Tokyo Police Club

2007-08-17T19:09:05-05:00

Discordant noise and sublime melodies — who can resist? The Tokyo Police club demo wound up in the hands of Paper Bag Records after a sweaty Pop Montreal show. They played it once, twice, three times and then lost count. They then eventually just made time in their schedules to kick back and enjoy “The Nature of the Experiment,” the band’s party tune, on a daily.

At the start of high school, David Monks (vocals, bass), Josh Hook (guitar), Graham Wright (keyboards) and Greg Alsop (drums) started learning to play together from scratch. Their first band fizzled; the new order came about when the boys realized how much they missed playing music. “Cheer It On” had already been written, and “Tokyo Police Club,” featured as a lyric, according to Monks, “justified as the band name in its own ridiculousness.”

The band picks apart the average chord, creating something quite amazing — the guitars are disjointed, high yet perfectly pitched, erratic, verging on sci-fi. They’re cushioned with bumbling, pillow-fight bass lines, crashing open hi-hat, and good-humored keyboards. This is the sound of Tokyo Police Club.

The band has the usual list of idols, musicians that play with their hearts on their sleeves. But secretly, they divulge, with a smile that’s ironic, “We think Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones are the real deal.”

Monks describes the band as “wide-eyed post-punk with a tendency to get over excited — so much so that someone has to come and tell it to settle down.” Hook’s blistering guitar would be enough to induce goose bumps alone; the effect of the band as a whole should come with some sort of warning.

The tracks were written – the sound was already being nurtured – after just three days of recording in the studio. “A Lesson In Crime” was slapped on the ass, wrapped in a blanket and sent out the world. The reception has been nothing short of spectacular, with coverage in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Blender, Pitchfork, MTV2’s “Subterranean” and MTVU. A spring tour with Cold War Kids, SXSW and Coachella brought even more acclaim, including The New York Times and a performance on The Late Show with David Letterman. Summer headlining dates included performances at the Sasquatch! Music Festival and Lollapalloza. Tokyo Police Club will release their new single, “Your English Is Good”, available digitally and in limited 7” vinyl. The 7” b-side will be "Waiting in the Wings", written by keyboardist Graham Wright, and the digital release will feature a new acoustic b-side, "Swedes in Stockholm.”

‘Honor’ Shows Foo Fighters at Their Finest

2006-06-02T15:27:00-05:00

The Foo Fighters‘ career has been, as even its members concede, an unlikely one. Starting out with a handful of self-recorded demos never meant for release, former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl has grown the group into one of rock’s most energizing and accessible acts, scoring Best Rock Album Grammys for two consecutive releases (1999’s There Is Nothing Left to Lose and 2002’s One By One) and selling out concerts around the world.
To celebrate its 10 th year of existence—and to thank its numerous fans—Grohl hit upon the plan to make its fifth album, In Your Honor (RCA), a double disc. And if that wasn’t enough, he decided the album would be evenly split between one hard rocking set and one acoustic, more introspective one.
“By splitting the difference,” he explains, “you eliminate the middle ground. We can make the acoustic record far more delicate and beautiful and atmospheric than anything we’ve ever done, and we can make the rock record far more brutal and aggressive and powerful than anything from our past. I’ve always sort of believed we were capable of doing both—just not as well as this has turned out.”
Indeed, In Your Honor has received critical hosannas across the board, with comparisons to Led Zeppelin’s double album Physical Graffiti making practically de rigueur appearances in reviews. Ranging from the intensely personal single “Best of You” and the throbbing title track, to quieter numbers like “Still” and “Friend of a Friend”—the latter apparently a tribute to the late Kurt Cobain—the release comes off as two very distinct records, albeit of one dedicated mind.
“Everyone in the band has so much to offer,” Grohl says of fellow Foos Nate Mendel (bass), Taylor Hawkins (drums) and Chris Shiflett (guitar). “But we’d sort of remained in this one ‘thing’ for so long that I felt it was time to break out, to branch out, that maybe we should make the acoustic record. But then this band just has to make some rock music so I thought, ‘Okay, why don’t we do this? Why don’t we make a double album?’”
Throw in an impressive range of guest stars—from Norah Jones on “Virginia Moon” and Queens of the Stone Age leader Josh Homme on “Razor” to Zep’s own John Paul Jones on “Miracle” and “Another Round,” and you have a work that’s musically beefy yet also just fun to listen to, as is the case with the best of the Foos.
“In 20 years, when some kid asks his dad, ‘You ever hear of Foo Fighters? Which record should I get?’ they should say In Your Honor,” Grohl affirms. “I want people to say, ‘Wow, that’s the album they’ll be remembered for’.”