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| Friday, August 13, 2010 at Roseland Theater |
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(click for full-page printable poster)
GENRES
Electronica
Hip Hop
Indie Rock
Pop
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Chromeo
Holy Ghost
Telephoned
Rude Dudes
Friday, August 13, 2010
Roseland Theater 503-224-2038
8 NW 6th Ave, Portland, OR (MapQuest)
8pm (doors open at 7pm). All Ages.
$20.00 advance tix from TicketsWest.
$23.00 at the door.
ABOUT CHROMEO -
Crossing the Gaza Strip of Sexxx Jams Chromeo is Pee Thug and Dave 1: best friends since their Montreal adolescence, virtuoso musicians, walking hip hop encyclopedias, and the only successful Arab/Jew partnership since the dawn of human culture.
As Chromeo, they fuse their penchants for two sorely missed musical genres into a wholly new thing. Pee, the brown-skinned Quebecois street tough, brings analog synth basslines and drum machine wizardry à la Cameo and Prince. Dave, the Semitic bookworm (currently earning his Ph.D. in French Lit at Columbia), contributes melodic tales of urban romance that would make Phil Collins shed a tear. Together, their blend of rigorously catchy song structures, memorable hooks and twirling guitar solos conjures up images of a sophisticated, thugged-out Hall & Oates (except you don't secretly suspect that they make out).
Indeed, Chromeo's mission is to make slick-ass lover's funk with nary a trace of irony. That's right -- no fucking irony. These guys are to Rockwell what Andrew WK is to Meatloaf. And don't call it easy retro, either. Dave 1 attests: "Sure our sound is vintage and danceable. Sure all our songs talk about girls. But we're so passionate about it that it's not even funny anymore." Chromeo's authenticity is only reinforced by the goldplated list of musicians who have already supported them. They were discovered by Tiga in their hometown, and have recently been remixed by Trevor Jackson and the DFA.
Live, Chromeo is more fun than being forced to smoke crack at gunpoint by Rick James. When was the last time you saw a talkbox used so well? Or even at all? Peter Frampton? Says Pee: "When people see me using the talkbox live they're always impressed. It's not a machine like you hear in that Cher song. Imagine taking a speaker and putting it in your mouth, and then forcing the sound to come back out. It truly is a skill."
Chromeo's debut LP, She's In Control, is out now on Vice Records (US) and Turbo Recordings (Canada), and released June 28th on V2 in Europe. The duo will soon be taking their live incarnation on the road. In the meantime, Dave has only one specific ambition in mind for Chromeo. "I want to write sincere love songs, like 'Cool It Now' by New Edition," he says. "That is one of my all-time favorite tracks in the universe."
Known for their 2008 hit "Hold On" and Moby, MGMT and Cut Copy remixes, critically-heralded Brooklyn duo Holy Ghost! features electro magicians Nick Millhiser and Alex Frankel. Protégées of Tim Goldsworthy and James Murphy (founders of DFA Records), Holy Ghost! bring their melodic, throwback style and love for old-school synthesizers to their infectious new single, "I Will Come Back," out on Green Label Sound.
Friends since childhood, the pair met in second grade and grew up just blocks apart on New York City's Upper West Side. Frankel's father was a long-time USA Today crime reporter who used to bring him along to mafia hangouts, while Millhiser's parents developed real estate and held down various other posts. "When I was born, my dad was an audio engineer for ABC Sports," he says, "and he also had his own barge ship in France."
In high school Frankel played keyboards and Millhiser played drums in rap act Automato, which performed everywhere from CBGB to Coney Island High. As seniors they signed to Capital Records. Soon thereafter, they met producers Goldsworthy and Murphy during the making of Automato's 2004 self-titled debut album, which The Guardian called: "The first essential hip hop album of the year."
Automato splintered the following year, but Millhiser and Frankel forged on together. "We originally thought we were going to keep making rap stuff," Millhiser says, "but, not knowing any rappers, we had to figure something else out. Alex stepped up to the plate and started singing."
