by Miné Salkin | Oct 6, 2011 | interviews, live action, news, song of the day, technology, television, Uncategorized
FOR SEVEN STREETS MAGAZINE
Rhodes is a musical talent you may not have heard of until recently. The five-piece indie rock outfit played a stellar set at Mello Mello on Friday 30th September to finish off a week-long national tour, with ear-ringingly impressive results. They just released an EP with Liverpool’s original E.D.i.L.S. Records alongside the talents of Moonlit Sailor and Elk, and are now heading back into the shadows of songwriting.
Built on lifelong friendships, the group’s synergy onstage truly brings this sentiment alive. Newly reunited with their singer, Alan Croft, who spent the past year on the West Coast of British Columbia, the group rocked out together and delivered one of the most blisteringly loud gigs I’ve experienced. In fact, two days later, the ears are still ringing.
Drummer Michael Davies, despite his off-stage reserve, lets loose on his kit and brings to mind the mathematical side of his craft, with technical beats and jams. Bassist Jon Papavasiliou performs fluidly and dynamically on his chosen weapon, and with the half Greek connotation it’s hard to put Poseidon out of your mind when you’re watching him perform. Guitarists Aaron Noroozi and Michael Connor might have a bit of rivalry going on, staunchly placed on opposite sides of the stage, but the melding of their distorted, melodic sounds is an act of love.
Rhodes is a band that, despite their complex rhythms and math-rock tendencies, they manage to offset the brainy aspects of music writing by fleshing out natural sounds and rich harmonies. Caught somewhere between the brainy tendencies of Foals, and the catchiness of Two Door Cinema Club, their polished sound is bound to take these boys far.
by Miné Salkin | Sep 22, 2011 | interviews, live action, news, song of the day, technology, television, Uncategorized
FOR SEVEN STREETS
It’s unarguable that Liverpool is a stunning creative playground. Backed by a rich history of rebellion and revolution, it’s a hub of music and culture that continues to influence and inspire. Dismembered Empire, an insurrectionary multimedia cabaret, pushes this sentiment to the extremes of the steampunk style— by putting forth the tantilising question—what if Liverpool was the centre for world trade and economic power in the modern age?
The interactive mixed arts and technology project will take place in the mystifying locale of the Williamson Tunnels October 7-8th. Descending into the labyrinth of the tunnels, the audience will be immersed into an alternate version of Liverpool, inhabited by sinister scientists, revolution, bizarro machines and strange music.
Using the steampunk style, a super playful and expressive aesthetic, DE blurs the line bewteen reality and imagination, the nefarious and the benign. Using elements of both real and imagined history, the performance plays out as the ripping apart of two parallel worlds, driven by tensions between industrial mavericks Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla during the Industrial Era.
It’s the brainchild of Jennifer Catterall, an evolutionary biologist with a penchant for theatre and music composition. “DE is all about re-imagining ourselves and thinking, how could we have done something different with our science and technology. It’s all about seeing things from a different point of view.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyzrT24nIrI&feature=related]
Dismembered Empire
7th – 8th of October, 7pm at the Williamson Tunnels
For more information, visit http://dismemberedempire.org.uk/
by Miné Salkin | Aug 28, 2011 | live action, news
Bido Lito Social Club
August 25th 2011 @The Shipping Forecast, Liverpool
With The Thespians, Cold Shoulder and Neville Skelly
[slideshow]
by Miné Salkin | May 5, 2011 | albums, news
This video is one of the strangest I’ve seen in a very long while, but the song is unexpectedly amazing.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXVcP1lifwE]
by Miné Salkin | Feb 4, 2011 | news
FOR THE LIVERPOOL ECHO MUSIC BLOG
After one month of delving into my newest musical obsession, I read the shocking news that two of that Paramore‘s original band mates were calling it quits. For many people including myself, it was a disappointing blow to hear that the Tennessee rock outfit was moving on from their original artistic formula, but fortunately, their feisty attitude and revolutionary fervour is not entirely dissolving.
In an interview with MTV last Wednesday, ex-Paramore guitarist Josh Farro announced that he’s formed another group. His new band, Novel American, is a bit of a departure from the raucous vivacity of Paramore—leading more along the lines of the sounds of Jimmy Eat World, Radiohead and Sigur Ros with an emphasis on sprawling rock instrumentalisation.
Comprised of members Van Beasley, Tyler Ward and Ryan Clark, formerly of Nashville act Cecil Adora, Novel American is a determined movement away from Paramore and is shaping up to be a promising musical effort. Nothing has been announced by Zac, Josh’s brother, former Paramore drummer who also left in December 2010.
According to Paramore vocalist Hayley Williams, the reason for the split is a complex one. Many rumours erupted online insinuating that Williams had essentially taken over the band. In an interview earlier this month, Williams noted that her relationship with Farro had been an emotionally strained one. “It was really hard, because we were friends, and then going through a break-up and going through any kind of tension as a band really affected all the lyrics. There are a lot of specifics that I pulled from my experience with just feeling like my face was underneath a boot all the time,” she told OK Magazine.
For Farro, the lines of resentment went much further than that, with a detailed and angry blog post explaining how Williams changed the meaning of their music from nearly the very start of their career, and how Paramore evolved over seven years into something he no longer felt connected to. He wrote “[Zac and I] fought her about how her lyrics misrepresented our band and what we stood for, but in the end she got her way. Instead of fighting her any longer, we decided to just roll over and let it go.”
Farro is focusing all of his attention on Novel American now.
“I think we just disagree on a lot of things, and that’s OK,” he told MTV. “I just wish them the best in the future, and I really don’t want to make it this huge drama thing, because then it becomes this huge war, and I don’t want to dwell on that.”
by Miné Salkin | Jan 28, 2011 | news
Another milestone. Thanks everybody.
