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The Airborne Toxic Event
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Biografie
The Airborne Toxic Event is an American indie rock band from the Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Feliz that consists of singer and guitarist Mikel Jollett, guitarist and keyboardist Steven Chen, bassist Noah Harmon, drummer Daren Taylor, and keyboardist and violist Anna Bulbrook. Named after a section of the book White Noise, by Don DeLillo, the group incorporates string instruments and keyboards, along with a standard rock lineup of guitar, drums, and bass guitar. They are signed to Majordomo Records. On March 4, 2009, the band signed to Island Records.
Formation
The band was formed in 2006 by Mikel Jollett. During a one-week period in March 2006 while working on a novel, Jollett learned that his mother was diagnosed with cancer, and he also experienced a break-up and was diagnosed with a genetic autoimmune disease which led Jollet to develop two cosmetic conditions: Alopecia areata and Vitiligo. Spurred by these events in his personal life, Jollett turned from writing prose to writing songs as he realized he was composing an album instead of a novel.[1]
Jollett met drummer Taylor in the summer of 2006 and the two established an immediate rapport. After working on original material together for four months as a two-piece, Jollett asked classically-trained violinist Bulbrook and bassist Harmon to join the band. A situation that Jollett enjoys re-telling with relish, Harmon initially refused. With a background in orchestral and chamber music, Bulbrook since taught herself to play viola and keyboard, while Harmon holds a jazz degree in upright bass performance from the California Institute of the Arts and taught in East Los Angeles as part of the school’s Community Arts Partnership. Jollett had met Chen several years earlier, when both lived in San Francisco. Chen was at first asked to join as a keyboardist, but revealed to Jollett that he in fact, played guitar and filled the role as lead guitarist.
To supplement his fiction writing, Jollett had earned income as a freelance writer, contributing to organizations such as NPR, Los Angeles Times, Filter Magazine and Men’s Health. Since the creation of the band, he has continued to write only fiction. Jollett's short story "The Crack," was published in the Summer 2008 McSweeney’s issue 27 sandwiched between short storys by Liz Mandrell and Stephen King.[2]
The band takes its name from the postmodern novel White Noise, by Don DeLillo,[3] which won the National Book Award in 1985. In the book, a chemical spill from a railcar releases a poisonous cloud, dubbed by the military as an “airborne toxic event.” This serves as a metaphorical device for the novel’s themes of mortality and media consumption, as the protagonist Jack Gladney is forced to confront the prospect of his own death.
The Airborne Toxic Event played its first show in Echo Park in the fall of 2006, less than a month after it was fully formed. Since then, the band has performed extensively in L.A. and become well known throughout the greater Los Angeles area. In December 2006, Rolling Stone named them one of the “Top 25 Bands on MySpace.”[4] They went on to receive positive responses from music blogs and press, notably L.A. Weekly[5] and Los Angeles Times,[6] which named the group one of the top three L.A. bands to watch in 2008. Previous bands to receive this distinction include Cold War Kids and Silversun Pickups.
In a rare move, during the band’s January 2008 residency at the popular Silver Lake venue Spaceland, Los Angeles Commercial Radio stations KROQ, Indie 103 and 987FM all officially added the as-yet-unsigned band’s song “Sometime Around Midnight” to regular rotation. Providence's WBRU, Seattle’s KEXP, San Francisco’s Live 105, San Diego’s 91X, Boston’s WFNX, and Sacramento's KWOD 106.5 also showed significant support for the group.
After an extensive courtship from major labels, the Airborne Toxic Event signed with the indie imprint Majordomo Records in April 2008. Their first full-length record was released in the U.S. on August 5, 2008.
On April 24, 2008 the band made its national television debut as the musical guest on the late-night NBC talk show Last Call with Carson Daly.[7]
The band performed on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on August 1, 2008.
In August 2008, the band performed a three-song live video set for LiveDaily Sessions, including the songs "This Losing," "Sometime Around Midnight" and "Gasoline",[8] which premiered on August 18, 2008.
In December 2008, iTunes named the band's song "Sometime Around Midnight" the number one alternative song of 2008.
