IRT Magazine

Hey kids,

This is just a quick note to let you all know the new issue is up and out and available right here on this very website to your upper right…
I hope you guys enjoy this issue, and a big thank you goes out to all the folks who helped us make this one possible, including Jeff, Jason, Ryan and Lellie at Rhino, Randy at Sony Legacy, Allison and Katie at Astralwerks, Melissa McEvoy at Columbia Records, Joan and Sarah at Sub Pop, Todd at Carpark, Alec at Dischord, Josh, Kasey, Katy and Dave at Fanatic, Julie, Carrie, Elle, Sheila and Brendan at Tag Team, Damon and Kathryn at Biz3, Sheila at Atlantic, Jason, Jennifer, Bobbie, Judi and Cole at Capitol, Martin at Merge, Tresa at Dept. 56, Derek at Solid PR, Leslie at Drag City, Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR, Daniel at Force Field PR, Jamie at Thrill Jockey, Steph and Don at DL Media, all our pals at Nasty Little Man, Catherine at Matador, Sonya at Beggars, Jonathan Galkin at DFA, Lucas and Marie-Claire at ROIR, James, Steve and Josh at Sound Fix, John Woods at Reel Life, Mark at Utopia, Cem at Blue Note, Josh and Regina at Verve, the fine folks at Sacks and Co., Alexis, Hector and Hilary at Epitaph, the ladies of Call Girl PR, our longtime supporters at Girlie Action, Laurent at Hydrahead, Lori and Nic at Yep Roc, Mr. Scofield at Strange Attractors, anyone else I failed to mention by name and most importantly, all of the wonderful people who have contributed text, photos, illustrations, edits, thoughts, opinions, directions and constructive criticism during the cycle of this latest issue, you know who you are. The IRT could never exist without you.

And for those of you in the industry who still player hate on sending us product to cover, slammed the phone in our ear, ignored our emails, stiffed us on interviews, lied about advertising with us and otherwise told us to “stick our magazine up our dicks,” Karma is quite a nasty dame!

Happy Holidays everybody!

Ron Hart

Editor and Publisher

www.irtmag.com

Henry Rollins I can understand. That guy is jacked on so much caffeine it’s a wonder his eyeballs can actually stay in his head. But Jon Langford? The guy from the Mekons, who could barely remain standing long enough to finish a set a few years ago? That guy has been dubbed our new “Renaissance man?” Shyah, take another hit.You know what? It’s fun to be wrong once in a while. After settling down (I use the term loosely) long enough to become a husband and father, not to mention a painter, published author (of the bitchin’ new Nashville Radio, which comes with an accompanying CD) and (cough) multi-media performance artist, Langford has released some of his strongest solo work to date with Gold Brick. “A Little Bit of Help” opens the disk with a sassy honky-tonk piano line and (dare I say it) bubbly melody line, and doesn’t relent much after that. The songs are carefully-wrought and tightly played, mostly by his cohorts from the Pine Valley Cosmonauts and Waco Brothers. Only “Salty Dog,” with its sentimental delivery, strikes a false note. Otherwise, this is a flawless effort that leaves me wanting one of whatever he’s having. –Alyson Mead

Out of the ashes of the fiery Brit-pop troupe—The Libertines—two resilient embers still burn: Dirty Pretty Things and Babyshambles. Babyshambles makes the more compelling story, as Pete Doherty makes his triumphant return to music after his grapple with heroin and crack cocaine addiction, which originally caused The Libertines to disband. Seemingly unfettered, though, the Babyshambles debut begins with a pick strut which is soon coupled with a seductive bassline as Doherty prophesies broodingly, “I tell you a story but you won’t listen, it’s about two nightmares steeped in tradition.” With allusions to William Blake’s portrait of tortured lovers in the album title, La Belle Et La Bete (The Beautiful and the Foolish) dances fancifully on the stage of literary precedent. A’Rebours continues with the French theme as well as the preoccupation with literature—A’Rebours (Against the Grain) being the turbulent, landmark novel by J.K. Huysmans. The song, meanwhile, tickles the listener’s aural nerves with another alluring bass hook while articulate guitar work shimmies in charged bridges. By the time the album’s best song, Fuck Forever, ushers in at song three, a listener expects the album to achieve the brilliant consistency of a Clash record. Doherty even alludes to the epic song from London Calling, “So what’s the use between death and glory?” By the sixth song, 8 Dead Boys, the record achieves great reliability, but that regularity costs the group their listeners’ interest. The LP wanes on the extraneous track, In Love with a Feeling, but is picked up by Pipedown. They have you begging for a change of pace by the time Sticks and Stones and Pentonville bring in a little reggae. But the silly, overly stated, almost laughable refrains and contrived reggae guitar shakes have you clawing at your ears. The album drifts off from there, with two obligatory songs, Albion and What Katy Did Next dedicated respectively to Blake’s work Visions of the Daughters of Albion and Doherty’s ravishing temptress, Kate Moss. On the whole, the record comes as a remarkably average album from a new band you’ll wanna keep an eye on. –Michael Montesano

