soulRocks » Electric

JUSTICE VS SIMIAN

soulrocks — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:49:37 +0000

J*Davey

soulrocks — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:41:30 +0000

With a diverse array of influences, eclectic twosome J*Davey — female vocalist Jack Davey (b. Brianna Cartwright) and producerBrook D’Leau — deliberately evade the narrow categories of what urban music should sound like, not to mention that they defy normal conventions of pop music. Drawing equally from neo-soul, new wave, funk, and hip-hop, their melting pot of electronic soul and dance have made music-goers try to classify them somewhere between neo-soulstress Erykah Badu and new wave punks Talking Heads.D’Leau and Davey established the duo in the summer after their high-school graduation in 1999. Born and raised in L.A., D’Leau, whose taste for new wave and funk greatly characterizes the group’s music, learned to produce tinkering with his father’s studio equipment during high school. Davey moved to Los Angeles from her hometown of St. Louis, MO, when she was eight. She had her fair share of industry woes with a failed stint in a girl group, but when she met D’Leau, the two had a chemistry that they couldn’t ignore. For several years, the self-proclaimed “black Eurythmics” worked the live circuit around the country, steadily building their reputation and a unique following. They made some substantial strides on the recording side of things, scoring music for television shows CSI: New York and Entourage. However, their recording appearances began to accumulate in the mid-2000s with the most interesting being their cover of Frank Zappa‘s “Dirty Love” on Ubiquity Records’ Rewind! 5compilation in 2006. Early the following year, fresh off their stint performing with Prince, J*Davey signed a major-label deal with Warner Bros.

myspace.com/jdavey

Electric Six

soulrocks — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 18:32:13 +0000

Formerly known as the Wildbunch, the Detroit sextet Electric Six mix garage, disco, punk, new wave, and metal into cleverly dumb, in-your-face songs like “Danger! High Voltage,” which reached number two on the British charts early in 2003. Singer Dick Valentine, guitarists Rock and Roll Indian and Surge Joebot, bassist Disco, and drummer M. formed the Wildbunch in 1996 (keyboardist Tait Nucleus? joined the band later), releasing their debut single, “I Lost Control (Of My Rock & Roll),” and the eight-track An Evening with the Many Moods of the Wildbunch’s Greatest Hits…Tonight! that year on Uchu Cult Records. They also released 1999’s full-length on that imprint. The group switched to Flying Bomb for singles like 1997’s “The Ballade of MC Sucka DJ,” the Christmas single “Flying Bomb Surprise Package, Vol. 1,” and 2001’s “Danger! High Voltage,” which became an underground hit, particularly in the U.K.

The following year the group signed to XL and re-recorded “Danger! High Voltage,” this time adding backing vocals from the White Stripes‘ Jack White. After the re-release of the single in 2003, Electric Six issued their full-length debut album, Fire, later that spring. Just a few weeks after the album’s release, Disco, Rock and Roll Indian, and Surge Joebot left the band and were replaced byFrank Lloyd Bonaventure, the Colonel, and 661453Johnny Na$hinal. In 2004, the band got a new record deal with Rushmore, a British Warner Bros. imprint, and lost Bonaventure and M., whose bass and drum duties were filled by John R. Dequindre and Percussion World, respectively. The second Electric Six album, Señor Smoke, arrived in the U.K. early in 2005. It took another year for the album to be released stateside, on Metropolis Records. Switzerland arrived in fall of 2006 and I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master followed in October of 2007. Early in 2008,Valentine embarked on his American Troubadour solo tour, which included stops in Hamtramck, MI, and Portland, OR; that spring, Electric Six recorded their fifth album, Flashy, in the Colonel‘s studio. Metropolis released Flashy that fall, followed by Sexy Trash, a thirty track album of demos and previously unreleased material, and two new studio albums, Kill (2009) and Zodiac (2010).

www.electricsix.com

Do Me Bad Things

soulrocks — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 18:22:21 +0000

From the depths of hell to the almighty glow of heavens golden gates……..Cupid rose and fired his burning spears of love into the hearts of six men and three women…………………………………

www.myspace.com/domebadthings

Chairlift

soulrocks — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:38:47 +0000

Hailing from Brooklyn, NY (by way of Boulder, CO, where the trio originally came together in 2006), the avant-pop outfit Chairlift formed for the unusual purpose of crafting music for haunted houses. After finding that their work transcended its original purpose, bandmates Aaron Pfenning, Caroline Polachek, and Patrick Wimberlypulled up stakes and headed east, eventually settling in that most musical of locales — not to mention one always looking for new and unique ideas — New York City. Chairlift made a name for itself during the band’s first two years in the Big Apple, playing shows with similar up-and-comers like MGMT, Yeasayer, and Mixel Pixel while inking a contract with the independent label Kanine. Chairlift’s first release on the label, a single entitled “Evident Utensil,” featured a remix by the aforementioned MGMT and was a precursor to the group’s debut full-length release. Released in 2008, Does You Inspire You molded the band’s space rock influences with a poppy indie aesthetic. The album also received an extra promotional boost when “Bruises” appeared in an iPod commercial.