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Picture yourself tied to a bed in a motel room in
downtown New York in a motley but strangely erotic get-up
of rubber and black leather. You might be a director.
A movie star. A private detective. A voyeur of sorts.
And lying there you are beset by a swarm of pounding,
heavy wrist action guitars and hammer beats. The blinds
are down and the rain curls like the veins of a neighboring
psycho from the ceiling. You are in heaven. You are
in hell - you are in the company of The Raveonettes.
With a sound more akin to whiplash than actual rhythm,
Denmark's The Raveonettes are somehow beginning to make
a lot of sense. They're young, they're beautiful and
their signature industrial gothic is tipped to topple
The Hives as indie's coolest euro-export. The sound
itself may be rooted in the blood red of eighties and
nineties drone rock: Jesus and The Mary Chain, The
Cramps, My Bloody Valentine, Mazzy Star et al but
there is at the forefront the velvet harmonies of 60's
surf music and the tingling exuberance of The Ronettes.
If a transvestite Lou Reed had met Phil Spector in 1959
- this would undoubtedly have been the result.
Meeting through friends in 'vunderful, vunderful Copenhagen'
and sharing love of retro trash and Americana, singer-
guitarist (formerly of punky Danish combo, Psyched
Up Janis) and singer-bassist Sharin Foo (the beautiful
blond one) the Buddy Holly inspired Raveonettes commenced
their rise from the gutter by wowing the industry at
September 2002's In the City event. On the thirty-minute
CBGB showcase the Raveonettes introduced three
new songs that were to deliver further shockwaves. Recorded
with Richard Gottehrer who midwifed Blondie's
first two albums, "Rave On", "Chain Gang of Love" and
"That Great Love Sound" were said to have provided thirty
minutes of buzzing erotic menace. As an advertisement
for Whip It On - the band's self-produced debut
album it proved mightily successful and ignited the
touchpaper that was to launch them from the underground.
That Wagner lived for a time in the seedy red light
universe of New York City is patently obvious. The record
is, for all it's B-Movie pretensions and monochrome
Americana steeped from head to toe in thunder red lipstick
and fishnet stockings - as much harlem trash as danish
pastry, as much Amelia Copeland as Jack Kerouac, and
as much fetish flick as film-noir.
Anyway, check them out for yourself with the streams
below.
Relevant sites:
Richard
Gottehrer
Crunchy
Frog Records
The
Ravonettes
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