The band performed on the Late Show with David Letterman on January 16, 2009.
On March 10, 2009 U2 played some of their favorite songs on a radio program hosted by Shirley Manson of Garbage. Bass player Adam Clayton chose "Sometime Around Midnight" as his choice, commenting how he felt he would be listening to their album the rest of the year.
The Airborne Toxic Event are scheduled to perform on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on April 14, 2009.
Live performances
The band has played extensively throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. The group has supported the Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, the Fratellis, Silversun Pickups, and Ima Robot.
The Airborne Toxic Event played the CMJ Music Marathon in 2006 and 2007, Brighton's 2007 The Great Escape Festival, and Austin’s 2008 South By Southwest Music Conference. In the fall of 2008, the band embarked on a U.S. tour with The Fratellis and the Electric Touch. During that year, the band also performed at a number of festivals, including Live 105’s BFD in Mountain View, California, the San Francisco and Philadelphia installments of the Download Festival, the Monolith Festival at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado, the Virgin Festival in Toronto, the Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle, and the Pemberton Festival in Pemberton, B.C. The band also played two shows in London, UK, in July. In addition, the group performed at Edgefest in September 2008, hosted by the Phoenix, Arizona radio station The Edge 103.9.
The band played a "30 Shows in 30 Days" U.K. tour in November 2008, which included a month-long residency at the Dublin Castle, located in London's Camden Town. The other cities visited on this tour include the following: Derby, York, Birmingham, Northampton, Leicester, Aldershot, Yeovil, Hayle, Southampton, Liverpool, Carlisle, Manchester, Hull, Leeds, Oxford, Brighton, Nottingham, Barrow-in-Furness, Stoke-on-Trent, Cardiff, Bristol, Sheffield, Preston, Dundee, Glasgow, and Fife.
They are currently on an extensive tour of the UK, France, and North America that stretches from January to April 2009. For the North American leg of the tour, they are being supported by the Henry Clay People, from Los Angeles, Alberta Cross, from New York, and Rademacher, from Fresno, California.
In January 2009, it was revealed that the Airborne Toxic Event will be performing at the 10th anniversary edition of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The band will also play at the 2009 Sasquatch! Music Festival in May, held at the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Washington. In addition, it's rumored that the group will be among the bands performing at the 2009 South by Southwest Music Conference.
Pitchfork Media controversy
Upon release of The Airborne Toxic Event's self-titled 2008 album, Ian Cohen of Pitchfork Media gave the album 1.6 out of 10.0,[10] saying that the band succeeds in synthesizing only the worst aspects of such influences as Arcade Fire, Interpol, Bright Eyes, and The Strokes. The band released a statement saying they do not take reviews too seriously and criticized Pitchfork for basing their critiques on "a band’s ability to match a certain indie rock aesthetic" rather than a band's other merits, and claiming that much of the review "reads less like a record review and more like a diatribe against a set of ill-considered and borderline offensive preconceptions about Los Angeles".[11]
References
1. ^ http://theguide.latimes.com/general/latcl-taking-the-l-a-indie-rock-scene-article
2. ^ http://store.mcsweeneys.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/catalog.detail/object_id/aa5ec80d-0bc9-45ea-9bce-275ed0c28bb9/McSweeneysIssue27.cfm
3. ^ Music Vice - interview with the band discussing the origins of their name, among other things
4. ^ Rolling Stone Declares the 25 Best Bands on MySpace : Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily
5. ^ LA Weekly - Music - The Airborne Toxic Event - Alie Ward - The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles
6. ^ Buzz Bands: Los Angeles Times
7. ^ YouTube - The Airborne Toxic Event - "Sometime Around Midnight"
8. ^ Video performance of "This Losing," "Sometime Around Midnight" and "Gasoline" by The Airborne Toxic Event at LiveDaily Sessions
9. ^ http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/retrieve_chart_history.do?model.vnuArtistId=872432&model.vnuAlbumId=983310
10. ^ - Pitchforkmedia.com - The Airborne Toxic Event : Pitchfork, 2008
