The Strokes

Chris, good point. It was all going so well until you mentioned 'Jon Bon Jovie'!

I wrote a long series of musings about the Strokes under Neil's review of Room on Fire on this site, asically suggesting that pop life did not sit easily with Mr Julian and that the poor wee guy is full of beer n' depression n' some of the most nutritionally vacant food in the world if the above mugshot is anything to go by. The Queen's just left hospital after knee surgery and the removal of benign skin lesions from her face: one recommends her doctor to Mr Julian with a great deal of haste. Perhaps he's decided that it's dumb to carry on copying various garage acts, tussle with allegedly cool 80's influences and a bit of snotty 70's punk and that it's time to turn himself into a NYC facsimile of the King of Pop himself. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Elvis Casablancas. Just don't let him go for a shit alone.

I think it's telling that they started with 'Reptilia' as this is by far the bounciest, most energised track from Room on Fire. It seems like all the criticisms I gave it, that it was half-arsed, full of lyrical moaning throughout, and had no energy to it and a lack of really decent tunes is shown up even more live and is amplified by the band's seemingly can't won't don't give a fuck attitude.

And it's nice to see the Oxford Zodiac mentioned. It's been a long time since I cascaded down Cowley Road drunk. Let's just mention the Point too for old times sake.

..and the Jericho Tavern....(misty eyed...)

Sniff, the Jericho... I saw my first ever Oxford gig there.

and Heaven... erm slightly more alert than usual

I agree with every word in that review. They were outplayed by their lighting rig. Full stop.

It was indeed rigidly played, but the difference between the musicianship of The Strokes compared to that of Muse, RHCP or indeed the Pumpkins, was that:

a) their songs were a hell of a lot more complex - The Strokes' songs have some nice intertwining guitar parts, but rhythmically they are very one dimensional

b) they fill stadiums and festival headline slots with charisma and presence

Matt is as you say a prancing prima donna - that's his whole appeal.

Still, by giving various examples - Kiedis, Corgan and Bellamy - three very different performers from three very different guitar bands you've got three other bands who have a lot more in them.

No one's slagging The Strokes off by comparison alone - (although if you don't have any context on something then that's pretty stupid, cos everything would be great) - simply that the gig was dull and it sounded just like the record would if you had ten thousand smelly Oasis fans in your room.

I was expecting the frontman to connect with the audience, for the songs to take on more life than the flat sounding record, for it to have some measure of being 'an occasion'...

The sound was fine, the musicianship great, but there was nothing special about that. All that stuff we expect. Oasis at Knebworth was musically great and had the fire of a band on top of their game. Oasis at Wembley was a band falling apart, but the gig was vital because of Liam's personality and the visible tension on stage.

What makes a gig though is seeing a band enjoy themselves. That's what made Radiohead at Earl's Court so good. The Strokes really did look like they didn't want to be there. You can see that from my photos.

The second record is average, but production wise it's flat.

Waht the hell is wrong with hiding 'objectivity'? I don't want to be objective about music - in fact I find it impossible. Being objective by nature removes subjectivity and emotion. I am not a wanky 'objective' muso nor do I want to be. At those Strokes gigs I lost it - I had an absolute blast. And your obligatory little swipe at nme, which let's face it though flawed at least gives us something, is somewhat undermined by your nme email address. I personally think the music scene at the moment is healthier than it's been in a LONG time.

hehehe...

when yr gonna justify and debate (and woo, here's one for all the future hacks out here, <i>write</i>) about music, there will need to be a point when you will need to bring in objectivity. For otherwise we get grotesque hyperbole (largely instigated - certainly in the UK - by yr ol' pal NME) of the "Best band in the world evereverever" type and not a negative word about them for a good 24 months in the music weeklies (or rather weekly). You get rabid unquestioning nonsense flying round the net and filling up clueless tabloids that - slow to pick up maybe - will only fuel things further.

Obv if you go one way or the other wholly (subjectivity / objectivity), you then erase subjectivity/personality/emotion and are then left without any of that instinctiveness that makes true genius Pop/ rock/ dance/ music of all genres so fucking wonderful, and always has. And that's then shit, as you said, leaving you with nary but mumbly musos and the proper chinstrokey, joyless idm. But go t'other way and you are highly in danger of losing all fucking sense of perspective, and it becomes a joke, all you've to back yourself up with with 'well ooh it was nuts' and lots of intangible feelings you aren't prepared / don't feel the need to justify beyond whatever emotions it elicts...

