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Tour Dates
08/14/08 Frequency Festival Austria
08/15/08 Highfield Festival,Germany
08/16/08 Pukkelpop Festival, Belgium
08/17/08 Lowlands Festival Netherlands
08/20/08 Carling Academy [SOLD OUT] Newcastle, England
08/21/08 Thekla Bristol, England
08/23/08 Reading Festival England
08/24/08 Leeds Festival England
08/25/08 Last Days Of Summer Festival Buckingham, England
08/29/08 Rock en Seine Festival Paris, France
08/31/08 Jersey Live Festival England
09/05/08 Bestival Isle of Wight, England
09/19/08 Freebird Live Jacksonville, FL
09/20/08 The Social Orlando, Florida
09/21/08 Crowbar Tampa, Florida
09/23/08 The Earl Atlanta, Georgia
09/24/08 40 Watt Club Athens, GA
09/25/08 Cat’s Cradle Carrboro, NC
09/26/08 Black Cat Washington, DC
09/27/08 Ottobar Baltimore, MD
09/29/08 First Unitarian Church Philadelphia, PA
10/2/08 Paradise Boston, MA
10/4/08 Cabaret Musee Juste Pour Rire Montreal, Quebec
10/5/08 The Mod Club Toronto, Ontario
10/7/08 7th Street Entry Minneapolis, Minnesota
10/10/08 Neumo’s Seattle, Washington
10/11/08 Richards on Richards Vancouver, British Columbia
10/12/08 Hawthorne Theater Portland, Oregon
10/13/08 The Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco, California
10/16/08 Belly Up San Diego, CA
10/20/08 Mandela Hall Belfast, Ireland
10/21/08 Academy Dublin, Ireland
10/22/08 Carling Academy, England
10/23/08 Carling Academy, England
10/25/08 Warehouse Project Manchester, England
10/26/08 ABC Glasgow, Scotland
10/27/08 Metropolitan University Leeds, England
10/28/08 Junction Cambridge, England
10/30/08 London Astoria, England
10/31/08 Trent University Nottingham, England
11/01/08 Nation Liverpool, England
11/02/08 The Pyramids Centre Portsmouth, England
11/04/08 Lido Berlin, Germany
11/05/08 Small Vega, Denmark
11/07/08 Knust Hamburg, Germany
11/08/08 59:1 Munich, Germany
11/09/08 Werkstatt Cologne, Germany
11/11/08 AB Club Brussels, Belgium
11/12/08 Melkweg Amsterdam, Holland
11/13/08 Aeronef Lille, France
11/14/08 La Cigale Paris, France
11/15/08 Olympic Nantes, France
11/17/08 Le Bikini Toulouse, France
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I like fun music. Some artists like to use music to deliver weighty social commentary, some use it as a weapon against the injustices done to us by our world and our hearts, and some build entire mysterious universes out of severed sound--and, gods know, I love that kind of stuff. But a lot of my fellow card-carrying Music Snobs tend to forget that music can be fun, too. In fact, despite its sacred origins and its power to literally change the world we live in, most music does not have any grand mythic aspirations or any serious agenda whatsoever: it's simply meant to make you feel good, to jump up from your chair and shake yo' booty, or give you something to rock to when you're driving on the interstate. Sometimes you just need to lighten up, go out to your local indie-rock night, knock back a couple Irish Car Bombs, and dance 'til you're crippled!
Back in the Greatest Decade Ever Known to Man, the 1980s, pop radio was inundated with fun music by Blondie, the Go-Gos, Duran Duran, INXS, The B-52s, The Blow Monkeys, Cyndi Lauper, and so forth. What made these artists shoot to the top of the charts and remain ridiculously popular even today? None of them aspired to be the next Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, or even Gang of Four: they just wrote good music whose sole purpose was to squeeze some life out of your adrenal glands and electrify your days and nights with their energy. How many people--even those born after the Greatest Decade was long over--regard the Go-Gos' "Vacation" as the anthem for their weeks off from work? How many still crowd dancefloors when a DJ busts out Duran Duran's "Hungry Like The Wolf"? Are these "great songs" like Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" or John Mellencamp's "Scarecrow"? No--but that doesn't mean they aren't iconic.
