Pages tagged “the raveonettes”

The Raveonettes have announced a handful of summer tour dates, as well as a sibling lineup swap worthy of The Parent Trap.

Minimalist Danish duo maintains its irresistibly twisted ways

Has the element of danger once so vital to rock ’n roll’s beating heart become something of a quaint cliche? Elvis’ ascendency was pure, forbidden, hip-shake sex. The Stones—especially when compared to their scrubbed-up moptop contemporaries from Liverpool—felt vaguely threatening and dirty to a suitably appalled Middle England. Guns N’ Roses made a virtue of the squalor from which they crawled. Hell, the entire punk ethos—even Nirvana’s version, located more than a decade after the initial threat was detected and snuffed out—was essentially born in a cesspool. Embedded somewhere in our deepest subconscious lies the equation “menace + mindless indulgence/noise = rawk.” So how best to convey the essential qualities of this algorithm in a medium that has been there, done that?

Three albums deep in their latterday foray into this well-trodden world of lasciviousness and licentiousness, The Raveonettes can now be added to this list. The Danish duo—Sune Rose Wagner and his aluminum (haired) foil, Sharin Foo—aren’t exactly today’s Pete Doherty or Amy Winehouse, consuming their way into rehab and/or jail cells and then letting their art tell the same ol’ tawdry tale. But the sonically implied sordidness associated with their music is hard to miss, and the group’s latest release, Lust Lust Lust, rubs their short list of musical tricks (creepy guy/girl unison vocals, a flood of reverb spilling over Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, lyrics that leave more to your filthy little imagination than they typically spell out) together like dry sticks and makes fire in the process.

On 2005’s Pretty in Black, The Raveonettes spent an entire record attempting to break out of their selfimposed Jesus and Mary Chain/Velvet Underground minimalist penalty box with only occasionally effective results, drafting the Velvets’ Mo Tucker and Suicide’s Martin Rev for percussive cameos but never managing to push past the “this album is all songs in the key of B-flat minor” purism that characterized their earliest work. Indeed, the constraints the band imposed on itself early in its career created an almost inevitable critical backlash— comments such as “holy shit, I think my gimmick lobe just ruptured” were typical of a certain reaction to their single-minded mashup of Motown girlgroup affinities and JAMC wall-offeedback solos.

Now signed to a new label, Vice (which includes young-turk stablemates such as Justice, Chromeo, Black Lips and Bloc Party), The Raveonettes are once again back to making the most of just enough. The album’s lead track, “Aly, Walk With Me,” sounds like the soundtrack to a lost Quentin Tarantino noir-scape, flaunting a slinky urban beat and an ear-damaging feedback solo worthy of the Mary Chain’s Reid brothers while essaying wasted days and wasted nights in soul-corrupting American burgs such as Portland, Ore., and New York City. “You Want the Candy” is the pair’s updated take on the Mary Chain’s “Some Candy Talking” (but The Raveonettes’ “dirty treats” are all about molten sex vs. a spoonful of liquid sin), while tracks such as “Lust” (“I fell out of heaven to be with you in hell / My sin’s not quite ‘Seven,’ nothing much to tell”) and “With My Eyes Closed” (“I close my eyes to urge you to leave here … it was never meant to be familiar”) mark the duo as the new Mazzy Star: chilly, emotionally distant and beautifully unavailable. Like David Roback before him, Wagner is bent on seducing the ears with that uniquely Paisley Underground concoction— drowsy, drifting vocals marked with a post-modern ennui, insanely echoed surf-guitars that chime as often as they shred, and a darkly dazzling Doors-meet-the-Velvets vibe that teeters perilously between shamanistic obsession and drug-induced trance.

“Hallucinations” sums up the entirety of The Raveonettes’ value proposition: the notion that there is beauty in simplicity, depth in density. The drum part consists of a sparsely played snare line, while the guitars are either fuzzy down below (where the chords are) or piercing up above (where the solo lines reside)—a sweet/sour combination that creates just enough tension to maintain interest over the course of the song’s three-minute run time. The vocals are so hazy there’s almost a soporific quality about them. Pitting garage-rock tactics against Motown strategy, Lust Lust Lust is my kinda vice.

Attention synesthetes: The Gap will theoretically be raising public awareness of your disorder—as well as the store's brightly-hued spring and summer collections—this month with the upcoming "Sound of Color" promotion featuring new songs by Dntel, The Raveonettes, Swizz Beatz, Marié Digby and The Blakes.

