Results tagged “duranduran”

TODAY IS WORLD REFUGEE DAY! The International Rescue Committee is hosting a benefit night of poetry, music, dance and crafts from our local refugee community at the Seattle Center, and John Hilde's Made In China (a documentary about his father's childhood in pre-WWII China) is screening at the NWFF with proceeds going to Mercy Corps' work in the devastated Sichuan province of China. Be a good neighbor and enjoy these artsy celebrations of diversity and tradition!

When the Crocodile Cafe abruptly closed down a month ago, we turned to a friend of ours looking for the inside scoop. Kultur Shock guitarist Val Kiossovski was bar manager down for quite a while (he's now running his own place in Lower Queen Anne, Solo, one of our favorite hangouts), so we figured if anyone knew, he would. Unfortunately, he was busy with problems of his own: rescheduling his band's show.

Last Friday we saw Sea Wolf at Chop Suey. We found this Pop Matters review of their first full-length album, but if you'd like to learn more, here's an interview by Sound on the Sound.

Last night at the Showbox, we were reminded of something Gino Srdjan Yevdjevic said in an interview with us last year: we don't remember the quote entirely, but it was something to the effect of characterizing "world music" as "shit." Not the music or the musicians, per se, but rather the genre, a peculiarly American way of pigeon-holing and marketing foreign music. Gino understood the process only too well: back in the 1980s, he was a glammy Duran Duran-esque pop singer in his native Yugoslavia. Only when war forced him to flee to the US in the 1990s did he become a "world musician," performing traditional Balkans music in restaurants for disinterested diners under the name Kultur Shock. While he admitted the original incarnation of Kultur Shock could have done well, it's easy to see why he rebelled against the entire world-music cachet by adding punk rock guitar to the line-up and starting to yuk it up as a sex-crazed Eastern European immigrant à la Steve Martin and Dan Ackroyd's "Wild and Crazy Guys."

The first time we saw Kultur Shock, they were opening for Gogol Bordello at Neumo's, and we have to admit, we'd never heard of them. It was an all-ages show, so we were drinking our fill in the Bad Juju lounge next door, until the insane sounds of the band dragged us away from our beers. Quickly we came to regret missing the first half of their set.

MUSIC: Dancing on the Valentine features wall-to-wall Duran Duran songs covered by local bands, including Say Hi to Your Mom, Valu-Pak, Speaker Speaker, and Peter Parker, all to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Wednesday, February 14

Admittedly, last night we were not expecting much from The Presets. Seattlest had already spent a great deal of our evening surrounded by dudes in baseball caps and girls who were trying too hard (thanks a lot, Scion), so we really weren't in the mood for a late night set at Chop Suey. We had heard good things about the Australian electro-rock duo and felt obligated to attend. But now we're glad we did: the band was in fine form, the crowd was way into it, and the drinks were strong. Wethinks those three factors may somehow be related.

If Duran Duran can guest star on the TV show Las Vegas, and Boy George can write his own hit play, then why can’t formerly supergalactic rock stars INXS do a reality TV show to replace their long-departed lead singer? Michael Hutchence, he of the curly brown hair and sexy strut, died under tragic and controversial circumstances 7 1/2 years ago. Since then, INXS has cycled through several replacements, none of whom brought them even close to the fame they previously had.