B.R.M.C. NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES

BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB
NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES

SEPTEMBER
12 - Great American Concert Hall, San Francisco, CA
13 - Doug Fir, Portland, OR
14 - Neumos, Seattle, WA
16 - Club Sound, Salt Lake City, UT
17 - Bluebird Theatre, Denver, CO
19 - Fine Line Music Cafe, Minneapolis, MN
20 - Metro, Chicago, IL
21 - St. Andrews, Detroit MI
22 - Newport, Columbus, OH
24 - Phoenix, Toronto, ONT
26 - Irving Plaza, New York City, NY
27 - Paradise, Boston, MA
28 - 930 Club, Washington, DC
30 - The Loft, Atlanta, GA

OCTOBER
2 - The Parish, Austin, TX
3 - Merdian, Houston, TX
4 - Trees, Dallas, TX
6 - Clubhouse, Phoenix, AZ
7 - Brick By Brick, San Diego, CA
8 - Henry Fonda Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
9 - Glasshouse, Pomona, CA

Mark Gardener of Ride will support.

BRMC's Official RCA Bio

Yes, another post... I promise it's the last one for today, folks! It seems that Robert Turner is now going by Robert Levon Been. Now that's rock n' roll.

BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB
HOWL

It seems strange to rely on a second century spiritual proverb to give meaning to the story of a rock ‘n roll band in 2005. But the tale of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and the arduous circumstances surrounding the making of its third and finest full length, Howl, requires just such a reference. Translated from the ancient Coptic language, the phrase in question reads:
 
“If you bring forth what is within you,
what you will bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you,
 what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

For Peter Hayes, Robert Levon Been, and Nick Jago – the three individuals collectively known as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – those words could easily have served as a bitter epitaph. But instead, they became a kind of rallying cry for the new record. For Howl is the sound of a band reaching deep within its soul in order to save itself; the sound of a band giving up its rock ‘n’ roll meal ticket and finding salvation and sustenance in a rich banquet of folk, country, blues, gospel and pop; the sound of a band finally owning up to itself and its vast limitless potential. 

In content and form the 13 songs are as far removed from BRMC’s previous albums--partly by design, partly because of the process--as they could be. Strain and grope for adjectives all you want, but the best and most accurate way to describe Howl – its title inspired by group’s own vulturine spirit as much as the work of the beat poets --- is simply to say that it’s a line of demarcation in the band’s catalog. It’s the same line that the Stones drew with Beggars Banquet; that the Clash drew with London Calling. It’s both a summation and a turning point, a nod to the past and a look into the future as well.

Yet, not so long ago, it appeared very much as though BRMC itself was on the eve of destruction.

The initial sessions that produced Howl began in June of 2004 in a basement studio outside Philadelphia with old friends Ryan and Paul Cobb, frontmen of Mad Action. “It’s just their parents place,” says Been. “But it has an amazing fucking sound. We did it on an old one-inch tape recorder, no tricks. We’d get up and their mom would fix us spaghetti and we’d go down into the basement and record.”

The material they began essaying, a set of gnarled and emotionally raw songs drawing on various roots traditions, revealed a different side of the band. “But it’s a side that’s always existed, just not on our records,” says Hayes. “These were songs that we’d been writing and collecting over the years. Some of them we actually thought about putting on previous albums. But we didn’t want to make it seem like they were filler tracks or novelties in the middle of a rock record. We felt like they were too important for that.”

Although most of the tunes had been written on acoustic guitar (“in various stairwells and back porches” as Hayes puts it) BRMC didn’t want to simply make an “unplugged” album. “We were experimenting to find an approach on how to record these songs, how to make these songs translate,” says Been. “With all due respect, we didn’t want to just make a Bruce Springsteen Nebraska-style acoustic record. It felt like it could be more. We just weren’t sure how to get there at first.”

Although their efforts in Philly produced a handful of exquisite tracks – including the joyful album opener “Shuffle Your Feet,” the languid “Sympathetic Noose” and the haunting minor key rumination “The Line” – the record was far from complete.

In August, BRMC took a break from the studio to play the European festival circuit. Owing to years of relentless touring, their notoriously tough work ethic, and some personal excesses, tensions within the band had slowly been building. Been explains, “We were attacking each other, it was insane and nobody wanted to be there; too many drugs, too many things pulling us down. We just didn’t know how to say ‘no’ anymore. We were running on empty.” Near the end of the tour the group came apart – quite literally – on a stage in Edinburgh, Scotland. When the dust had cleared Jago and the band decided to separate. Hayes and Been limped through the remainder of the dates, canceling a couple concerts and playing one surreal gig in Spain where a fan was practically pulled from the crowd and onto the drum kit.

