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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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The Raveonettes - Great Danes
Wednesday 21 May @ 11:31:13 |
 by Celeste Tabora
You know, it’s 2 a.m. and I’m covered in paint splotches and am on my last two cigarettes from a pack I opened this morning. It’s disgusting and, incidentally, it’s probably fitting that I’m listening to The Raveonettes. Sonically, they’re the apotheosis of this moment: Self-destructive, dangerous and dirty, gritty rock n’ roll. They are a Danish duo—self-confident to the core—that creates this mix of garage and surf rock with a twist of rockabilly.
Perhaps you’ve seen The Raveonettes compared to the America’s hot ticket du jour, The White Stripes, in the press. Don’t be convinced too easily: it’s a lazy comparison. Dig a little deeper and you’ll see past the boy/girl duo similarity. Perhaps you’ll notice that Scandinavia is full of bands humming a similarly raucous tune, particularly Swedes like The Hives, Division of Laura Lee and Sahara Hotnights. The Raveonettes earned their own buzz by attacking 60’s psychedelia with the confidence of a seasoned rock act while also incorporating the crystalline pop songcraft of Brill Building pop acts like The Marvelettes and The Ronettes.
Singer/guitarist Sune Rose Wagner studied rock history from music reference books and encyclopedias, starting off with the 1950s and working all the way to the present. Before establishing The Raveonettes he played in the beloved Danish alternative outfit Psyched Up Janis. Singer/bass player Sharin Foo, (whose Chinese grandpa incidentally relocated to Copenhagen in the ’40s and opened the city’s first Chinese restaurant), had a folk-rocking father. Their lineup also includes Manoj Ramadas (who serves as a second guitarist) and drummer Jakob Hoyer.
The Raveonettes’ new album, Whip It On, produced by Blondie guru Tichard Gottehrer, has garnered the band much attention in the music world. It bursts with sexual energy and destructive appeal which brings to mind many soundtracks of B movies of the ’60s or what should have been the songs to accompany The Avengers’ television series. Wagner wrote the songs on Whip It On in the key of B-flat minor, tuning those strings down in order to achieve a heavier sound without using too much distortion.
Foo derives her dreary, unaffected vocal styling from Indian classical singing when she studied in India under the tutelage of a 19th-generation Dhrupad singer. There are no hi-hat or cymbals in any of these streamlined, three-chord songs, none of which are longer than three minutes. Sune’s sonic manifestation came after living in L.A. and travelling around the United States soaking up music. He reacted to the musical overkill of his sojourn by writing songs that verge on simplistic and stick emphatically to basics— beat, bass line, vocals. The Raveonettes efforts were noticed when the band won Best Rock Album of the Year for Whip It On at the Danish Music Awards (also called The Danish Grammys) in March.
The band has since officially relocated to London, where they find living more inspiring. They have spent a lot of time here in the United States, too. Says Foo, “I really love that the country’s so big because I come from a really, really small country. I really like the decadence. There are a lot of kooks over here. People are pretty crazy. Also, we like a lot of music that came from here and the literature. We’re fascinated by it so we like to visit it, but we wouldn’t want to be living in The States. It’s really the way that the society is. There are so many second-rate citizens and the whole politics of The States don’t agree with that.”
In a way, Americans seem to find The Raveonettes as kooky and fascinating as they do our way of life. Regardless of what most major music press has printed about this band, the public finds them intriguing: a situation that, much to the naysayers’ dismay, perpetuates the band’s hype. I suppose it boils down to whether or not you will allow yourself a good time, no matter how simplistic a band’s sound tends to be. Here’s your chance to see where you stand on the hype vs. music continuum.
The Raveonettes were scheduled to play Sat., May 24 at the 7th St. Entry. However, as Pulse was going to press we learned that the show had to be canceled due to an impending video shoot. First Ave.’s Sam Sawyer notes that “The support for that show was really good, they just got bumped up a notch with The Raveonettes canceling—kind of like all eligible bachelors got bumped up a notch last night after Andrew Firestone proposed to Jen on the Bachelor. So, San Francisco's the Vue and the Scandinavian superstars the Sounds are still playing that show, along with support TBA, so that's still a pretty stacked show.” Word.
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