Gap gave each band/artist a color and asked them to work their wizardry, resulting in "Turning Red" (Dntel), "Black and White" (The Raveonettes), "Candy Paint" (Swizz Beatz, for green), "Magic" (The Blakes, for blue) and "Yellow" (Marié Digby).

Additionally, in a move that begs the question, "How much money are they spending on this promotion, anyway, and shouldn't they be devoting some of it to certain other issues that have plagued the company as of late?", each song has been passed along to a different "cutting-edge director" for production of a 60-to-90-second video accompaniment (hey, that's the perfect length for a commercial!).

Although the sound-of-color idea has been used before as a marketing tool, Gap hopes that the kids today will feed sales by helping the "Sound of Color" promotion turn viral. After the website goes live on Friday (Feb. 15), anyone can watch, listen to, or download the songs and videos for 30 days, after which time the ownership of the songs transfers back to the artists. For now, watch the artists discuss their contributions in videos posted on the site of Rehab, the multimedia artist Gap collaborated with to dream up "Sound of Color."

The Gap's dabbled in color-song-related promotion before, notably with this 1999 "Everybody in Cords" commercial featuring a roomful of chillaxed people singing Donovan's "Mellow Yellow" (including Phantom Planet lead singer Alex Greenwald and, at the very end, Rashida Jones!):

Related links:
SoundOfColor.com
Youtube: Donovan performs "Colours" live in 1965
Youtube: Hot Chip's "Colours" video

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Having been available in the U.K. since November, on Feb. 19, The Raveonettes' highly-anticipated new record, Lust, Lust, Lust, will hit U.S. stores via Vice Records. Making up for the delay, the band will be touring state side for a while.

The Danish duo will start its North American trek on Jan. 19 in N.Y.C.

Dates:

January
19 - New York, N.Y. @ Terminal 5

February
29 - San Diego, Calif. @ The Casbah

March
1 - Pomona, Calif. @ Glasshouse
2 - Costa Mesa, Calif. @ Detroit Bar
4 - Los Angeles, Calif. @ El Rey Theatre
5 - San Francisco, Calif. @ The Independent
7 - Portland, Ore. @ Doug Fir Lounge
8 - Vancouver, British Columbia@ The Plaza Niteclub
9 - Seattle, Wash. @ Neumos
12-16 - Austin, Texas @ SXSW
17 - Minneapolis, Minn. @ 7th Street Entry
18 - Chicago, Ill. @ Double Door
19 - Detroit, Mich. @ Magic Stick
21 - Toronto, Ontario @ Opera House
22 - Montreal, Quebec @ Les Saint
23 - Hoboken, N.J. @ Maxwell's
24 - Boston, Mass. @ Paradise Rock Club
27 - Philadelphia, Pa. @ Johnny Brenda's
28 - Baltimore, Md. @ The Ottobar
29 - Washington, D.C. @ Black Cat

Related links:
TheRaveonettes.com
The Raveonettes on MySpace
Paste: Raving on with the Raveonettes

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

While slabs of pork smoke on a huge barbecue, ex-Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha wanders around bombed out of his platinum-haired skull, ranting about vintage automobiles to anyone who’ll listen. A shirtless, wolf-hairy Har Mar Superstar spins vinyl poolside while two of his acolytes dance in front of him. And the gay/straight Mutt and Jeff duo Junior Senior roams the grounds, chatting up anyone with an exotic accent.

From their umbrella-tabled perch on the hillside of this Austin, Texas, Elks Lodge, Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner survey the surreal scene—another chichi private party at this year’s bustling SXSW music festival—and grin in debauched delight. Their Copenhagen combo The Raveonettes lives for such twisted affairs, sighs the raven-haired, ebony-clad Wagner, who’d spun a few Cramps-sinister platters himself before surrendering the turntables to Har Mar. In fact, Wagner adds, he recently relocated to bustling New York City, mainly for its captivating aura of decadence. It’s exciting, he says, because noir-ish urban scenes—like the late-night action in Taxi Driver—just look good.

Hence the funereal title of The Raveonettes’ latest, Pretty In Black, a flashlight tour through the dankest catacombs of vintage American R&B, surf and rockabilly, complete with seedy sonnets about groupies (“Love In A Trashcan”), somnambulism (“Sleepwalking”), homelessness (“Seductress Of Bums”), suicidal romance (“Here Comes Mary”) and trailer-trash spousal abuse (“Red Tan”).