By the time they got back home to L.A., BRMC was in a state of total disrepair. With Jago out of the group the delicate chemistry that had carried them for so long had been disrupted, leaving the future of the band unknown. “We’d lost the meaning of what we were doing, all of us” says Been “I don’t know, thinking back on it now I guess we had to burn it all down to build it up from scratch, to make it matter again. You just never want to learn the hard way.”
   

Deciding to push forward, in November Been and Hayes holed up at The Sandbox, the L.A. studio of longtime friend Rick Parker. Without a label, they’d long since parted with Virgin, and without a drummer, the title of their sophomore album Take Them On, On Your Own, was starting to become eerily prescient.

Paying for studio time out of their own pocket, Hayes and Been resumed work on the album, determined to finish it – in order to prove something, if only to themselves. As they began crafting new versions of the gauzy pop masterpiece “Howl” and the dark country rumble “Devil’s Waitin’” a profound creative freedom, borne of desperation, had suddenly found its way into the songs. “I can’t explain how inspiring it was just to hear what we were able to do,” says Been. “It was this incredible feeling. It kept us alive.”

Encouraged by their initial efforts, Hayes and Been decided to carry on, to see how far the momentum would take them. Although they’d loosely conceptualized their third record for some time – even giving it the working title The Americana LP – they ultimately decided to let the songs themselves determine the album’s sonic direction. The only thing they knew for certain was that it wouldn’t sound like any previous BRMC recording.

“If we made another rock record, it would’ve been hard to find a new place to go because we’d thrown in the kitchen sink for our second album,” says Been. “This was the genuine challenge that we needed. I think that’s a big reason why the band had been deteriorating, ‘cause we weren’t pushing ourselves. We knew there was a lot more we were capable of.”

     “When you listen to old records, from the Beach Boys to Beatles to Stones to Neil Young, it sounded like they were going by the seat of their pants a little bit,” says Hayes. “So that kinda became the guiding principle for this record. It really sounded like those groups were having fun, never knowing where they were gonna land.”

Much of the inspiration for album was found in the distant youth of its creators: you can hear literally the country and folk music Hayes was weaned on a child living in the farming community of New York Mills, Minnesota; or the old classic soul and R&B records Been had spent a lifetime collecting.

Hayes conjures wounded moods with a series of affecting narratives, bleeding ragged soul all over tracks like the album’s storming first single, “Ain’t No Easy Way” and the autobiographical, vaguely Dylanesque “Complicated Situation.”

Been looked beyond BRMC’s signature riff-fueled style and found direction in the ethereal vocal work of old gospel. “Early Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, the Staple Singers, that’s my favorite stuff,” he says, an influence clearly reflected in cuts like “Gospel Song” and “Promise.” “On those [songs] Me and Pete would go in and thrown eight or nine vocal tracks, do this whole sorta gospel, choir thing. And for us, it achieved the same orchestration as having wall of guitars on it, but it was just more unique. But a lot of instruments were sub-ed out, anything that was expected wasn’t allowed”

In addition to choir vocals and various other instrumental accoutrements – autoharp, piano, congas, slide guitar, timpani’s, harmonica, etc. – Hayes and Been reached back into their earliest musical exposure, breaking out trombones for a couple songs. “I took four years of trombone in school, and Peter took six years, totally coincidentally” says Been, laughing. “We never wanted to add them because we always hated bands that had to go through their ‘strings and horns’ phase. It just always sounds too slick and professional. I think the only reason we got away with this shit is because it sounds rough and pretty amateur.”

The essential elements of country, soul, folk, and gospel had always played a part in BRMC’s music. Yet, because they’d been so successful as a slash and burn power trio – giving the “Return Of Rock!” revolution a pugnacious anthem in “What Ever Happened to My Rock and Roll” – the public, and perhaps the band itself, felt it needed to adhere to a single sound or stylistic niche. Howl, then, represents an escape from a prison of their own making. “That seems a lot harder thing for bands to do nowadays,” says Hayes. “You can get trapped in one sound, and that’s what a record company wants from you. As soon as you veer off into something too different the label or the business people try steer you away from that.”

“In a way, it was helpful that we weren’t signed to a label while we were making this,” continues Hayes. “There was no pressure coming from anyone – which was important, because you don’t want to second guess what you’re doing. There was a little bit of that on the last album. We tried really hard not to think about what people were expecting, but there was no way around it. With this record those thoughts weren’t there. This album was for the music’s sake and no one else’s.”