Black Kids (MySpace) know this. Their debut album, Partie Traumatic, is packed from end to end with jams designed to become the anthems to your next brief fling with the hipster chick you met on the dancefloor or your first summer away at school. These are the songs that will stick in your head forever because you'll always remember the silly times and youthful exuberance to which they were the soundtrack. Just as thirtysomethings like me go bananas at '80s Nites to dance in rememberance of the songs of our youth, so to will many of you reading this be rockin' it out to the Black Kids at Early 2000s Nites in the 2020s. Hard to believe they've only been together since 2006 and this is their first album. I haven't heard music this electric since the early 1980s when I first heard Devo on MTV.
Much like other retro-dance bands such as VHS or Beta, Under the Influence of Giants, and Men Women & Children (with whom Black Kids share a noticeable musical affinity), Black Kids write music to dance to, to make you bob ya head while you're riding the bus or filling out spreadsheets at work, and sing along as you blast Partie Traumatique in your car with all the windows down so you physically affront passers-by with your jams. Much like Men Women & Children, Black Kids' songs are built from a very wide, and very New Wave, selection of instruments: frenetic dance beats, discofied guitars, catchy basslines, swirly synths, and crazy vocals. "Hit the Heartbrakes" opens the album with an explosion of beats and shuddery guitars, but what really makes the song is the interplay between Reggie Youngblood's lead vocals and Ali Youngblood/Dawn Watley's shouted background vocals, which give the songs a celebratory B-52s kind of flare. The title track, "Partie Traumatique" reminds me a bit of The Epoxies in its frantic pace and its wild, squealing synths. "Listen To Your Body Tonight" is a song that should be played on every dancefloor on the planet, primarily for its seductive--yet silly--bridge: "Hello? / Hello, this is your body! / What do you want, my body? / I wanna feel somebody on me!" Come on now...if that doesn't scream "My parents are gone for the weekend so PARTY AT MY PLACE! then you need to get out of the club, watch Superbad again at least twice, and report back when you're ready to bust some moves.
But now, let me just take a moment to be a little serious here. "Hurricane Jane," the fourth track on the album and the latest single to be released, is a somewhat more leisurely, but still very danceable song, that captures the spirit of the early 1980s so beautifully that it brought a tear to my eye to realize that those days are gone. Sounding a lot like a contemporary cover of a Blow Monkeys or Style Council classic, "Hurricane Jane" has one of those soaring, heart-lifting choruses that will make you feel as though your soul has left your body. It's just...sublime.
In fact, to be honest, virtually every song on this album has that same fusion-powered sublimity that manages to turn dancefloors into gateways to the heavens. Best of all, with songs like "I'm Making Eyes At You" and lead single "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You," this is an entire album aimed toward providing the soundtrack for your first real meaningless affair. Yes, the lyrics aren't particularly deep--but that doesn't mean they aren't meaningful. In fact, there's more meaning in their festive dance-through-the-apocalypse closing number, "Look At Me (When I Rock Wichoo)," than in most music simply because...well, I dare any one of you to tell me that the line "Sure, I know it's apocalypse / but can't it wait till I kiss your lips?" doesn't describe exactly how you felt in the glory days of your youth? If you have yet to enjoy those glory days, then, damn it, this song is perfect for them!
To wrap this review up, let me just state that I would gladly trade both of my legs to see Black Kids, Men Women & Children, VHS or Beta, and The Epoxies together on the same billing. (After a show like that, my legs would be so ruined from dancing I'd have to trade them in on new ones.) Fortunately, Black Kids are touring their asses off right now, so I'm sure you'll get to see them somewhere! Good god, do so. Just don't wear anything particularly valuable to the show, or it'll end up drenched in sweat by the end of the night.
Links: blackkidsmusic.com myspace.com/blackkidsrock
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