So incorporate both perhaps? is that such a scary idea? it gives a better argument, through whatever medium yr using.. I never even thought of sub/objectivity so, just was a natural state of affairs - til recently....(which leads me back to the ol' first strokes/hype point....)

If you don't want to though - well.....don't come and argue/debate/defend your passion for whoever on A Message Board. If you want lots of uncritical approval that won't stoop so low as to question your personal view, then hunt down their website or a fansite or something. or go and read a copy of The Fly instead.

why indeed yes NME is flawed, but it gives us 'something'?? ..((and the crossword don't count, albeit 1 thing whose quality in the paper's been preserved the past few years...))
YEah so, lets sit ike gleeful pigs in their shit and be proud to be unaware of whatever's happening in the editorially-unapproved real world, outside of its pages full of the latest self-proclaimed-zeitgeist, LET ALONE dare to complain. Look! There's a computer at your fingertips! And you're still prepared to rely on the latest NME reports on an NME-sponsored tour for bands on the NME Deputy Ed's own label?

You're right - too true, the music scene's fucking amazing at the moment, i'm with you there - though I doubt much at all would have been given the time of day in NME, let alone wouldve told me about them. I don't think it's entirely a coincidence either, that i'm falling over great new music when I've not bought it for a year or two, and now rarely even flick through even its (fairly paltry) gig guide any more;
they've reduced and spread out the fonts with every relaunch so much you could probably read it in the Co-Op in 7-8 minutes.. If you're happy to say 'ah well it's shit but what else is there' (i'm not having that 'flawed' apologist balls), yous are the sorts who actively deserve it. Nme.com and a few other fave sourses for news, some mags/papers/sites you trust and have time for the writing of for reviews/features, skim through the gig guide in whsmiths while yr waiting for the train or summat. You seriously rely on nme for your new music, your pointers? You're the one who stepped up on that one, i'm just honestly just trying to get my head round yr withering justification..

[shite...this weren't an nme thing, someone's derailed this - all the above on them is a given really, far too much effort spent discussing their failings and juicily hyped mediocrity, onto the new fucking breed...........]


PS - said nme email address was signed up for yeeears ago when they were 1st introduced (the whole site/editor was different, brilliant place to discuss crap, 'i love Music' with less weight/less traffic/more fun). I don't give out my personal one anymore on boards since yahoo and chums took to using/abusing them. no endorsement, oh clever one (nor any of my details). shucks, what a hypocrite this makes i.......says they, to the one who doesn't even provide his inbetween replying to, essentially, lots & lots of Strokes postings........
Thank fuck it's the end of the day now !

I have a different favourite for each day. And little Vines boy on saturday. I need sunday free so I can polish my DIS badges.

Phew - well and truly justified re objectivity and subjectivity and need for a balance and I totally appreciate you need a bit objectivity to get the true picture (just look at some of the tosh listened to by the pill-popping madchester scene - overdose on 'subjectivity' and 'wow it's so amazing' made them unable to differentiate between what was good and what was tosh). I do think there is a lot to be said though for the theory that in a concert if you lose your sense of objectivity then it has been a successful performance (or a very unsuccessful one). I'm not being facetious but I am actually having a hard time understanding what you mean though by being 'objective' about music. You have to accept that any attempts to objectivity are contrived: music primarily impacts on emotion and therefore objectivity is precluded. The only sense in which it is possible is in the what I will call the muso sense (not meant as derogatorily in this instance), where the analysis of the music becomes by proxy and becomes an analysis of the music as it stands in time, by comparison, as part of the culture zeitgeist etc. I don't see anything wrong with that but you have to accept that when you start being objective about music, that is the point when it ceases to be about the music but more about its context. This is turning into a semantics discussion... You can be subjective and not lose the power of reason.

