Dejan

he sang some songs in a different way,after all these shows is kinda boring if you don't make some little changes.

Six weeks before the October release of Phrazes for the Young, Julian Casablancas' wonderfully familiar (that voice!) and far-out (those synths!) solo debut, the erstwhile Strokes frontman is sitting in his publicist's downtown Manhattan office, gently disagreeing with the notion that he's been keeping a low profile. "I've been around," he mumbles, as elegantly disheveled as you remember, his shampoo-proof brown hair, untied white Nikes, and black trench coat all displaying grimy variations on their original colors. "I know it may seem like I've been quiet, but I've been busy. I'm happy to feed the illusion that I'm a lazy recluse." Though the singer didn't quite go full Garbo after the 2006 release of the band's last effort, the underwhelming First Impressions of Earth, his scant output (a Converse commercial, a couple of guest vocal spots) appears positively stingy when compared to his fellow Strokes' fecundity. But to hear the 31-year-old tell it, the last few years have been full of hard work, as he's struggled to find a fresh, radio-ready sound for Phrazes and get a new Strokes album off the ground, all while maintaining his sanity and sobriety. "The music business is a pretty shallow game," Casablancas says. "But I've learned how to get what I want from it." Yeah, he's been around. Welcome back to the machine. Are you glad to be doing this kind of stuff again? It depends on the hour. I go through long periods of excitement and shorter ones of anxiety. I guess I just hope that what I'm doing is good. Some of the synth-based songs on Phrazes will sound pretty strange to Strokes fans. Was the idea to surprise people? To be totally honest, I would've gone weirder with the music, but I wanted to be smart. I didn't want people to say, "Okay, this is his weird abstract thing," and dismiss the album. I worked too hard on it for that to happen. Are you aiming at a pop hit? The choruses of songs like "11th Dimension" and "Out of the Blue" wouldn't sound out of place in the Top 40. It was nice to just try stuff -- "Ludlow St." is weirdly futuristic and old-timey and never would've fit with the Strokes. But it can be hard to experiment when you're in a band. You finish a song and someone will say you have to change it. With Phrazes, I wanted to be crazy original and bridge the gap between traditional music and modern music. And if that means there are a lot of big choruses, then so be it. If the choice is between doing something supercool and having no one hear it and doing something equally cool and tricking people into putting it on the radio, I don't think the second option is some big sellout. Is the idea of selling out or not the kind of thing that motivates you? I don't know. I don't have to dig very deep for motivation. It's not like I've won a bunch of Grammys. It's funny -- I don't think people even understand what I did with the Strokes. What don't they understand? I think people were like, "Oh, he just sings. Does he play an instrument?" The challenges I'm facing with this album are real. I could fail miserably. I could run out of money. It's not like the band sold ten million records. Motivation is not an issue. What were you listening to when you were making the album? I actually made a mix CD of songs that I wanted the album to sound like. Thom Yorke's "Atoms for Peace" was on there. "Bohemian Rhapsody." Some '80s synth weirdness. "Beat It." Mostly it was just mega-hit songs. That was the vibe I was going for. What did those songs teach you? That it's a lot harder to make a keyboard sound not-cheesy than a guitar. The other Strokes released new music before you did. It was easy to interpret that productivity as the result of their feeling free. Why did you wait so long? Songwriting is hard -- it's so easy to fall into the same traps. It's not like I wake up and songs flow out of me. The timing was tricky, too: It took me at least six months to recuperate from the last Strokes tour. The problem with touring isn't the traveling and the shows, it's the vegetal state you get into. The thing I like most about this whole career is coming up with ideas, and the road robs you of the chance to do that. A couple of years isn't a long time if you have to rebuild completely. What was your original vision for the Strokes? I realize now, my idea was always to take undergroundish, cool music and make it mainstream. That was my goal, and we haven't achieved it. We got to the top of the underground, but we never got as big as Green Day or Creed or any of the bands we were supposed to be replacing in 2001. So, in my mind, here's still a step to take. Do you think you still have the opportunity to take that step? Has the culture moved on? I hope we can do it. But who knows? I spent two years writing Strokes songs and waiting for a new album to happen before I realized that the band as a unit was not ready to record. What was the problem? I don't know. I don't want to get into it. It's all circumstance. That's often true, though, isn't it? Didn't the band benefit early on from being in the right place at the right time? People always ask me what it was like to be in that whirlwind eight years ago. I guess everything felt very exaggerated at the time -- whether it was how big we actually were or whether I was a control-freak maniac or whatever. But I drank a lot back then. I don't even remember that time so well. Really? It was that bad? [Laughs] Partly. I know it didn't feel like success happened that fast. We sucked for years. I sucked for years. It wasn't like we played the Tonight Show and suddenly were on the cover of magazines and winning Grammys and selling millions of records. We played shows for 60 people, then 100, then more. Then we toured. It was always incremental enough that I never felt like I forgot who I was. Did that come later? It's embarrassing to admit, but yeah, especially when Is This It started to get attention, that kind of thing probably happened. Egomania takes over. We felt like we had to walk into a room and kick a able over. It's like in conversation, if you make a joke and someone laughs, you tell another joke. Was drinking a result of that, too? Did you feel like you had to play the role of the wasted rock star? Read Julian's answer, plus loads more in the Nov. 2009 issue of SPIN, on newsstands now.

his voice was pretty good to me

sorry but....THEY ARE.

