At the age of ten, I walked into the green shag-carpeted family room of my best friend and flipped through his record collection. Walt Disney soundtracks, Sesame Street Disco, Village People, and - what the hell was this?
The album that caught my eye was emblazoned with a red and blue, stylized double lightning bolt S logo and four small pictures of what looked to my sensibilities at the time as comic book characters. I turned the album around to see the back cover which had the same pictures, only bigger. There was a pretty man who could very well have been a woman superhero, a cat guy, a spaceman, and a nightmarish sweaty creature with bloody dripping from his mouth and smeared across his face as if he might even be bleeding from his eyes. I immediately opened the double album to reveal the centerfold - the same four characters on a multi-level Dante's Inferno-motif stage that was consumed with sparks and mushroom clouds of fire. I was transfixed, fascinated, obsessed, possessed....I hypnotically asked my buddy to put the record on..."YOU WANTED THE BEST, YOU GOT THE BEST...."
To say that my life changed at that moment may seem like hyperbole, but that afternoon during my summer vacation between the fifth and sixth grade was the pivotal moment when I went from being a little kid who listened to music that my Top 40-loving mom liked to an independent-thinking big kid who inadvertently got a taste of something new...rebellion and possibility - and I loved it.
I listened to the songs on the album obsessively and repeatedly. I learned every single word. King of the Nighttime World. Calling Dr. Love. Ladies Room. Love Gun. Rocket Ride. I had no idea what their lyrics actually meant, but that wasn't important. I suddenly wanted to read everything I could about these guys, find out when they would next appear on TV, and plot how I would one day talk my parents into letting me see them in concert.
I didn't just want to follow them. I wanted to be them. I couldn't look like them because...well, my parents weren't going to tolerate that (although I was the Spaceman a year later for Halloween). So I asked them for a guitar the following Christmas. The moment I strapped the guitar around my neck, I wanted one more thing those guys had on the cover of Love Gun...
...A bevy of worshiping, hot, semi-naked women at their feet. Suddenly, the girl who lived across the street from me..."looked good. She looked Hotter Than Hell"...
In the ensuing three decades, the music of this band has played in my head like a soundtrack on an endless loop, and motivated me to live out my own rock and roll fantasy - not just in my pursuit of music, but in life, in general...and that grand sense of possibility.
The Doors at the Whiskey A Go Go. Aerosmith at Max's Kansas City. The Ramones at CBGBs. The Strokes at Mercury Lounge.
If you attended U.S. Royalty's recent show at DC's 9:30 Club, you got the feeling that it might be one of those seminal gigs where a band and their audience were onto something that the rest of the world just hadn't caught up to...yet.
What makes U.S. Royalty remarkable is their "old-school" approach to music - catchy-as-hell songs played with the intensity of a band with a point to prove - that rock and roll ain't dead!
To hear lead singer John Thornley discuss the band's deliberate approach to their music - both live and in the studio - it becomes obvious that U.S. Royalty's meticulously crafted songs and blistering live performances are no happy accident or fluke.
("Equestrian")
I purposely attended your recent 9:30 Club show without ever having heard a note of your music. I didn’t want any preconceived notions or hype to cloud my impression. What impressed me most was the band's effort to make it a Rock Show. Compared to YouTube clips I've since seen of your earlier performances, there seems to be a progression in the “image and theatric” aspect of your shows. Has your attention to the “show” been deliberate, or is it just a natural evolution?
I think it's a natural evolution. Sure, we pay attention to it more, but because we are allowed the opportunity to. The house shows, the small club shows, there's not a lot of control over the way you present yourself. Not that bands can't set themselves apart in those arenas with imagery and such, but there are many factors that can make it derail and it becomes more of a distraction than an attraction. So we opted to focus on becoming a tighter performing unit and on songwriting so that when the time comes for there to be more of a stage production, the harder parts of being a band are well practiced. I think a lot of the parts of our "show" have always been what I envisioned in my head as what we would do, provided the chance to execute it properly. This is just the beginning though, as we are taking more time in planning the stage production aspect of our shows. We are a patient band. There is a time for everything, we don't need to do everything at once.
Similarly, your songs take on a slightly harder, blues-ier edge live. Is this an indication of the direction the band plans to explore in the future, or is it just the difference between studio and stage?
