Concert Review: Summer Streakin' With The Rock N' Dolls

enki — Fri, 26 May 2006 02:46:58 EDT

Last Tuesday night marked the kickoff of the Summerstreak tour which is being put on by The Rock N'Dolls and Streak Music. The tour is an ambitious one which intends to cover most of the Eastern Half of the US and parts of Canada as well. Use the Summerstreak link above to view the current tour schedule.

The kickoff was held at the Canal Room, an upscale club in the Tribeca section of New York City. I recently did a profile of the Dolls and thought I would follow along as they develop their presence in the NYC rock scene. This tour is the culmination of their efforts to date and allows them to put all of the resources available to them to use. These resources include a sponsorship from Rockstar Energy Drinks and the above noted collaboration with Streak Music, a NYC based record company.

Judging from the number of people who showed up, I would say that the event was a definite success for both The Dolls, their founder Lady Lane and for the bands that performed. I estimate that about 300 people were there overall during the course of the evening. The number of people fluctuated as one band finished and another took the stage with some fans leaving and others showing up. This behavior is pretty commonplace in NY clubs with each band that performs having their own fans who follow them from show to show almost religiously. The event lasted from 9pm till nearly 3am with a total of six bands rocking down the house. It was something of a marathon but one that I thoroughly enjoyed.

The Dolls emceed the show of course and all were quite...um...fetching decked out in more conservative attire than what I am used to seeing them wear at other shows. For this event the girls all wore little party dresses which were almost "formal" in some sense I suppose, the color of choice was...black of course.

The first band to take the stage was "Me Talk Pretty", fronted by Julia Pretou. I have been following this band ever since I reviewed them for the first time last year and their rise in popularity has been steadily gaining momentum since then and doesn't seem to be slowing down. Julia was right on her mark Tuesday night with both her amazing voice and with her stage performance. She totally charmed the audience and afterward had a small throng of males around her buying the band's CD, giving her compliments, hugs and even a bouquet of flowers purchased at a nearby market. Julia was totally flattered by the attention and gracious as always trying to talk to everyone who wanted a moment of her time. Me Talk Pretty is one of the bands that is now in Georgia with The Dolls performing at various venues as the next leg in the tour unfolds. Among the venues they are playing there is the James Brown Music Festival.

Following Me Talk Pretty was a band named Lourds who drives rock like they stole it. Led by Lourds Lane who plays electric violin among other instruments and backed by Sarah Vasil on drums, Gene Blank on a screaming electric guitar and Joey Sagarese on bass these guys give you a show to remember. Their sound is sort of a fusion of punk and straight up hardcore rock 'n roll as only a NYC based band can do it. It was my first time seeing this band and regretfully I walked out of there without a copy of their CD but I am going to remedy that situation shortly.

Next up was Jonny Lives!. The band is currently promoting their new EP, get steady. I have a copy of the EP and after istening to it a couple times I think it is a totally commercially viable piece of work. I mean viable in the larger market outside the Lower East Side of Manhattan from which they claim to draw quite a bit of influence and inspiration. An easy comparison of their sound would be to say "sounds like" The Killers with some early Beatles stylings. I like the EP a lot.

The Redbelly Band followed Jonny Lives! on the stage. The Redbelly Band was imported from Georgia by the Dolls specifically to play this show and it was the first time the guys ever played New York. I talked to their guitarist, Walker Howle, before they played and he said the band was enthusiastic about playing in the city. While we talked Elizabeth (aka Nightmare) lead singer for Devola joined in the conversation and mentioned that the boys from the south had done some cooking the night before, whipping up some regional dishes from the deep south while they bands were hanging out together and her opinion was essentially "that's good eatin'". I have a copy of their EP titled Petition To The Queen and it, like their food, has a flavor all its own, born and bred in and reflecting the cultural influence of the south. I have a soft spot for Southern Rock and these guys do the tradition proud.