Irving Plaza
NYC
4/23/06

I haven’t hung out with my man Cameron, the artist formerly known as MC Cheese reincarnated in the new millenium as King Catalyst, in about two years due to some silly beef that was squashed at the top of 2006. On my last night in Arizona this past week, I get a call from the guy, who the last I heard was neck deep in the grimiest, most underground hip-hop Long Island has to offer with the now sadly-defunct Antisocial crew, stating he’s got a pair of tickets to see the Eagles of Death Metal at Irving. Now, I’ve known this kid for what’s coming on 16 years, and he’s notoriously known for this dangerously eclectic taste in music. But I never expected him to come through with tix to the Eagles. I took him up on his offer and fought the jet lag of what seemed like an eternal flight back from AZ to Newark to catch former video store clerk Jesse “The Devil” Hughes’ premiere cock rock revue live and in effect. I always found the concept of EODM to be a bit corny. Why would I wanna hear some guy posin’ to the oldies when I have perfectly good copies of Mountain’s Climbing! and Deep Purple’s Fireball to rock out to at home? But Hughes and co. play it like they mean it, and their show Sunday night was no exception. Yeah, I could’nt help but roll my eyes at all the corny ass hipsters wavingthe metal horns in the air in fits of ironically good fun. However, when they started pelting the audience with classic cuts from their first album, Peace Love Death Metal, particularly their wild version of Stealer’s Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle with You”, you couldn’t help but get lost in the flavor. They even broke out with a pretty faithful version of the Stones’ timeless ode to young black women, “Brown Sugar”, which was pretty cool. Even stuff on their otherwise boring new album, Death By Sexy, sounded pretty good in the live setting. Josh Homme was a no-show on the drums, but in his place was former Hole and Motley Crue drummer Samantha Maloney, looking hotter than ever and hitting harder than she ever has in her entire career. Opening act Rye Coalition sucked, by the way. -Ed.

Six Demon Bag is Man Man’s sophomore album. Since their murderously good debut, The Man in a Blue Turban with a Face, Man Man have replaced half of their band; drummer Tyberius Lyn and bassist/multi-instrumentalist G Clinton Killingsworth left to form Whales and Cops. The void left is palpable on Six Demon Bag. Gone are the splashes of percussion and odd rhythm shifts. Gone are the songs that constantly threaten to careen beyond singer Honus Honus’s control. Six Demon Bag is a much more controlled affair, with dark romps about damned love and doomed lust, dank alleyways and dangerous footwear. But what Man Man have lost in gusto, Honus Honus has done an admirable, if not completely successful, job in mitigating with lucidity (he does have the sense to ape a great (smog) line). There are real songs here, with real lyrics– a whole new bag, a Six Demon Bag! I for one never cared what the lyrics were on their debut; songs like “Against the Peruvian Monster” could have been about, uh, a Peruvian Monster for all I cared. It wasn’t about the words. It was about the expressiveness of the music & vocals, the stomp, the commitment, the howl. But judging by Six Demon Bag’s discernable vocals, and coherent lyrics, I wasn’t allowed to play by those rules this time around. So I listened on Man Man’s terms and I heard a good record, not quite the revelation that the debut was but certainly no sophomore dump. I heard a record on which the wondrous and naive children’s chorus from the debut was regrettably replaced by the grating sound of men trying to sound like a children’s chorus. I heard a record that packed the end with many of what I consider to be definitive Man Man songs. Songs like “Tunneling Through the Guy” that have a real rhythmic tenacity to match its lyrical menace. Six Demon Bag shows that Man Man, over the course of an entire album, can still capture lightning in a bag, but they used to do it in a single song. –Adam Silverman