“We weren’t trying to find a new identity with this record. This really is our history and our voice,” adds Been. “I actually left my stage name, ‘Turner’ , behind this year. I guess I’d been afraid of being in the shadow of my father [former Call frontman Michael Been]. But I’ve taken back my birth name to remind me of where I come from. Sometimes it’s better to know where you’ve been in order to know where you’re going.”

Completing the album over a scattered six month period, the energy in the studio was relentlessly positive (“It was the most fun we’ve had recording,” says Been), and inspiring, as several new songs – including the thrillingly visceral blues of “Restless Sinner” – were penned in the midst of the sessions. Another tune, the album’s gorgeous centerpiece “Promise,” was written and recorded in a single weekend late in the process, originally intended as a b-side.

By the time they’d actually come to cut “A Promise,” that band had reconciled with drummer Nick Jago and were back to form. “It was great,” says Been, “the record was pretty much finished but at least we were able to have him play on one of his favorite songs. It brought things full circle.”

With a powerful album in the can, label suitors were soon lining up to secure BRMC’s services. Fittingly, the group elected to go with RCA’s Ashley Newton, the same A&R man who’d originally signed them to the Virgin back in 1999. RCA/Victor – home to Blind Willie McTell, Jimmie Rodgers, Sam Cooke and Waylon Jennings, all in their own way influences on Howl – seems a perfect place for BRMC. The group also secured a deal with ECHO in Europe.

“We’re lucky little bastards, RCA in the states and the cool thing with the ECHO arrangement overseas is that were linking it up with our own imprint, Abstract Dragon,” Been adds “We’ve taken a goddamn beating for having a D.I.Y. ethic regarding our music the last few years, now it’s finally paying off”.

Ultimately, it has to be understood that BRMC is a band that believes in the rock ‘n’ roll mythos – the saving grace, the excess, the exquisite burn, and all the rest of it. The experience of the past year – the highs and lows, the tumult and triumph – has only strengthened their understanding in the precious human alchemy that occurs among the great rock groups, that same unique power that exists between them.

“I guess there was this unspoken thing between us that was finally spoken,” says Hayes. “Sure, we questioned each other for a while. But the band is bigger than the three of us. From where I came from, and how the three of us ended up together, it just doesn’t…it just doesn’t happen like that very often. You don’t get the opportunity to grow up together in this way. That should be respected and it shouldn’t ever be thrown away. We had to dig pretty hard and deep to figure that out, but it was all worth the wait.” 

Which Creation Records Band Are You?

First, here's a link to the most beautiful XTC site I've ever seen: Optimism's Flames. I took this Creation Records Band quiz twice and got Slowdive the first time, the results could go either way for me. I thought this quiz was cool enough to post the other possible results.


You Are... The Jesus And Mary Chain.

You are moody and unpredictable. You are the
underdog who refuses to sink to the bottom. You
have more talent than you ever really let
anyone know. It almost seems as if you try and
sabotage whatever good things may be going on
in your life, and you often feel like you may
be giving people a bit too much of yourself.
Being in the spotlight is something you find to
be rather uncomfortable though you secretly
yearn to be loved by everyone. You lean toward
things of a darker nature and are prone to self
destructive tendencies. You struggle with
happiness for the simple fact that you seem to
be in love with your misery. You are a realist.

what Creation Records band are you? (complete with text and images)
brought to you by Quizilla







You Are... Slowdive. You are very comfortable with the person that you are. You are pretty traditional in a classical sort of way. You relate most to things of a darker, more mysterious nature. You tend to be quiet and shy but you still manage to make friends pretty easilly. Though your ambition is bigger than your talents, your perseverance will always lead you to bigger and greater things.

---

what Creation Records band are you? (complete with text and images)
brought to you by Quizilla

Other possible results for "what Creation Records band are you? (complete with text and images)"
	You Are... Ride.You are young at heart and full of energy. You are talented but very modest. You are happy go lucky and care free. You have learned to take the good with the bad and you just accept life for being what it is. People tend to be envious of you, That's only because they don't understand you and they just want some of what you have. There's no task too hard for you and you excel at pretty much everything you try to do. You have a playful personallity and a beautiful inner soul.
	You Are...My Bloody Valentine.You tend to be a bit distant and reclusive. You are a leader as opposed to being a follower. You are a perfectionist and pay very close attention to detail. You have the tendency to be lazy, which sometimes get's in the way of you achieving whatever it is you may be trying to perfect. You don't really care about what's typically looked upon as the norm. You really don't care about what people think about you at all, or at least so you try and make it seem. You care most about just being yourself.
	You Are... Primal Scream.You are flashy and can be quite egotistical at times. You tend to care more about how cool you look doing doing something, rather than how good you are at doing that thing. You are talented, though some may feel you are not as talented as you may think you are. You can be quite materialistic and you love to be the center of attention, Which often times makes you the life of the party. Your personallity sometimes comes of as being shallow and unpleasant but deep down inside you have a good heart and are a very loyal friend. You are destined to lead a succesful life.
	You Are... Oasis.What you lack in originality you make up for in sheer determination. You have found a nice balance between party time and work time. You have the ability to convince the world of anything you want them to believe and you shamelessly do so. You are a purist who has the tendency to live in the past, which is your biggest downfall. If you could only learn to get with the times there's no telling how big you could be. You are destined to go down in history.