11. ^ TheAirborneToxicEvent.com - An Open Letter to Pitchfork Media from the Airborne Toxic Event, 2008
http://www.rocksellout.com/2009/01/26/interviews-the-airborne-toxic-event/
Formation
The band was formed in 2006 by Mikel Jollett. During a one-week period in March 2006 while working on a novel, Jollett learned that his mother was diagnosed with cancer, and he also experienced a break-up and was diagnosed with a genetic autoimmune disease which led Jollet to develop two cosmetic conditions: Alopecia areata and Vitiligo. Spurred by these events in his personal life, Jollett turned from writing prose to writing songs as he realized he was composing an album instead of a novel.[1]
Jollett met drummer Taylor in the summer of 2006 and the two established an immediate rapport. After working on original material together for four months as a two-piece, Jollett asked classically-trained violinist Bulbrook and bassist Harmon to join the band. A situation that Jollett enjoys re-telling with relish, Harmon initially refused. With a background in orchestral and chamber music, Bulbrook since taught herself to play viola and keyboard, while Harmon holds a jazz degree in upright bass performance from the California Institute of the Arts and taught in East Los Angeles as part of the school’s Community Arts Partnership. Jollett had met Chen several years earlier, when both lived in San Francisco. Chen was at first asked to join as a keyboardist, but revealed to Jollett that he in fact, played guitar and filled the role as lead guitarist.
To supplement his fiction writing, Jollett had earned income as a freelance writer, contributing to organizations such as NPR, Los Angeles Times, Filter Magazine and Men’s Health. Since the creation of the band, he has continued to write only fiction. Jollett's short story "The Crack," was published in the Summer 2008 McSweeney’s issue 27 sandwiched between short storys by Liz Mandrell and Stephen King.[2]
The band takes its name from the postmodern novel White Noise, by Don DeLillo,[3] which won the National Book Award in 1985. In the book, a chemical spill from a railcar releases a poisonous cloud, dubbed by the military as an “airborne toxic event.” This serves as a metaphorical device for the novel’s themes of mortality and media consumption, as the protagonist Jack Gladney is forced to confront the prospect of his own death.
The Airborne Toxic Event played its first show in Echo Park in the fall of 2006, less than a month after it was fully formed. Since then, the band has performed extensively in L.A. and become well known throughout the greater Los Angeles area. In December 2006, Rolling Stone named them one of the “Top 25 Bands on MySpace.”[4] They went on to receive positive responses from music blogs and press, notably L.A. Weekly[5] and Los Angeles Times,[6] which named the group one of the top three L.A. bands to watch in 2008. Previous bands to receive this distinction include Cold War Kids and Silversun Pickups.
In a rare move, during the band’s January 2008 residency at the popular Silver Lake venue Spaceland, Los Angeles Commercial Radio stations KROQ, Indie 103 and 987FM all officially added the as-yet-unsigned band’s song “Sometime Around Midnight” to regular rotation. Providence's WBRU, Seattle’s KEXP, San Francisco’s Live 105, San Diego’s 91X, Boston’s WFNX, and Sacramento's KWOD 106.5 also showed significant support for the group.
After an extensive courtship from major labels, the Airborne Toxic Event signed with the indie imprint Majordomo Records in April 2008. Their first full-length record was released in the U.S. on August 5, 2008.
On April 24, 2008 the band made its national television debut as the musical guest on the late-night NBC talk show Last Call with Carson Daly.[7]
The band performed on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on August 1, 2008.
In August 2008, the band performed a three-song live video set for LiveDaily Sessions, including the songs "This Losing," "Sometime Around Midnight" and "Gasoline",[8] which premiered on August 18, 2008.
In December 2008, iTunes named the band's song "Sometime Around Midnight" the number one alternative song of 2008.
The band performed on the Late Show with David Letterman on January 16, 2009.
On March 10, 2009 U2 played some of their favorite songs on a radio program hosted by Shirley Manson of Garbage. Bass player Adam Clayton chose "Sometime Around Midnight" as his choice, commenting how he felt he would be listening to their album the rest of the year.