I don't know how many of y'all know this,but the "first press" of the album comes with a special package with some fantastic 'goodies':for only 19 euro i've bought the album along with a live cd+live concert dvd. ITS A FUCKIN AMAZING DEAL

They still the best live band in the world,NOBODY can fuck with them and NOBODY can top and surpass them...not even come close.

the live version of STAR STAR on the swell season website is taken from a live album or do y'all think its just available to listen for the website only ?

WHERE ?

AWESOME SHOW,THEY STILL THE BEST BAND AROUND. NOBODY CAN FUCK WITH THEIR LIVE SHOWS,THEY ARE FUCKIN GOATS

YES

1)you are not a mod/admin 2)the search function is messed up 3)them crooked vultures are not listed in "the bands" thread 4)see the points above and shut the fuck up

Them Crooked Vultures album out November 17 THEM CROOKED VULTURESSELF-TITLED DEBUT ALBUM OUT NOVEMBER 17Them Crooked Vultures--a/k/a Dave Grohl, Joshua Homme and John Paul Jones--has confirmed November 17 as the release date of its eponymous debut album in the United States and Canada on DGC/Interscope Records.The self-produced 13-song record will feature the debut of the studio versions of the material Them Crooked Vultures unveiled at its August 9 debut at Chicago's Cabaret Metro and played on a first series of shows throughout a handful of UK and European cities and portions of the eastern U.S., wrapping up with an October 15 appearance at New York's Roseland Ballroom.Additional shows are being announced in the wake of the album's release, including but not necessarily limited to December dates in the UK and Europe and a January trip to Australia and New Zealand. The complete track listing of Them Crooked Vultures is as follows:No One Loves Me & Neither Do IMind Eraser, No ChaserNew Fang Dead End Friends Elephants Scumbag Blues BandoliersReptilesInterlude With LudesWarsaw or The First Breath You Take After You Give UpCaliguloveGunmanSpinning In DaffodilsFor further information, updates, dates, etc., check back at http://www.themcrookedvultures.com/ http://interscope.com/artist/news/default.aspx?nid=23363&aid=1146

THERE IS ALREADY A FUCKIN THREAD ABOUT IT

The Big Pink "A Brief History of Love" There's something ultimate about London's The Big Pink. It's as though they've compressed everything that's great about post-war music into their sound. They're as accessible as a pop group, with almost folkishly warm melodies, the spiritual quality of soul and gospel, the rhythmic propulsion of rave, the white noise of punk, the glitchy textures of electronica, and the heavy drones of your favourite New York rock bands past and present. http://musicfromthebigpink.com/ http://www.myspace.com/musicfromthebigpink

The XX [don't sleep on this new band] he xx arrive with their debut album xx - a whole new sound of love, loss and longing. Gingerly dodging the storm cloud of hype hysteria that plagues seemingly every other new buzz act of the moment, Romy Madley Croft, Oliver Sim, Baria Qureshi and Jamie Smith are edging into our hearts. Their unique make-up is an inadvertent second nature marriage of 2009's urban/guitar tribes, in one corner fluttering new wave indebted reverberation, in the other, plumes of post-dubstep sub-bass and figuratively, their defining core of rich R&B vocal textures. If it all reads on paper like some potentially post-modern hotchpotch, then this makes their timeless results all the more alluring. The enveloping vocal partnership of Romy and Oliver is one that would've dropped-jaws in any decade this century, and set amidst a shivering soundscape of beats and plucks, their bedroom-reared concrete-soul is being justly heralded as the UK's most original and treasured alt-pop artifact of late. In an effort not to draw too much distance from the DIY aesthetic of their early demos, which were recorded in their bedrooms, they recorded their debut album xx under no one's watch, other than engineer Rodaidh McDonald, at XL Recordings' west London in-house studio. The result a wash of sexy, coy, cold and sad rhythms and melodies the likes of Robert Smith, Massive Attack and The Streets. 1 Intro 2 VCR 3 Crystalised 4 Islands 5 Heart Skipped A Beat 6 Fantasy 7 Shelter 8 Basic Space 9 Infinity 10 Night Time 11 Stars http://thexx.info/ http://www.myspace.com/thexx

who's the biatch in that pic ? looks like she wanted to make out with him in public