BRMC news from Torr's blog

I tried opening the link to Billboard to learn more about the new album, but it didn't work. Anyone know what it said?

Bits & Bobs: "

You can stream the new BRMC single 'Ain't No Easy Way' by pasting this
[rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio1/zane_wed.ra] into the File-> Open field of your RealPlayer, then f-fwding to the 42min mark. The short song sounds like The Music with steel guitar. I'll let you tell me if that's a good or bad thing.

And you can hear a clip of itunes-only-single 'Shuffle Your Feet' at the e-card on their site. Billboard also has a track-by-track description of their upcoming album; and the same goes for the upcoming album from My Morning Jacket.

I finished reading 2 books today!

And I started on a third one. The first one was “Britpop! Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock” by John Harris, the second was “The Sociology of Rock” by Simon Frith, and the third one is “Killing Bono” by Neil McCormick. It’s amazing how much you can read when you’re not online all day! For more detailed info about these books, please visit My Xanga

See more progress on: Spend less time fooling around on the net and more time actually working

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's new video for "Ain't No Easy Way"

from Video Static: Music Video News (June 13-19, 2005)

BOOKED: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Charles Mehling, director

Scheduled to shoot this week in Kiev, Ukraine...

artist:  Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
song: "Ain't No Easy Way"
label:  Echo/RCA
director(s):  Charles Mehling
production co:  Streetgang Films

June 21, 2005 in RCA, Streetgang | Permalink | TrackBack

Great bands must play at Cafe du Nord

CAFÉ DU NORD
and
THE SWEDISH AMERICAN HALL
2170 MARKET STREET
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114
PHONE: 415.861.5016
FAX: 415.861.7374

I like this club a lot for a few reasons:

first: obviously the good music
second: it’s very conveniently located right on Market (literally across the street from Church St.)
third: people are very polite (unlike the pushy Popscene-sters)

I haven’t tried the food there yet, but it looks pretty good. Here’s the list of shows that I went to there this year.

6/10: Fri. The National, Menomena, TalkDemonic (also The Robbers on High Street, but I missed them)
5/25: Wed. Architecture In Helsinki, Still Flyin’, DJ’S from AIH
3/26: Pretty Girls Make Graves, Dios Malos, Kill Me Tomorrow

My brother also saw Butterfly Boucher and the Trash Can Sinatras there, how cool is that?!

See more progress on: Cafe Du Nord

Bottom Of The Hill: One of SF's best venues

Great music, great sound, low ticket prices… This venue is a must for serious live music lovers. I saw Monade there, and I wanted to see the Caesars there, but it was rainining. Here’s a list of some of the bands who’ve played at Bottom of the Hill

Here are some upcoming shows I want to attend there:

Wed, June 22     9 : 00 pm (doors at 8:30)
$8
Dressy Bessy
Giant Value
The Jessica Fletchers

Fri, June 24     10 : 00 pm (doors at 8:30)
$12
(all ages)
The Mountain Goats
The Double
Sarah Dougher

Bottom of the Hill
1233 17th Street (17th @ Missouri)
San Francisco, CA 94107

Info line: 415-621-4455

See more progress on: Bottom Of The Hill

So much to do and see there, plus CMJ!

New York would be great to visit. There’s tons going on there and the 25th CMJ Music Marathon is happening this year, September 14th-17th at the Lincoln Center. I was thinking about volunteering.

See more progress on: New York

I must go back to London someday!

I was really lucky to win a trip to London and Paris in my last year of college through a travel fair. I stayed part of the time at my cousins’ place in Golder’s Green (North London) and other parts traveling to some music festivals: V2002 in Chelmsford and the Carling Weekender in Leeds. I also went by train to visit some other cities: Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Shropshire (to pick something up).

I also visited Hampton Court and then went to a Garbage concert (with Queen Adreena opening) at the Camden Electric Ballroom. I’d intended to see Longwave at the Bar Fly, but I didn’t know where it was. Other parts of my London trip included the Tate Modern Museum, the National British Museum, and the usual tourists spots: London Bridge, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, the London Dungeon (which was hilariously cheesey!).

See more progress on: London