Being a member of the Strokes must suck. You have to deal with having tons of fans, playing sold-out shows all the time, suffering through endless praise from critics, and sleeping with models on top of giant piles of money.
Actually, I’m being sarcastic. That wouldn’t suck at all.
And yet apparently none of the Strokes are happy just being members of the Strokes. It feels like they’ve all got solo projects going, because another terrible thing about being in the Strokes is that you can record just about anything you want and get some major label to distribute it.
While driving around upstate a couple weeks back listening to the excellent EQX, I heard, for the first time, Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture’s new band, cleverly named Nickle Eye. Get it?
The song I heard, presumably the band’s first single, is called “Brandy of the Damned.” It features three minutes of essentially one repeated reggae-inspired riff. It’s not a terrible groove, for what it’s worth; it’s vaguely reminiscent of The Police.
The lead singer, I assume Nickle Eye himself, sounds bored, maybe because his song is just the same thing over and over again, or maybe because recording detached and bored-sounding vocals is a hip thing to do, or maybe because he’s bored with the trend of sounding bored and is aspiring to some sort of meta-boredom.
Anyway, the lyrics go like this:
Don’t let them get you down.
They’ll step on you to get to higher ground
All my life I’ve been a working man.
I’ve been working for the man.
In this life you only get one chance.
Music is the brandy of the damned.
That’s it. Those are all the lyrics to “Brandy of the Damned.” They repeat a couple of times, but it’s got to be the easiest karaoke song of all time. Nearly every line is a cliche, and the only one that’s decidedly not — “Music is the brandy of the damned” — is a quote from George Bernard Shaw.
Also, it’s hard to really empathize with the lead singer, because we know he’s in the Strokes and has decidedly not spent his entire life as a working man, working for the man, just sitting around rhyming “man” with “man.”
I guess he’s singing in someone else’s voice or whatever. Whatever.
Maybe I’m missing something here. Maybe Nickle Eye is super cool and awesome, and I just have bad taste in music. I prefer my brandy a little more interesting.
Tedquarters 
EQX is a frustrating radio station because of the variety. Maybe 90% of the time I can turn it on and they’ll be playing something I really like, but the other 10% of the time I’ll tune in and it’ll be Phish, or the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, or some other forgettable mid-90s alt-rock act. Crap shoot, as far as I’m concerned.
I think thats the exact problem with radio these days. Every station seems to want to cater to everyone. They want everyone to tune into thier station.
To me this is just not possible. No one like all types of music, and the ‘hits’ stations that play a ‘variety’ are awful.
They need to get back to stations that cater to particular niches, where you had stations that played classic rock, or modern rock, rap, or whatever, but they stuck to thier thing, and you could tune in knowing what you are going to hear.
I think that’s reasonable. I just like listening to EQX when I’m in range because it’s so rare I get to a decent modern alternative rock terrestrial radio station.
I have a huge soft spot in my heart for the Bosstones. I grew up playing trombone, and they were the first reasonably hip band I ever heard of that had a trombone in it. The later stuff — most of what’s ever on the radio — I could do without, but their first couple albums were sweet. They got a lot smoother with time and it didn’t always suit them.
Phish I’m completely ambivalent about. I played in a couple of different bands with people who listen to way, way too much Phish, and I never got the whole thing, but I do think a couple of their songs are cool.
And sometimes I like to hear forgettable 90s alt-rock in general, because hey, Spacehog.
I haven’t listened to Nickel Eye, but the new Julian Casablancas album is pretty good. Always stick with the lead singer’s solo projects.
Ted, Just stick to the Foo Fighters and you’ll be ok. Dave Grohl and Co. They get what it is to be a real rock group.
Little Joy (Fab Moretti’s band), Julian Casablancas solo, and Nickel Eye have all been weak. But you gotta understand, hearing Fraiture’s band is just like hearing some random idiot’s band–no one but Casablancas had a hand in anything on the first two albums but him. My understanding of the story is this–when the other guys finally stepped up and demanded part of the creative side, you got the piece of garbage known as “First Impressions of Earth”.
From interviews with him now, it sounds like they’re still not willing to go back to letting him write rock songs for them, which is a shame, because they should realize that they are just not good individually.
Funny story tho, I snuck backstage after their show at the Tsongas Center in 2003, this was just after my 18th birthday; I was slamming Heinekens and eating pepperoni pizza with my then-idols. But the Kings of Leon were there and they were fiercely hassling me about eating all of the Strokes’ pizza (I ate like 5 slices). Freakin Kings of Leon, those guys suck.
That is a good story.
A friend of mine met Andrew WK backstage at a show and told him he was having a party the next day and invited him. Andrew WK was dismissive, but took the kid’s cell phone number anyway. Then the next day, the kid gets a call from Andrew WK, and he’s all, “Are there going to be hot dogs at the party?” and so the kid says yes, even though he had no plans to serve hot dogs, and gives Andrew WK his address, then goes out and buys hot dogs.
Apparently Andrew WK showed up, partied with them for like four hours, and ate about 7 hot dogs. Weird dude, it turns out. Not just an act.
I would imagine Andrew WK knows how to party. From what I have learned from the interwebs, Andrew WK is an angel who misbehaved in Heaven, and God punished him by sending him to earth to party for all eternity. The dude knows how to party.
That’s an excellent story.
Nick Valensi was a grade ahead of me in the same high school (NYC Lab).
Never spent time with the guy, but word was he was a royal pain.