bring their brand of refined sleaze to the WOW hall on February 6th. OV: Every thing I read about the Black Lips at least brushes on some of your crazier shows of yesteryear. You guys have tamed down the more lewd aspects of your live show. Why?
JB: In the past one of the reasons our shows were so crazy was because we weren’t the greatest musicians around. Sometimes our equipment was a little questionable being held together with duct tape. Back in 2004 and 2005 we didn’t even have cases for our guitars and they would just ride on tope of all the equipment in the back in a big ol’ pile. Most the time we wouldn’t even have money for replacement strings or anything. So to sum it all up, the music wasn’t that great at our live shows so in order to entertain people for the performance aspect of it, like, if the music doesn’t sound that great, it should at least be entertaining to watch, to be a part of. So things would get kind of crazy and we’d get a lot of crowd interaction and a lot of spewing of bodily fluids. But times have changed. We’ve gotten better at playing our instruments. We’re performers as well as musicians but we’re musicians first.
OV: I was really hoping to see you guys spit some piss at the Conan crowd.
JB: They we’re pretty strict and they were already taking a chance having a band like us on there because we weren’t that well known. I mean, we’re still not that well known. They normally have more established acts. Someone put their neck out on the line for us and luckily with as much chance as there is for things to go wrong in a situation like that, everything went great. Even the sound was really cool. It sounded really raw when they broadcast it, which is awesome.
OV: What was Conan like?
JB: Ah, he’s a bad ass. He’s really huge and he even took time to hold this thing called a post-mortem meeting which is just a meeting that happens after each one of his shows. But he took time off of that to come down and take pictures with us and hang out for like tem minutes before he had to go off and take care of business. But he was really nice, and I guess, he’s never out of character. When he came to meet us, it still seemed like he was being a talk show host. He’s just really cool. I heard he was a collector of old rockabilly seven inches.
OV: So you guys were right up his alley, then.
JB: Yeah.
OV: On the new album especially, I get a real country feel. Especially on “How do you tell a child someone has died.”
JB: Oh yeah, that’s like straight up country. That’s more influenced by this whole darker area of country that most people don’t know about. Hank Williams Sr. had an alter ego for all his darker country called Luke the Drifter. There’s a whole compilation of these really dark songs on Crypt records called God Less America instead of God bless America. That’s the type of song that influenced “How do you tell a child someone has died.”
OV: I feel like you guys have a knack for writing about dark, really tragic events without making them come off as melodramatic at all.
JB: It’s good to have that kind of juxtaposition. You listen to Emo music and it’s so sad and heart breaking but the chances are these people haven’t had anything bad happen to them their entire life. Most of the time you’ll find that the most happy go-lucky people are those that have experienced the most misfortune. They’re normally a lot more optimistic about life than everyday people because they’ve been to the depths of despair and they only way to go is up. They’re a little bit more positive about it but there are still very dark undertones to their lives.
OV: Well you guys have certainly been through some shit. What effect did Ben’s death have on you as a band?
JB: It helped us keep on going. We had a tour planned but then he got killed. We only canceled the first date in Chattanooga so we could have his funeral. And since a bunch of our friends from different parts of the country had flown in for the funeral we crowded them all in our van and in our friends, the Carbonas’ van and we all went out on tour together. We are all really close knit and it helped us get through it all. We just did the tour as a three piece and we asked one of our friends, Jack Hines, to move back to Atlanta and play guitar with us. He was on our second album and he was with us through the shittiest times. The times when we were eating out of trash cans and going to homeless shelters for meals, making more money on the street than we would for playing the show the night before. Things have gotten a lot better, a lot more organized, a lot easier.
OV: Did I read somewhere that you guys used to sleep at homeless shelters on tour?
JB: No, we’d normally just kick it in the van and wake up covered in sweat or freezing cold. We’d just go park in a hotel parking lot and sleep there because we couldn’t afford the hotel room. It used to be we’d play some shit town in the middle of nowhere and try our hardest to make friends. We had this thing called vulture mode where you seek out any thing that your body needs like food or shelter. You got no cigarettes? Get an empty pack and bum one from everyone in the room, then you have a full pack of cigarettes. If some dude’s walking out of the restaurant with his girlfriend, you ask him, “Sir, I’m hungry can I please have those leftovers” and he doesn’t want to seem like a chump in front of his date so he’ll give you the leftovers. Basically, you learn how to make friends real quick so you can stay at their place, maybe take a shower. One particular instance in Bowling Green, OH, I met this guy and he was like, “You can stay at my house but I don’t anything good to eat.” We’re like, “That’s fine.” And the next morning he brought us donuts and a two-liter of Coca-Cola for breakfast.
OV: Well you guys have come along way from scrounging leftovers. You’ve got features in Rolling Stone, Spin, Pitchfork, and I think even the New York Time called you the hardest working band at South By Southwest.