I WANT A NEW ALBUM FROM THE FRAMES! the swell season is not that good

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS3NWJcopZQ]YouTube - Turboweekend - Something or Nothing[/ame] http://www.turboweekend.com/ http://www.myspace.com/turboweekend

This song is so damn beautiful i'm speechless [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mys1aCquCP8]YouTube - ? M. Ward - Post-War[/ame]

Idlewild are back with a new album! (Post Electric Blues) The first single "Singers & Writers" is awesome,check it out! http://www.myspace.com/idlewild

link to the full album streaming on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Hope-Sandoval-&-the-Warm-Inventions/e/B00197GKES The delicious dichotomy between darkness and light, the space between inspiration and the manifestation of thought, is where Hope Sandoval’s music and lyrics catch fire. Through The Devil Softly, her second album with Warm Inventions partner Colm Ó Cíosóig (My Bloody Valentine), is a rich brocade of pastoral meditations that resonate with the kind of restrained yet provocative intimacy that only these two artists can provide. Well known for their reticence in the media, they’ve once again chosen to pour out their hearts and minds on record. It’s been eight years since the release of the critically acclaimed Bavarian Fruit Bread, but Colm and Hope aren’t ones to adhere to traditional timetables and conventions. “Time is vibrations for us,” he says. “We didn’t feel like [this album] was ready until it was ready.” In the meantime, however, neither artist has been creatively idle. Hope has collaborated with Devendra Banhart, Air, Bert Jansch, Death In Vegas, and is due to appear on Massive Attack’s forthcoming album. And yes, a new Mazzy Star record is on the horizon. (“It’s almost finished,” says Hope, “but when it will be coming out, I don’t know.”) Meanwhile, 2009 saw the reunion of My Bloody Valentine for a select group of live shows, kicking off with an incendiary performance at this year’s Coachella Festival. “It’s like the opposite ends of the spectrum,” says Ó Cíosóig of the difference between MBV and his work with Sandoval. “I play very held back, but there’s a tension to it.” Written and recorded over the past two years in both Northern California and the Wicklow Mountains of southeast Ireland, Through The Devil Softly sees Sandoval and Ó Cíosóig sharing production and engineering credits, with Dave Trumfio (Wilco, The Rentals) and Jim Putnam of the Radar Brothers assisting in the mix. Other guests of note include Mazzy Star keyboardist Suki Ewers and cellist Ji Young Moon, who provides the solo on the sublime “Thinking Like That.” But the album’s most broad brush addition comes courtesy of Ireland’s Dirt Blue Gene, the group who tracked the recordings with Sandoval and Ó Cíosóig, and will accompany them on their upcoming tour. While the simplicity of “Lady Jessica and Sam” and the bucolic beauty of “Fall Aside” represent one facet of the record, Dirt Blue Gene help inject an undulating, sultry swagger into songs like “Trouble” and “For The Rest Of Your Life” that compliments the album’s more delicate passages. Elsewhere, autoharps, vibraphones, slide guitars, and crystalline bell chimes flicker across the tape heads like shadows, used so sparingly at times that their sound is barely audible above Hope’s hushed inflection. On “There’s A Willow,” her verses are carried on the back of a simple, singular cymbal, cresting and falling like ocean waves. Meandering guitar and harmonica parts waltz together like old lovers, while the distant knocking of a solitary woodblock and the tapping of a tom provide the only cadence. “I merely standing on holes in the ground. If I fall, well they’ll never know I’m found,” she coos on “Banchard.” Later she muses, “I play death in the space of my life. That’s how I feel, and I never think it twice,” and you’re left to wonder if she’s ruminating on her own taciturn nature. As with the album’s title, the words are not there to be explained. They’re to be felt and interpreted. The mystery is magnetic. “We just make music for ourselves,” says Colm. “We don’t really pay attention to what’s going on in the big world when it comes to pop music or anything.” Anyone whose seen Sandoval perform live, either with Mazzy Star or the Warm Inventions, can attest to that intimacy. Often shrouded in low light, she rarely communicates with the crowd outside the boundaries of a song. “I go into myself, close myself off,” says Hope of her relationship with audiences. “But I do know that they’re there.” Rife with lush sonics and textures, Through The Devil Softly is a deliberate body of work that gently solicits your patience, and like the cover photograph, it’s creators reveal very little so that the art can reveal so much. http://www.hopesandoval.com/home.shtml http://www.myspace.com/hopesandovalthewarminventions THIS ALBUM IS A WONDERFUL TRIP,THANKS TO RECORDS LIKE THIS ONE I STILL HAVE FAITH IN MUSIC

there are a lot of new projects about to be released in the next months....

but is not the only one,but several difficult drum parts in all their records. I LOVE THIS BAND

its not a NORMAL cemetery...

the most difficult i think is Introducin palace players