At this point it's the difference between studio and stage. In the past we had people who wanted to record us and "capture the live sound" and we weren't really happy with the way it sounded. So we went the opposite direction when doing Mirrors. We said let's not make this how we sound live but rather a record someone could put on and listen to over and over because it sounds good. So we focused on layers and parts and not so much a live and loud feel. But we also took each song on its own terms and if it needed to be done live in a room with everyone sitting in, doing nine hours of takes until we got it, then that's what we did. I think live shows for us though, will always be harder and bluesier because there's an energy that's there. Maybe one day we'll capture that energy in the studio as well. As for the future, the stuff we've been writing lately has been just as raw as "The Desert Won't Save You" to more droning and groove-oriented (songs). As the months go by and we work through songs, we will see where we end up.
In an era when rock bands aren’t really the main focus of the few major record companies left, and at a time when even the few rock acts on these labels literally have one shot to score a huge hit right out of the box, what do you guys see as advantages to going the do-it-yourself route where someone like LA Reid isn’t breathing down your necks for Katy Perry-sized hits?
Mirrors was done with our own money and resources, so the only people breathing down our necks are the other guys in the band....whether it be to come up with songs, finish lyrics, write more parts, book shows, etc. We all work to keep each other focused on the project we are trying to finish at the moment. So I can't really speak from experience about being on a small or large label.
Esquirerecently ranked you #35 (!!!) on their list of the 50 Most Fashionable Musicians. You’re in the company of David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Mick Jagger, and Miles Davis! You’ve also been involved with Gant Rugger and American Eagle. How did the rock-to-fashion crossover come about? Did you court the fashion world, or did they just notice what snazzy dressers you guys are and decide they needed to get with you?
I think it just came about from being in and around NYC for the past few years and continually playing shows in all sorts of venues. Some people from Gant had seen us at a show and asked to use a song for their campaign. That was the start of it all and now other people in the fashion industry continue to come to us. We have never approached anyone to include us in their campaigns or shoots. It seems to happen naturally.
What are your plans – albums, national or international tours, more forays into fashion, endorsements – for the immediate future?
We will be playing Midpoint Music Festival in Cincinatti, OH on Sept. 22nd. We'll be doing other shows and such for the next few months. In the meantime, we've been holed up in Potomac, MD writing and recording new material. It's nice and quiet up there and it's close to Great Falls Park so we've been able to do some hiking. Some of the new material we've been playing at gigs. Right now, there are no set dates for any release of the stuff, just working on getting all the ideas down.
This week being the 30th anniversary of MTV's premiere broadcast (you remember, that cable channel that used to play music videos), it seems like a good time to check out the best of the medium. These videos weren't just promotional music/film clips, they were artistic statements that captured the era in which they were created and also have managed to remain timeless. Ironically, some of the most iconic videos pre-date MTV.
Note: the glaring omission of Duran Duran, Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Lady Gaga videos was intentional.
I stumbled onto the Hermes Web site and discovered this little bargain – a 100-percent cotton Hermes t-shirt for $345. What differentiates this t-shirt from the three-pack of t-shirts one can purchase at Target for $10 – aside from $335, and two fewer shirts – is the Hermes label and the “H” embroidered on the pocket.
In the spirit of this blog’s celebration of extravagant attitude and style, my initial reaction is to marvel at Hermes’ audacity and say, “Rock on!” If you can afford to spend $345 on a t-shirt without qualms, I salute you and your decadence.
Yet while I am generally a proponent for paying extra for quality, style, fit, comfort, and even frivolity and the perverse pleasure of sheer excess, paying $345 for a plain white t-shirt seems unnecessarily frivolous and perversely excessive. In fact, it seems downright idiotic.
I’m sure the salesperson at Hermes will explain that for $345, I am not only buying a white t-shirt, but I am buying a lifestyle, a prestigious name, and all that it personifies. I imagine the salesperson might even point out the t-shirt’s extraordinarily high thread count. I also imagine that as I gingerly run the t-shirt’s soft fabric lovingly across my cheeks, I will think, “High thread count? Hell, it better be so high that this t-shirt’s bulletproof!”
