New*York*Times: The Band! In DC!

May 8, 2008 by Svetlana  Send to a Friend

Titles are not my strong suit (at least not today) but seriously, come on in and take a gander:

In an ongoing effort to make you make a point to see bands you don’t know you love yet, we decided to shed some light on The New York Times (ex-The Night Time) who are playing Velvet Lounge this Saturday.

From their sassy bio, an intro of the 2 boys and 2 girls en route here:

New York Times hold an MFA, a Screen Actor’s Guild Card, a Congressional Press Pass, and have illustrated for Dark Horse and DC Comics. They are one artist, one reporter, one poet, one actor, one part UK, one part New York, two parts California, three parts Portland. Bring your art degree.

They play literate pop that has been compared to everything from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Pavement, and other lo-fi treats, and has had Jonathan Lethem (of “Motherless Brooklyn” fame) say “I’ll be Andy Warhol to their Velvet Underground.” after they made a pop nugget version of his poem “Monster Eyes”.

Are you excited/intrigued/feeling hot around your collar yet?
Thought so.

Anyway, we sat down, keyboard to keyboard with the very lovely Rebecca Roulette (lead singer, and darling) and did a little listening party. Just for you.
Ready?
OK.

Monster Eyes- We had so much fun writing this one. Jonathan Lethem had already written the chorus and part of first verse, so in fleshing out the song, we tried to embody the spirit of the fictional band in his novel, You Don’t Love Me Yet. Usually the music comes before the lyrics, so this was the reverse process for us— once we had most of the lyrics, Rory sat down with a guitar and immediately came up with the hook. Tom and Rory stopped me from adding a line in second verse that sounded like it was about birthing an ice storm, but the second verse does include the title of my MFA thesis. (If you can guess what line that is, I’ll send you a copy of the thesis. Kidding.) I felt like I was doing karaoke when we first started performing this one, which gave me more freedom to whip my hair around and stuff.

Terminal Five – I started writing this song on my porch in Portland, Oregon. It was my before-bed-depressed-lullaby, but then Rory and I finished it in New York and titled it after the defunct 60’s air-terminal at JFK where we went to an infamous party/art opening a few years ago. The song, to me, represents the bicoastal dilemma of where and whether to settle down, especially in these “interesting times,” and it has my favorite line about shiny new $12 martini New York: “Go to the ATM again.” The latest live incarnation of the song features our new instrument: a very nautical bell I got on 23rd Street.

Tiny Secrets- This is an all Tara production. You can tell cause in some ways it’s more driving than our other stuff, especially when Tom starts playing it at breakneck speed. Tara says: This song is about the little devil we all have sitting on our shoulders, and how he really is an inherent part of our lives. It’s because of him we all have these tiny secrets…

want more:
befriend them socially here
and make your way to Velvet this Saturday (Koko and Nerd Parade round out the very classy line up)

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