two Danger Danger Birds Calender release party tonight with spanish dancer playing live+ ted james
and okeefe will be spinnin
FIREHOUSE style
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
L. BISON
one lemmy got a new bison animal. its already super gnarly with saliva and chunks of fur ripped out.
two Danger Danger Birds Calender release party tonight with spanish dancer playing live+ ted james
and okeefe will be spinnin
FIREHOUSE style
two Danger Danger Birds Calender release party tonight with spanish dancer playing live+ ted james
and okeefe will be spinnin
FIREHOUSE style
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Burned Up, Bred High article in the new PM
From the January issue of Providence monthly:
Spanish Dancer: Burned Up, Bred High
by John Taraborelli
One night, some friends and I were listening to Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds, by any measure one of the truly great party albums of our era. Immediately after, we listened to a CD from a local synth band. Obviously the difference was stark, and unfavorably comparing what was essentially a demo to a superstar artist backed by a superstar producer is as unfair as measuring this publication against the New Yorker. However, the locals' biggest deficiency in contrast to the superstar was something well within the control of a band of even humble means: vision. While Timberlake drew inspiration from the past, his record was supremely forward-looking, the kind of album you listen to now and know it's going to be just as good in 20 years. The local band simply looked back at a set of influences and tried to recreate them. That they succeeded quite ably in doing so couldn't completely compensate for the unambitious lack of reach.
Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne once said in an interview, “Somewhere along the way, we're the ones who have to say, 'Here's what we have to offer' instead of saying, 'Well, if you like David Bowie you might like these guys.' Show us your soul. Don't show us your record collection.”
So many local artists fail to transcend these very limitations. Though it is easy to forgive many flaws and lapses of struggling musicians working on shoestring budgets, imagination costs nothing, and a glaring lack of it is not so easy to overlook. The examples in pop music history are numerous and too obvious to mention, but suffice to say that a far-reaching vision can overcome meager recording budgets, junk store equipment and even rudimentary musical chops.
With that in mind, we come to the debut album by local one-man electro-rock-dance-punk-pysch-house phenom Spanish Dancer, née Anthony Ferreira, former lead singer of the short-lived but well-received Honeyhander. With that band he demonstrated that he could sing; left to his own devices he proves that he can do much more than that. Burned Up, Bred High is eleven tracks of restless, often spastic, genre-hopping sonic experimentation, each song a wild flourish that seems to announce, “And for my next trick...”
The record is not without its flaws, nor is it without its ambitions. The vocals at times demand too much of both the listener and the backing track. The cocksure histrionics of some of the more brazen attempts at being hooky (the lead single “Hustler,” for example) threaten to overwhelm the music, but when Ferreira is more content to let his voice be just another element of the song (“The Bloods”), he shines brighter. Ultimately, Burned Up, Bred High succeeds not just on the strength of the music, but on force of will. There is nothing Ferreira, as fearless an experimenter as I've come across in Providence, won't do, which reassures the listener that even if a particular song isn't your cup of tea, the next one probably won't sound anything like it.
Sometimes the touchstones are a bit obvious – the Neptunes' synthesizer sweeps, the Prince-circa-Sign O' the Times falsetto, the Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight” synth toms – but let's face it, everyone steals; it's what you do with the pilfered material that counts. Rather than trying to recreate the sounds that influenced him through slavish devotion, he seems to be revisiting all his favorite songs and saying to himself, “Hey, I can do that!” Whether he's delivering spazzy, buzzing rockers a la Primal Scream (“Faith, Faith, Faith”), sexed-up Prince come-ons (“Secret”), or driving guitar rock punctuated by Bomb Squad-like screeches (“Tall Club”), Spanish Dancer shows us his record collection and his soul; that the line between the two is blurry only makes the party that much more fun. Along the way the synthesizers buzz, wail, squeal, sweep, drone and pop, the bass bumps and sometimes the guitars flat out rock.
In the end, Spanish Dancer is just borrowing all these sounds, and he'll be more than happy to give them back when he's done. At the moment, however, he's having too much fun with them – and you should too. Even Timberlake was obviously just ripping off Michael Jackson on his first album; by the time he was ready to make another one he delivered a masterpiece.