Drag Citizen is a Black Sabbath (among others) influenced rock machine from, to quote the band, "the seedy, industrial shithole of East Williamsburg, Brooklyn". The trio is led by Nick Vivid who plays a white, flying V bass guitar. I spent some time downstairs in the bandroom during the evening mooching free beer and while I was there Nick and I talked for a while about the business of rock 'n roll from the perspective of the indie artist. I think we agreed that it takes hard work and determination and that, once you get your band to the place where you have your own CD out and have developed a loyal fan base, you can approach a major label for the funding and connections that you need to progress to the next level. With two self-produced EP's to their credit already Drag Citizen is well on their way to reaching that place.

Batting clean-up for the night was The Divide who, despite their unfortunate positioning as the last band in a rock marathon, delivered a great performance. They are one of the best "undiscovered" grunge bands that I know of. They have a self produced demo CD available now and plan to release the fully mastered production version shortly. Of late they have been throwing some pretty innovative guitar work into their songs at their live shows and I think that really adds something for the fan who is already familliar with their material. I recently did a search for grunge bands in NYC on myspace listed by number of song plays and the Divide came in at number 8. That search included all grunge bands in the city, signed, indie and unsigned. Not a bad position out of 48 pages of grunge bands.

As I said, all in all the evening was a huge success for the Dolls. There was enough variety in the styles of the bands to keep the interest of the audience throughout the night. In the photo above Julia and Lady lane feel the love that permeated the place at the end of the night. I have to admit that I got my share of that love too and all I can say is...god I love this job.

Canadian Recording Artists Ask for Your Help in Saving a Young Woman From Execution

enki — Wed, 17 May 2006 19:28:34 EDT

In Iran an 18-year-old named Nazanin is sentenced to be put to death by hanging. Her crime? Defending herself and her 16-year-old niece from being raped by three men. During the attack she drew a knife and stabbed one of the attackers. In doing so she succeeded in driving the attackers off and saved the two of them from whatever fate awaited them at the hands of the three men.

She was subsequently arrested, tried and found guilty of a crime. At her trial she said in her defense; "I wanted to defend myself and my niece. I did not want to kill that boy. At the heat of the moment I did not know what to do because no one came to our help." Her appeals have failed and without severe pressure from outside sources she will die for this "crime".

The girls' only alternative would have been to submit to the rape and not report it. Why? because if they reported it and could not produce enough male witnesses to confirm that it had indeed been a rape, then the Sharia Court would treat it as a case of adultery and the girls would have been severely punished, especially if a child had been conceived through the rape. The punishment for women or girls who have premarital sex is 100 lashes. Since it WAS a rape, the real (mental) punishment would have been much more severe than that, and lasted for the rest of the victims' lives.

Canadian recording artist Nazanin, who shares a name and a homeland with this young woman, has been championing the cause for some time now. This story in the National Review Online contains an interview with the Artist Nazanin. But the hour for her namesake is at hand and nearly all options have been exhausted.

Today Nazanin, along with fellow Canadian Artists Biff Naked, Britt Black, The Vincent Black Shadow and their record company, Bodog Music, sent out urgent bulletins to all their MySpace friends asking for people to sign a petition in the hope that enough worldwide public pressure will force the Iranian courts to abandon or reduce the sentence. If you would like to lend your name to this petition you can do so by going to this page. It won't cost you a cent, just a few moments of your time and those few moments might save the life of a young woman who is sentenced to die for the crime of self-defense.

This Correction came in after the story was published from the Artist Nazanin: We have just been notified that this is the status:

"Nazanin's fate will be decided at the end of this week or next week by the Supreme Court. If they decide to go ahead with the sentence, she could be executed by hanging in less than 2 weeks."

For another source on this story I offer this piece from Iran Focus. In the story another girl is mentioned, a 16 year old. Her crime was to be "less than chaste". She has already been hanged....

Desicritics Author: enki

Concert Review: Summer Streakin' With The Rock N' Dolls

Canadian Recording Artists Ask for Your Help in Saving a Young Woman From Execution