pierre- lead vocals, rhythm guitar, percussion, keys;
chris- lead guitar, vocals, percussion, keyboards... go to a street hassle show and you'll find out how all of this works...
Influences
“… who talked continuously seventy hours from park to
pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,
lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping
down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills
off Empire State out of the moon,
yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts
and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks
and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,
whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days
and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the
Synagogue cast on the pavement,
who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a
trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic
City Hall,
suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawal in Newark's bleak furnished room,
who wandered around and around at midnight in the
railroad yard wondering where to go, and went,
leaving no broken hearts,
who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing
through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night,
who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,
who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian
angels…”
Sounds Like
"... their fuzzed out, lo-fi take on 60's psychedelic blues rock and pop is actually quite good..." -we shot j.r... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
austin sound review of 'get off your knees' ep: "The debut EP from this Denton duo is a shot of garage rock worth more than its six songs suggest. With the same slurred vocals of now-locals the Strange Boys and shredding the same musical heritage of gold Nuggets, the slightly more sloppy and much more excited sound serves Street Hassle well. It's like hearing the early beginnings of young Sixties psychedelic punks, throwing in everything they can find in the furious service of a rough hewn rhythm that blows out the windows. And what is perhaps most impressive about Get Off Your Knees is the EP's diversity while still sticking to those bare roots of rock, the energy and rawness of the songs overshadowing their derivation.
Opener "Sir Jones," with it's drawn out drone of pounded keyboard chords supported by the jangling, chugging rhythm, sets up the album innocuously enough. The song is straitforward, the lingering, incomprehensible smear of vocals matching the general blues bursts. But when the shredding guitar rips into the song's ending, it's clear Street Hassle has spiked the punch with some harder stuff. "China White" builds on the pace, the keys propelling the drug anthem down the Velvet Underground's dark tracks: "Hey there mister, got a light? My hands are shaky, I don't feel so right. I want to get loose, or out of town. I want to get up, so I can get down." And as the drugs kick in behind the strangled yelp of "Go, Go, Go!," everything falls to pieces in the discordant crescendo of guitar and piano, an immaculate mess.
While "Grow Old and Die" continues in the vein of VU primitivism, the song's jaded edge and eventual drift into almost nonsensical lyrics hearken early Violent Femmes: "If I was pirate, I would lie. If I were a pilot, I would fly. Or maybe a cook with a hook, but no matter, just words in a book." Once again, however, the song takes an unexpected turn at the end with piano dashes that are almost jazzy in their disjointedness. The sweeping, and much more mellow, instrumental number "The Accident" might seem out of place, but the bent guitar picks and synthesized notes blend into a surprisingly beautiful, epic, and virtuosic construction. "Back," meanwhile, drops down into a darker clime, distorted, hollow vocals eerily howling against the plodding chant and slick blues licks. It's heavy, but with an invigorating power, a leaden pull that draws you in ominously but pulses with life.
It's the closing track, "That Rock Will Never Roll," however, that stands out far above the rest. The absolute catharsis of the Rolling Stones fired with an uncontrolled Iggy Pop punk bursts out in the scratchy growl "I got a Rock n Roll soul!" while punching the verses with shrill barks. The fuzz bomb of guitar drives hard, but the piano hammers like Jerry Lee Lewis or Buddy Holly dropped in the middle CBGBs. As the typed-out liner notes state: "All tracks recorded, mixed, and produced by Street Hassle…while dodging cops and angry neighbors within the thin walls of apartment five fourteen." No doubt – now turn it up!" - Doug Freeman
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"The cover is hand painted, it has a song called "grow old and die," the packaging instructs you to play it LOUD, and according to the liner notes they were able to somehow miraculously record this album WHILE being chased by the police. How can this album be anything other than fun?"- Strawberry Fields
Throw my ticket out the window, Throw my suitcase out there, too, Throw my troubles out the door, I don't need them any more 'Cause tonight I'll be staying here with you.
Thanks for your friendship! Please send us any music or other entertainment that you would like to see featured on the RED BANANA, and keep checking back to our webzine for updates!!!
xx "On a traffic light yellow means yield, and green means go. On a banana, it's just the opposite, yellow means go ahead, green means stop, and red means, where'd you get that banana?" - Mitch Hedberg
Thank you so much for being a part of the show. It was a day I'm never going to forget and I'm glad so many awesome people were there to be a part of it!