JB: That’s right. They did a video segment about us, it’s up on the internet somewhere. We’ve got a good work ethic and he know no one else is going to do the hard work for us. Plus it’s fun. It’s our job, as well as our life. Nothing’s better than working for yourself.
OV: Can you pinpoint a moment when you were like, “Wow, we’re kind of a big deal?”
JB: The turning point was October of like 2005. There was a point where we had been in Europe for four months—we did a two week tour then traveled for 6 weeks and then we did a full two month tour. After we got back to the states we noticed a real difference. Things have been rolling ever since.
OV: No joke. You guys are even going to be in a couple movies. Tell me about “Let it Be.”
JB: We’re supposed to be the stars in that movie. It’s your run of the mill movie about a do-it-yourself band roughly based off this band called the Altar Boys that existed in the early 1980s based out of New York. The guys who wrote the script we’re actually in that band so they wrote it based on their own experience. It’s basically the ups and downs of being in a band. The band sees a little bit of success and it all plays out from there. They want us to write some songs for the movie too. It should be an interesting experience. We’re supposed to start shooting on June 1st. Most of it’s going to be shot in Buford, SC and Savannah ’cause it’s a lot cheaper to shoot there. And all of the outside shots that are supposed to be New York are going to be shot in New York. It’ll be a nice break from touring. Before that we’ve still got to do a full U.S. tour and a full European tour and a full U.K. tour so we got our work cut out for us.
OV: Any nervousness about having to act?
JB: Nah. I mean people know we’re not actors so the expectations are low. We don’t have to do that great of a job. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to try. It just means we don’t have to feel terribly depressed if our acting is really bad. Look at the Ramones who did “Rock and Roll High School.” They were terrible, especially Dee Dee and he only had one line. Supposedly they made him do it 70 times.
OV: You guys are also going to be featured in a documentary on the Atlanta music scene.
JB: Yeah, it’s called “We Fun.”
OV: Atlanta’s just chock full of good bands right now.
JB: There’s a good punk scene there right now. The Carbonas are excellent, the 4th Ward Daggers, the Frantic, the Coat hangers—bands that are determined to get out there and tour no matter how detrimental it might be to their finances. That’s what we need to see. That’s what we’d do in the beginning. We’d save up for six weeks to go on tour for 12 days, lose all our money then come back and work again. Record labels, especially nowadays, are reluctant to put money into any band that hasn’t done something for themselves.
OV: It’s pretty collaborative down there, right? You and Jared and Cole are in a band with some of the guys from Deerhunter called the Spooks.
JB: Yeah, there’s also a couple of other dudes from different bands—it’s a whole collective and it’s a changing cast of characters. It’s a fun project we do when we’re all in town together. We’re almost done recording an album that should have been out four years ago.
OV: I hate the question “What does it sound like?” but, what does it sound like?
JB: It’s kind of spooky. We’ve got two Theremin players a keyboard player and it’s just real spooky rock. I think there’s some dark metal influence and some psychedelic and some noise. It’s a real hodgepodge, mish-mash group of people coming together and making music.
OV: When can I hear it?
JB: Hopefully it will be out sometime in the next few months. It just depends on how much money Die Slaughterhaus (Records) has.
OV: You guys recorded your live album in Tijuana. Is there a particular reason you chose that venue?
JB: You see live albums all the time: “Live from Atlanta” or “Live from Minneappolis” and that just seems really boring. We wanted it to be kind of an event so we worked with Vice and got some corporate sponsorship to help pay for the expenses. They got a shitload of Tecate and Tequila and it was all free. We just tried to make it the most debaucherous experience possible it being in Tijuana and everything.
OV: What was the club and the crowd like?
JB: The club was this old dance hall, just a big open room and the stage was like six inches off the ground in the center of the room so while we were playing we were surrounded by people who were constantly intruding onto the stage and at some point we had to fight them off to get them off stage so we could actually play.
OV: You guys are going to be tour through March. Do you hang out when you’re not touring?
JB: With each other?
OV: Yeah.
JB: No, we usually don’t see each other. I mean, we’re with each other 24 hours a day, nine months out of the year. We all like each other but it’s good to have time apart. It’s good to get a little breathing room.
OV: You guys have toured everywhere. Is there any place that really sticks out?
JB: It all kind of blurs together. Going to Israel and the West Bank was awesome. Playing on the street for all those Palestinians that was pretty fun. We really didn’t know what to expect, like if we were going to endanger ourselves by doing that. We rented some acoustic guitars and went over to the West Bank and found a decent looking square to set up in and just started playing. One of the shopkeepers saw we were setting up and he took me up to his shop and he was going to give me this little finger drum but then he told me he hadn’t had a sale in two days so I just ended up buying it from him. But it all went really well and after we played this other shopkeeper invited us in and served us this really good mint tea. The Palestinians were really welcoming. We weren’t there on a political journey or anything. We were just there to play music.
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