The Airborne Toxic Event are scheduled to perform on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on April 14, 2009.
Live performances
The band has played extensively throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. The group has supported the Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, the Fratellis, Silversun Pickups, and Ima Robot.
The Airborne Toxic Event played the CMJ Music Marathon in 2006 and 2007, Brighton's 2007 The Great Escape Festival, and Austin’s 2008 South By Southwest Music Conference. In the fall of 2008, the band embarked on a U.S. tour with The Fratellis and the Electric Touch. During that year, the band also performed at a number of festivals, including Live 105’s BFD in Mountain View, California, the San Francisco and Philadelphia installments of the Download Festival, the Monolith Festival at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado, the Virgin Festival in Toronto, the Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle, and the Pemberton Festival in Pemberton, B.C. The band also played two shows in London, UK, in July. In addition, the group performed at Edgefest in September 2008, hosted by the Phoenix, Arizona radio station The Edge 103.9.
The band played a "30 Shows in 30 Days" U.K. tour in November 2008, which included a month-long residency at the Dublin Castle, located in London's Camden Town. The other cities visited on this tour include the following: Derby, York, Birmingham, Northampton, Leicester, Aldershot, Yeovil, Hayle, Southampton, Liverpool, Carlisle, Manchester, Hull, Leeds, Oxford, Brighton, Nottingham, Barrow-in-Furness, Stoke-on-Trent, Cardiff, Bristol, Sheffield, Preston, Dundee, Glasgow, and Fife.
They are currently on an extensive tour of the UK, France, and North America that stretches from January to April 2009. For the North American leg of the tour, they are being supported by the Henry Clay People, from Los Angeles, Alberta Cross, from New York, and Rademacher, from Fresno, California.
In January 2009, it was revealed that the Airborne Toxic Event will be performing at the 10th anniversary edition of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The band will also play at the 2009 Sasquatch! Music Festival in May, held at the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Washington. In addition, it's rumored that the group will be among the bands performing at the 2009 South by Southwest Music Conference.
Pitchfork Media controversy
Upon release of The Airborne Toxic Event's self-titled 2008 album, Ian Cohen of Pitchfork Media gave the album 1.6 out of 10.0,[10] saying that the band succeeds in synthesizing only the worst aspects of such influences as Arcade Fire, Interpol, Bright Eyes, and The Strokes. The band released a statement saying they do not take reviews too seriously and criticized Pitchfork for basing their critiques on "a band’s ability to match a certain indie rock aesthetic" rather than a band's other merits, and claiming that much of the review "reads less like a record review and more like a diatribe against a set of ill-considered and borderline offensive preconceptions about Los Angeles".[11]
References
1. ^ http://theguide.latimes.com/general/latcl-taking-the-l-a-indie-rock-scene-article
2. ^ http://store.mcsweeneys.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/catalog.detail/object_id/aa5ec80d-0bc9-45ea-9bce-275ed0c28bb9/McSweeneysIssue27.cfm
3. ^ Music Vice - interview with the band discussing the origins of their name, among other things
4. ^ Rolling Stone Declares the 25 Best Bands on MySpace : Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily
5. ^ LA Weekly - Music - The Airborne Toxic Event - Alie Ward - The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles
6. ^ Buzz Bands: Los Angeles Times
7. ^ YouTube - The Airborne Toxic Event - "Sometime Around Midnight"
8. ^ Video performance of "This Losing," "Sometime Around Midnight" and "Gasoline" by The Airborne Toxic Event at LiveDaily Sessions
9. ^ http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/retrieve_chart_history.do?model.vnuArtistId=872432&model.vnuAlbumId=983310
10. ^ - Pitchforkmedia.com - The Airborne Toxic Event : Pitchfork, 2008
11. ^ TheAirborneToxicEvent.com - An Open Letter to Pitchfork Media from the Airborne Toxic Event, 2008
http://www.rocksellout.com/2009/01/26/interviews-the-airborne-toxic-event/
Quelle: Wikipedia (EN)