So many things are right/wrong with this video, where to begin? First the teeth, always the teeth. How can you not love Donald straight away? Homeboy's looking a little more homeless than usual, but who cares? He's staring right into the camera the whole time like a dead stick figure dressed in the red flannel Brooklyn heart palpitations are made of. On drugs or drunk? Probably. But he could also be suffering from borderline somnambulism. It doesn't matter, everything he does works in the end.
Now the real reason for the post. I had a heart attack when I misheard "funky Strokes" for "fuck the Strokes" no less than 4 times in the video. Do I sense a little annoyance in Donald's slur? Probably, and I totally support it. WHY does every new young band, esp those that come out of NYC have to be compared to the Strokes? Don't get me wrong, I love that Jules & Co. are the touchstone for what matters in this town, but sometimes the comparisons can be over-top-top, or worse yet, relentless.
First Arctic Monkeys (recording 3rd album now in Brooklyn!!!) were plagued so much by the press pre-Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not release, that they lashed back with EP Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys? I foolishly boycotted due to the Alex-Turner-is-the-next-Julian-is-the-next-Kurt-Cobain bullshit that swamped the blogosphere. Turns out the lads became one of my favorite bands and went on to win the coveted Mercury Prize for their debut. Mr. Turner has since been nominated for his full-length efforts AM's Favourite Worst Nightmare and Last Shadow Puppets' The Age of the Understatement.
Countless other bands were forced to live up to Is This It? standards (including the Strokes upon releasing First Impressions of Earth, but that's another story). Vampire Weekend was immediately hailed THE NEXT STROKES when the 1st notes of "Kwassa Kwassa," etc, hit the net. WHY? Because they formed a band while studying @ Columbia? Because they wear polo shirts and Cape Cod khakis? Because they use strings at their live shows to fill in the barebones tracks, and the Strokes layer their shit like a Charlotte Ronson look book? Don't get me wrong, I am a minor fan of this band, but Strokes they are not, and this particular Venn Diagram experiment really drove me up the wall.
Then the Virgins, bless them. The first time I saw them at Mercury Lounge NYE 07 they could barely play their guitars. They were sweet, smokin' hot, and they had good songs, but honeyyyyyy they could NOT hold a candle to a Strokes live show. Out of Strokes-comparison context, the Virgins kick fucking ass, and I think their heralded "funk" comes more like an inheritance from Mick Jagger circa "Emotional Rescue" than any Wiz Kid recordings. Of course I could always be wrong. Point is, the Virgins have had to deal with facing up to the Strokes almost mythological status (since their undeclared hiatus) in this city, and unfairly, too. The Virgins now play like pros, cover amazing NYC (and not) songs from the rock and roll cool canon, and as Donald mentions above, their shows are really "fun."
The latest Strokes-addled performer is Lissy Trullie. Read this article written by Lizzy Goodman from NYMag. Can't you hear the breathless praise in a smoker's rasp? The end of the article is so romantic and cliche and abs. insane (I was at that show) that you just have to laugh. Lissy's music can stand on its own without having to put her into the NYC Cool School of Rock and Roll. I know it's fun to talk about Lou Reed and J Cas and The Ramones etc. in the same paragraph of a glossy mag, but I think Lissy's music is much more 60's girl-band influenced, with a dash of Live Thru This and a pinch of Nico's solo album. Certainly Eben de Amico's musicianship plays a role as well. (He used to play for Saves the Day.)
This is a pretty long rant. Bottom line, stop comparing every fucking single band to the Strokes. None of them will ever live up to it... and they'll probably just get annoyed that people can't listen to their tunes without calling it "funky Strokes" or "sober Strokes" or "disco Strokes" or "post-Apocalyptic Dharma Initiative coconut Strokes." You get the point.