Ultimately, perhaps it’s Hermes’ equestrian and aristocratic preppy fashion sense, the stodgy lifestyle it represents, and its utter lack of any sort of edge that make it so unappealing. The over-priced vanilla white t-shirt is simply emblematic of that.
“They sure don’t make things like they used to…”It’s one of those trite phrases that someone who’s inevitably old says about anything that's not old. Skepticism is usually a good response to such statements.If everything was so great back then, why am I texting on my smart-phone, listening to leaked downloads of Lady Gaga’s next album on my iPod, and relying blindly on my GPS to get me to the next sentence?Instead, shouldn’t I be looking for a pay phone, listening to Grand Funk Railroad's latest cassette with my ears pressed up against the 20-pound Sony boombox on my shoulder, and wandering lost in the streets?
As much as I’d love to wallow in my own smugness, my assumptions about the superiority of all things new were proven wrong recently.Sometimes it’s actually true - they don’t make things like they used to.I realized this when I was introduced to the world of vintage and antiques.I always viewed antique items (unless they were cars or guitars) as curiosities, and the people who seek them out as curious eccentrics, at best…and downright goofy, at worst.I also assumed incorrectly that antique stores were graveyards for old junk and that their customers were nothing more than affluent junk collectors.
What changed my mind?Well, I recently accompanied my friend on her year-long quest to find antique clothing racks for her vintage store.Initially, my curiosity was piqued because it seemed like such a meticulously particular search for something so obscure.Not knowing what to expect, I was amazed and somewhat amused to discover the places her quest led us.
First, we drove from the let’s-gentrify-and-homogenize-everything ethos of Washington, DC to the coolly artsy-without-trying-to-be Williamsburg section of Brooklyn to a warehouse loft space and home of a collector of vintage artifacts – cameras, iron electric lamps, schoolhouse stools, and other miscellaneous items.To crank up the otherworldly volume to eleven, his cluttered space was divided into three smaller apartments walled with fake wood paneling held up by rows of industrial plastic ties.The place was best described as “Jabba the Hut’s lair meets Beetlejuice" chic. The monsoon-in-Vietnam-like rain outside and the décor of the place seemed fitting for the overall “search for the Holy Grail” vibe of the day.
The guy had not one but two vintage clothing racks.The racks were like none I’d seen before.This wasn’t some mass-produced piece of molded alloy spray-painted chrome from your local Wal-Mart.It was entirely hand-crafted cast iron and stood on an ornate base, and was very obviously the work of an artisan.I imagined they were once on the third-floor ladies-wear department at an R.H. Macy’s or Abraham & Strauss in the garment district during the 1930s.On one level, the rack was just an old object (and I’m nerdily waxing poetic about it).Yet it was also a unique hand-crafted relic from long ago that wouldn’t seem out of place in a museum.My friend selected the better of the two.Carrying the heavy rack to my car, it occurred to me:“They sure don’t make things like they used to…”
Then, we visited an antique store in the neighborhood called Luddite.The place looked like a cross between someone’s dimly-lit attic and an old movie set, featuring everything from glass showcases and bell jars to nautical lamps and slightly creepy long ago-taken family photos, to wrought-iron chairs and mannequin hands wearing heirloom baubles.
Luddite, soon to be located at 201 Franklin St., Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY
The owner seemed to fit in perfectly with the ambiance, as he had the look of a rural villager or a younger, hip version of the old peasant on the cover of Led Zeppelin IV.
He explained to me that his customers are often collectors and set designers for movies (so much for my theory of junk collectors…).Here we found an even more impressive-looking rack made of burnished copper.
Who knew there was such an underground market for antique clothing racks?Who knew an entire thriving alternate universe centered around long-forgotten artifacts existed? Who knew that vintage and antique items are sometimes of greater value and better quality than what's being manufactured today? Who knew my iPhone-carrying friend was so attuned to this arcane niche?
I’ll just have to ponder these questions as I look for a pay phone, listen to Grand Funk Railroad’s latest cassette with my ears pressed up against the 20-pound Sony boombox on my shoulder, wander lost in the streets, and think to myself:“They sure don’t make things like they used to…”
At the age of ten, I walked into the green shag-carpeted family room of my best friend and flipped through his record collection. Walt Disney soundtracks, Sesame Street Disco, Village People, and - what the hell was this? 
