So, you wanna know about The Strokes, huh? The above picture goes part way to explaining them, but here's the low-down, the four one one, the word on the street, the tale of two cities, the story of love, lust and betrayal...well no, the last couple were not so close to the truthful description, but none the less here's story:
In 1998 Albert Hammond Jr. (guitarist, the one with the frizzy, curly hair whose usually smoking in photos) moved from L.A. to New York City where he met up with Julian Casablancas, (Songwriter, one with the sexy voice, wicked hair and really big eyes) who he'd met way back in the swiss bording school stint. Albert was introduced to Julian's pal's Nick Valensi (pouting young-looking guitarist again with cool hair) and Fabrizio Moretti (aka Fab, bopping mop of hair and flailing arms of a kick ass drummer, again has cool hair) whom Julian went to high school in NYC with, as well as Nikolai Fraiture (bass playing quiet one with a cool smile, and also ace hair) who Julian had known since toddlerhood. These guys (Jules, Nick, Fab and Nikolai) had been beating around their instruments for awhile and when Albert came, guitar in hand, (as Fab says, like a godsend), Julian was freed of "six string duties" and got these 5 New York punters serious about making good music. And good music they made, and hopefully and undoubtabley will continue to do so.
They then met Ryan (Wiz Kid) Gentles, who was working at a bar, the Mercury Lounge, in New York and helped them out in getting a few gigs going and few people interested in their music and he eventually became their manager. The story goes Ryan played 15 seconds of The Modern Age to Geoff Travis of Rough Trade records and agreed to release it. Anyway, they released their EP of The Modern Age/Hard to Explain earlier this year on indie label Rough Trade, then got signed to RCA in America shortly after and released their LP Is This It. Before that LP was even released they'd created enough hype to let a little kid lay off red cordial for life. They did a lot of touring, released the single Last Nite in late 2001,Someday in 2002 and are still touring and writting new stuff. |
