Once a decade or so — if we’re lucky — we stumble upon music that’s genuinely fresh. Music that echoes scarcely remembered classics in the mind’s ear, while striking a tone that we simply can’t remember having heard before. A band whose new releases we anticipate with breathless excitement, and whose inevitable passing we curse and mourn like the death of a loved one. We’re lucky; in 2005, we have Populuxe.
Born in Brooklyn toward the end of the 1990’s, POPULUXE is the brainchild of frontman Rob Shapiro (formerly of 2.5D and THUNDERBATS) — musical polymath, vintage-gear fanatic and (reportedly) gleefully ruthless perfectionist. The band coalesced around the prodigious talents of drummer Pete Straub — multi-credited session player (Glenn Ballard, Cliff Magness, etc.) and formerly of Double-D Nose, and guitar/keyboard prodigy Joshua Pickering, whose musical pedigree includes PODS (with ex-LEMONHEADS founder Ben Deily), and forays into everything from Drum & Bass to classic hardcore punk (THE LAST).
With a name borrowed from Thomas Hine’s seminal text on the space-age baroque style of the 50s and 60s, POPULUXE neatly defies any further categorization. Their sound suggests the Gershwin brothers writing for the New York Dolls; Count Basie reincarnated as Paul Westerberg; Big Star playing Steely Dan — yielding songs that are alternately sly and elegiac, hook strewn and haunting.
With the release of their second album, 'deep in an American evening...' — the follow-up to the 1998 debut 'a foggy day in brooklyn' — the band has achieved a new level of musical depth, wit and sheer pop lushness. 'American evening...' weaves a Robert Altman-like tapestry of love in decline; of desperation, defiance and rueful humor; of familiar lives, tethered together by a thin thread of hope.
And Populuxe gives us — as the somewhat jaded music listeners of the 21st century — something to hope for, too; that a band as rare as this will grace us with a long and unpredictable future.
Thanks again for another wonderful show! And I do so enjoy you both as human beings so it's always a pleasure having the opportunity to spend time with you.
This is just a short note to let you know that the full version of our debut single 'Doesn't Change A Thing'' is now up on our profile for your listening pleasure...we'd be eternally grateful if you could let us know what you think of it?
If you like it you can even pre-order it at wippit.com or easymusic.com before its official release on June 18...