When he penned the set, Wagner confesses, “I was reading a lot of these tacky juvenile-delinquent novels from the ’50s, like Jailbait and Gang Girl—they were really entertaining, and all about the nice girl who falls in love with a gang leader while everyone disapproves.” He pauses to rub his eyes and slide even deeper into the umbrella’s protective shadow. “I’m sorry—I just don’t function that well during the daylight. It’s very hard for me to stay focused.”

The statuesque blonde Foo—outfitted in an Austin-appropriate Western shirt, skin-tight miniskirt and cowboy boots—takes over the tale. Sure, she says, The Raveonettes stunned fans with their first two albums Whip It On and Chain Gang Of Love, which blended sunny Shangri-Las melodies with grim Jesus And Mary Chain feedback. “But we thought of those records as appetizers, as just the beginning,” she explains.

And instead of layering her voice in tandem with Wagner’s, this time around she trills lead on several Richard Gottehrer-produced tracks, including a techno-pop cover of “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “Ode To L.A.,” a duet with the legendary Ronnie Spector. Other top-flight guests include Velvet Underground drummer Mo Tucker and original Suicide keyboardist Martin Rev.

“At ?rst, we were afraid that we’d get all disillusioned, meeting such idols,” Foo sighs. “But we were really lucky—we met three amazing people, and we love them even more now. And it just feels so right to have them on the album. Now, stylistically, we can go anywhere—we’ve opened all the doors for ourselves, and that’s a very liberating feeling.”

Wagner doesn’t understand why more bands—once they establish some street cred—don’t recruit their idols or work to expand stylistic horizons. “With this album, I couldn’t wait to do something different, to use my influences in a different way,” concludes the vintage-rock enthusiast. “That was the whole idea about it. Remember how the second Strokes album was sorta the same as the first album? There were some good songs on it, but nothing was really happening. I just don’t wanna fall into that trap. The Raveonettes are capable of doing so much stuff, so I think we should just do it, y’know?”

A mixture of soft yellow and red light illuminates women in flapper dresses and feather boas as they lean over the bar tipping back drinks and squeezing the biceps of Zoot-suited men waiting in line for the blackjack table. Some magician stops me with a deck of cards, a small crowd gathers around, and he performs his sleight of hand with unsettling precision.

Through the entryway and past the stairs, the club’s stage is framed by red velvet drapes stretching from floor to ceiling. Circa-1920s Camel cigarette posters line the walls, a fitting aesthetic for this corporate-sponsored show. Screen projections of Dashiell Hammett dames smoking long cigarettes flicker across the plaster-edged walls. The crowd whoops and howls as The Raveonettes pick up their instruments and the three girls onstage finish a burlesque routine. I can’t tell which event is inspiring the poshly dressed crowd’s hearty cheers.

Amidst a cloud of fuzzed-out distortion and pounding toms emerge the voices of guitarist Sune Rose Wagner and bassist Sharin Foo. Their vocals, clamped firmly together, penetrate the treble-heavy guitar fog, forming an androgynous partnership of harmony and melody. The band works through its set of mostly three-minute songs with ease and fluidity and, gradually, people start dancing, only stopping when the burlesque girls return to the stage—a ploy no doubt instigated by the tour’s creative director. Foo holds back laughter while a J-Lo lookalike “shakes it” violently in front of her. But The Raveonettes don’t need gimmickry to entertain; the show improves each time the dancers come and go.

The Raveonettes inspire belief through their winning, understated stage presence. They banter little between songs, their bodies convulsing slightly during breakdowns. The band honeys the crowd with its driving rhythms and guitar sounds, reminiscent of California garages and the bands that rocked them in the ’60s. But this is no rip-off routine. It’s still authentic and fresh; drummer Jakob Hoyer sporting a PowerBook at his side, playing loops of clapping hands, retro synths and electronic textures.

I look around at the usual street-beaten Chuck Taylors and vintage T-shirts and there aren’t many; for whatever reason, the usual crowd of indie-rock kids stayed home or checked out some other show. Midtown darlings in dressing-room-fresh club wear wave Heinekens and cigarettes like pom-poms as the girls once again pick up their stockings and run offstage. It’s debatable how many people know the band’s music, and how many are simply regulars of the club’s swanky parties. In the end it doesn’t really matter.

The band appears to feel out-of-place but still manages to get the crowd into it, making several new fans, including the two men on the dance floor busting out moves from the latest Usher video. The Raveonettes are not the main event here and I leave when they finish their set—-my way of saying, “They jolly well should’ve been.”