Happy Mondays

Fans Still Going Ape for Gorillaz

2006-02-22T19:53:00-05:00

Just when music lovers thought they had seen it all, Gorillaz surfaced in year 2000 and redefined the art of pop high conceptualism.
The multimedia brainchild of Blur frontman Damon Albarn and comic illustrator Jamie Hewlett (“Tank Girl”), Gorillaz billed themselves as the first “virtual hip-hop group.” Translated, that meant Gorillaz was a recording group in the truest sense of the phrase.
Not only did the quartet rarely tour, they maintained an ever-alternating line-up (including alt-pop heroes like Dan “The Automator” Nakamura and Tom Tom Club’s Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, among others). To further deepen the mystery, the group promoted itself in music videos as a quartet of multi-racial, post-apocalypse cartoon characters named 2D (Albarn), Murdoc, Russel and Noodle.
In fact, Gorillaz was so high-concept, industry odds makers didn’t know how to handicap the group. So imagine the surprise when Gorillaz’ self-titled debut album became a worldwide smash, selling over a million copies in the U.S., and capturing countless music video awards and nominations worldwide. Appropriately enough, Albarn’s curious side project drove music fans ape.
Gorillaz recently returned with their sophomore album, and though the lineup is almost entirely different, the sound and images are as compelling as ever. With Albarn still commanding the helm, Demon Days features major contributions from DJ Danger Mouse, the notorious mixer who “mashed” the Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s The Black Album into The Grey Album. Rounding out the Demon Days cast is Blondie’s Debby Harry, De La Soul singer Shaun Rider (Happy Mondays), and Easy Rider actor Dennis Hopper.
Calling Demon Days a pastiche of “art pop, hip-hop, dub and dance,” Rolling Stone magazine posed the rhetorical question… “Four years after Gorillaz’ debut, is Damon Albarn’s cartoon side project still worth the shtick? The answer is a qualified yes.” Pitchfork.com simply gushed: “Demon Days is better than it has any right to be.”
Recently, Albarn announced plans to assemble the entire cast of Demon Days for some upcoming concert dates. The rumored jaunt would be no small feat, considering the scheduling nightmares that will surely result from trying to assemble such a diverse team.

Dirty Vegas

2002-09-11T21:00:00-05:00

Dirty Vegas should name themselves after America's glitzy gaming capitol. After all, the British trio has gambled on an electronic club sound that combines pulsating dance rhythms with folky singer/songwriter melodies. But the band's crapshoot has paid off handsomely, having resulted in a massive international hit single and album.

Dirty Vegas's musical wager began in 2001. That's when the group completed writing and recording their breakthrough single, "Days Go By," in half a day. Three days later, influential BBC deejay Pete Tong was spinning the disc on his show, transforming the just-recorded song into a major British hit.

Within months, Dirty Vegas fever migrated to the States. In early 2002, Mitsubishi launched a U.S. television ad campaign featuring dancers grooving to "Days Go By." By early spring, the single was a U.S. hit fueled by an MTV/VH1 video. Dirty Vegas's self-titled debut album was the highest-charting album on Billboard's Top 200, landing in the Top 10 and quickly winning "gold" sales certification.

Critical acclaim has made Dirty Vegas's success all the sweeter. Rolling Stone raved about the band's "electrofolk" sound, while USA Today described the group as "a collective of sonically savvy upstarts intent on proving that electronic dance music and singer/songwriter pop can blend in perfect harmony." A similarly impressed Los Angeles Times wrote: "Inspired as much by Pink Floyd and the late-'80s Manchester scene (Happy Mondays) as the dance world, 'Dirty Vegas' is a promising debut."

The members of Dirty Vegas - which features singer/multi-instrumentalist Steve Smith, producer/multi-instrumentalist Ben Harris and producer/keyboardist/deejay Paul Harris (no relation) - are all veterans of Britain's bustling club scene. The trio formed in 2001.

Resisting the temptation to replicate their hit single, Dirty Vegas instead created an eclectic album that has made them one of the world's most auspicious new bands. "We just remembered the great vibe you used to hear [in clubs]," Ben Harris recently told Rolling Stone. "Back when you could hear four-on-the-floor dance music mixed with Primal Scream mixed with Spanish guitar mixed with hip-hop. That's been lost in club culture today. So we thought, it we're not hearing it, let's make it ourselves."