Burned Up, Bred High will be out on Cozy Records (cozymusic.org) on February 10. It will be available through several online music services, including iTunes, Rhapsody and Napster.
Spanish Dancer: Burned Up, Bred High
by John Taraborelli
One night, some friends and I were listening to Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds, by any measure one of the truly great party albums of our era. Immediately after, we listened to a CD from a local synth band. Obviously the difference was stark, and unfavorably comparing what was essentially a demo to a superstar artist backed by a superstar producer is as unfair as measuring this publication against the New Yorker. However, the locals' biggest deficiency in contrast to the superstar was something well within the control of a band of even humble means: vision. While Timberlake drew inspiration from the past, his record was supremely forward-looking, the kind of album you listen to now and know it's going to be just as good in 20 years. The local band simply looked back at a set of influences and tried to recreate them. That they succeeded quite ably in doing so couldn't completely compensate for the unambitious lack of reach.
Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne once said in an interview, “Somewhere along the way, we're the ones who have to say, 'Here's what we have to offer' instead of saying, 'Well, if you like David Bowie you might like these guys.' Show us your soul. Don't show us your record collection.”
So many local artists fail to transcend these very limitations. Though it is easy to forgive many flaws and lapses of struggling musicians working on shoestring budgets, imagination costs nothing, and a glaring lack of it is not so easy to overlook. The examples in pop music history are numerous and too obvious to mention, but suffice to say that a far-reaching vision can overcome meager recording budgets, junk store equipment and even rudimentary musical chops.
With that in mind, we come to the debut album by local one-man electro-rock-dance-punk-pysch-house phenom Spanish Dancer, née Anthony Ferreira, former lead singer of the short-lived but well-received Honeyhander. With that band he demonstrated that he could sing; left to his own devices he proves that he can do much more than that. Burned Up, Bred High is eleven tracks of restless, often spastic, genre-hopping sonic experimentation, each song a wild flourish that seems to announce, “And for my next trick...”
The record is not without its flaws, nor is it without its ambitions. The vocals at times demand too much of both the listener and the backing track. The cocksure histrionics of some of the more brazen attempts at being hooky (the lead single “Hustler,” for example) threaten to overwhelm the music, but when Ferreira is more content to let his voice be just another element of the song (“The Bloods”), he shines brighter. Ultimately, Burned Up, Bred High succeeds not just on the strength of the music, but on force of will. There is nothing Ferreira, as fearless an experimenter as I've come across in Providence, won't do, which reassures the listener that even if a particular song isn't your cup of tea, the next one probably won't sound anything like it.
Sometimes the touchstones are a bit obvious – the Neptunes' synthesizer sweeps, the Prince-circa-Sign O' the Times falsetto, the Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight” synth toms – but let's face it, everyone steals; it's what you do with the pilfered material that counts. Rather than trying to recreate the sounds that influenced him through slavish devotion, he seems to be revisiting all his favorite songs and saying to himself, “Hey, I can do that!” Whether he's delivering spazzy, buzzing rockers a la Primal Scream (“Faith, Faith, Faith”), sexed-up Prince come-ons (“Secret”), or driving guitar rock punctuated by Bomb Squad-like screeches (“Tall Club”), Spanish Dancer shows us his record collection and his soul; that the line between the two is blurry only makes the party that much more fun. Along the way the synthesizers buzz, wail, squeal, sweep, drone and pop, the bass bumps and sometimes the guitars flat out rock.
In the end, Spanish Dancer is just borrowing all these sounds, and he'll be more than happy to give them back when he's done. At the moment, however, he's having too much fun with them – and you should too. Even Timberlake was obviously just ripping off Michael Jackson on his first album; by the time he was ready to make another one he delivered a masterpiece.
Burned Up, Bred High will be out on Cozy Records (cozymusic.org) on February 10. It will be available through several online music services, including iTunes, Rhapsody and Napster.
Monday, January 5, 2009
GLOOMERS
Finally done playing catch up with the gold box. What do you do when your new years resolution is reached in the first 6 days?
Thursday, January 1, 2009
I'M THROWING MY ARMS AROUND PROVIDENCE
Tomorrow Spanish Dancer destroys swank martini bar TAZZA downtown.
Do it!
Do it!
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