They collaborated on the disco-tinged "Hold On" and presented it to Goldsworthy and Murphy, who immediately fell for it. Ready to sign the duo to juggernaut DFA Records label -- alongside buzz acts like LCD Soundsystem, Cut Copy and The Juan Maclean -- they first demanded a moniker. Holy Ghost! comes from a cut by the Bar-Kays of the same title, Millhiser explains. "I was looking up its lyrics on-line, and the first line of the song is, 'Your love, it's got the Holy Ghost!" he says. "The line had an exclamation point, so that's where the exclamation point in our name comes from."
Millhiser and Frankel add that the collaboration indulges their love for analog sounds and passions for old-time Roland organs and Wurlitzer electronic pianos. "We're big gearheads, and have been since we were in high school," Frankel says. "We make our music before our lyrics, and we usually start with sound and drums. When we're both nodding our heads, it's like, 'Now, let's make it into a song.'"
"We've both tried to make music with the computer," Millhiser says. "We just can't do it. I wish we could! I'd be a much richer man."
The act has already earned rave reviews on the strength of their remixes and "Hold On," which caused taste-making blog Hipster Runoff to speculate they could have a hit as big as Justice's smash "D.A.N.C.E." "I feel like they have the preceding reputation, bubbling cauldron of hype, and the skills and resources necessary to write a transcendent electro-hit," the site enthused.
Expect a similar response to Green Label Sound single "I Will Come Back," which will also be featured on Holy Ghost!'s highly-anticipated debut album due out early next year. A surging, five and a half-minute dance floor epic, it's a space journey that features the angelic voices of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. The track pays homage to pioneering dance group New Order through its "Bizarre Love Triangle"-like drum fills. The video, too, is a tribute to New Order; it's a remake of the English group's 1983 song "Confusion." Getting legendary producer Arthur Baker to reprise his role was their biggest coup, says Millhiser.
"We were going to have James [Murphy] play the Arthur Baker character," he remembers, "but one night we were out at a bar and we ran into Baker. Alex told him about the video, and he said, 'I want to play myself.' We couldn't really say no!"
Already filling venues across the world and backed by Green Label Sound, the time is right for Holy Ghost! to take over dance floors worldwide. "I Will Come Back" will have listeners doing exactly that.
Telephoned was born one night in Brooklyn when DJ/producer Sammy Bananas (Fool's Gold) and singer/party starter Maggie Horn (Good Peoples) decided to record their own version of T-Pain's "Can't Believe It." Their track was neither remix nor cover - instead, the duo fashioned a postmodern take on both, warping the original beat into a hypnotic club track and bringing out the dreamy qualities only hinted at in Pain's auto-tuned melodies. Sammy and Maggie's fresh "Can't Believe It" quickly became a DJ favorite - even making it into mix rotation on LA hip-hop station Power 106! - so they decided to keep recording as a team, cleverly named after the kids game of Telephone: no faithful copies, just a party line of unexpected twists. Whether morphing Ron Browz "Pop Champagne" into a spacey dancefloor gem ("Bottle service electro meets Triplets Of Belleville" says Ms Horn), dubstepping "Turn My Swag On," or re-imagining DJ Webstar's "Dancin On Me" as a BK funky anthem, these Telephoned covers are instantly addictive and massively charming. Their self titled EP turns pop into new-school standards, putting a fresh spin on party music. Telephoned is off the hook!
Rude Dudes is a DJ Duo from Portland, OR consisting of DJ RAD! and Solomon, DJ. Not your conventional DJs, and definitely not the conventional duo, Rude Dudes are smashing genres and putting them back together in a crazy blender, smashing parties and shows for the last 3 years. All Vinyl, they do what DJ's call 1's, 2 turntables and mixer, mixing into each other and always working the mixer, blowing through records at a mindblowing speed. Rude Dudes have shared the stage together and seprately with the likes of Chromeo, Kid Sister, Flosstradamus, Z-trip, Ladytron, A-trak, Ghostland Observatory, Simian Mobile Disco, Little Boots, and so much more. Playing every genre under the sun, from Electro and Bmore, to Hip Hop and Dubstep, House to Baile Funk and Kudoro, always bending genres and melding tracks for an insane ride.
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