Glad you appreciate the smart alec nme observation - I wasn't being serious, just a little red rag for you. NME - Enemy. I confess I read it every week and I also have to say as you correctly point out I can't think of the last time I discovered a new band through it. Most bands I discover through word of mouth and occasionally I guess the radio but I listen to radio so rarely (usually using the little listening time I have to stick to cds I guess...). The Strokes was probably the last band NME got me into and I thank them for that, though as ever it's a double-edged sword. It does bug me the way NME champions bands in a self-congratulatory way and then turns the tide slightly a few years down the line with no reason besides 'trend' and desire to influence public opinion. It bugs me then when a band is in vogue they will slap 'THE STROKES' on the cover whenever they can. This summer took the biscuit - they put the band on the cover as a summer feature, and for the life of me I couldn't where the hell they were in the issue. There it was: a small paragraph detailing how the Strokes were playing a japanese festival. I mean that almost amounts to misrep and I wrote to nme saying it was a pretty lame stunt to play to sell copies but unsurprisingly it wasn't published. That is at the crux of nme: they are after the dollar and delivering a decent assessment of the alternative scene and still being profitable sadly is rather hard. As early pre-capital Xfm discovered to its sad demise/disfigurement. NME has about fifteen bands (max) on cover rotation and they know that as long as they do this they continue to support the marketed brand of the artist = popular appeal = £. Added to this is the fact that a lot of the writers are aware of their own personality as writers/wannabe-stars a little too much and the writing becomes as much about them and what they did with the band (how many articles are simply 'my six hour bender with 'The _____s'?) Articles are infused and stamped with the writer's ego more than any other journalism you will read. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the magazine became anonymous copy like the economist. At least you go some way to removing the ego. Added to this is they have dumbed the whole thing down with this new format (you might not have seen it if you haven't bought it for a while) but it's all-singing all dancing with little bite-sized articles and much more emphasis on visuals, less on substance. Not happy with it.

But as a bog read it's good. I like reading the reviews, read the articles about the bands I like, the letters are entertaining, and yes, the crossword is good. Their live reviews are a LOT worse than they used to be. Check their terrible coverage of the Radiohead and Strokes gigs for example, giving a little bit on each gig they did rather than a full review of one. Again, pleasing the masses.... They know that if someone walks into a newsagency and sees that the gig they were at is reviewed, ker-ching.... Crap, again. I don't think it's that bad and that sums up its 'competition'. It's got a corporate agenda and the mainstreaming of anything vaguely alternative is bound to be 'flawed'.

The Strokes were a disgrace live up until the new album, despite Is This It being decent. Slowing down songs so they could flesh out their set? That's weak, but now, they're playing at the right speed and talking a load of shite between songs.
Bad photos exist of everyone. Poor.

check the comment above in the list if you want to read what I wrote - haven't quite got the hang of this. Keeps posting my answers inthe wrong place...

what is this?

am i the only person that thinks room on fire is actually fucking brilliant?

don't answer that.

but seriously, what's wrong with it? stop fucking nitpicking, try to take the album on its OWN MERITS.

well, i suppose it is a bit shit actually, because y'know, it didn't give me the SPINE-BREAKING ORGASM that the NME promised upon the first listen.

of course, you might genuinely not like the album... naaaah, it's fucking immense.

You don't 'learn' banter though. Having a raport with a crowd is something which should come naturally to so-called rock stars. The Strokes have some nice songs and some nice press photos and cuttings, but little else.

To be fair, I was at the Glasgow gig. There was a lot of nonsense-talk from Julian.
He's hardly David Lee Roth, but he's definitely not the shy, lost indieboy he once was.

Different gig. The powercut was the next night. If they're not an arena band, how the hell they gonna be any different at big arse open air festivals? It's the same thing!

No it's not. At all.
The Strokes will take the stage at Glastonbury (or wherever) this summer after everyone's had a good 10 hours of boozing and binging, with a setting sun in the background and will rock people's socks off. That's a very different vibe to playing in a cavernous venue like Ally Pally.

Fair enough - it was a different night. On the second night, they were having fun and communicating with the crowd. You might have just caught them having a poor one.

those of you that enjoy slating The Strokes for all they do,wear,say etc. You should really count the amount of records you've sold recently and how many lives you've changed also.It's considered fahionable to like the strokes,but even more so to dislike them

I enjoy slating the Strokes for releasing a shoddy second album. I also enjoy praising the Strokes for releasing a great debut album. I also enjoy fishing, clay-pigeon shooting and peeling the labels from cans of citrus fruit.