The Go-Go's resurrect their new-wave Beat

Music Features

Kicking the habits

The Raveonettes change (for a change)

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | January 9, 2009

DIFFERENCE ENGINE: “We always strived to be something other than an ordinary rock band,” says Sune Rose Wagner.

Norse code
Scandinavians crack a winning formula
The name Raveonettes is a mash-up of the Ronettes and Buddy Holly’s “Rave On,” a fact that the band never tried to obscure. Their overt formula of “ ’60s girl groups + Jesus-and-Mary-Chain scuzz = nihilistic bliss” puts them in a long line of Scandinavian magpies who collect bits of Western styles and traditions and return them in slicker packaging. Below are some of the more successful examples of this tried-and-true Scandinavian makeover.

DICTATORS + ALICE COOPER make-up + obscene ACEFREHLY–isms = Norway’s TURBONEGRO.

STOOGES + MICK JAGGER’s pout + suits = Sweden’s the HIVES.

JUDAS PRIEST + ANTON LEVEY + BARRY GIBB’s falsetto = Denmark’s KING DIAMOND.

SPICE GIRLS + PEPE LE PEW + pleather = Danish headache machine AQUA.

SISTERS OF MERCY + T. REX + D’ANGELO = Finland’s H.I.M.

The wry wistfulness of the KINKS + the wasted misanthropy of ’60s STONES + the dorky wordplay and classic-rock obsession of SLOAN = Sweden’s the SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES.

I can't be the only one who, asked to name the most face-melting guitar moment in the last couple of years of recorded music, would point to the 1:57 mark (and onward) of "Aly, Walk with Me," the opening track on the Raveonettes' 2007 release Lust Lust Lust. It's a loud, soul-shattering, noteless vortex of feedback that multiplies and divides like the edge of a fractal as viewed through a thousand tiny mirrors, and it occurs in what is an otherwise baleful and Nick Cavey funereal trudge.

"I'm just so happy that we were able to capture that sound with that take," explains guitarist and songwriter Sune Rose Wagner. "We used to have a lot of songs back in the days before we recorded that were very dissonant, but I think we felt that we wanted to be more of a melodic band and to have a nice melody that would create tension with the noise. I don't think that we can make a more harsh noise than the one on 'Aly, Walk with Me' — it's kind of a pinnacle, for us, of the whole noise thing, that's going to be a very hard one to top. I don't know if we want to try it again. But it's a beautiful sound."

Anyone familiar with Wagner's œuvre with the Raveonettes (who come to the Paradise next Thursday) should be surprised by the idea that, having created something awesome, he's ready to move on to something different. His successful and brutally stylish rock duo exploded out of Copenhagen in the early naughts, armed with tasteful worn-on-sleeve influences that highlighted both his switchblade six-string Jesus-and-Mary-Chain-isms and vocalist Sharin Foo's Nico-esque ice-queen charm. They proceeded to churn out record after record of high quality and consistent sound. Has he become unstuck?

1 | 2 | 3 | next >

Related: Punk buccaneer, Boys meet girls, Review: Public Image Ltd. at Royale, More

Punk buccaneer
Jonee Earthquake rumbles below the surface
Boys meet girls
Much of the press tumult over Beach House has focused on how the duo’s idiosyncratic musical style folds into a surging wave of like-minded indie artists eschewing rock histrionics for a gentler path to the hearts of music listeners.
Review: Public Image Ltd. at Royale
Terrifying, ridiculous, glorious
Review: Patti Smith's Just Kids
How do you get to be the Godmother of Punk? Pure dumb luck, for starters.
Blackshaw's good vibrations
Blackshaw's low-key career has evolved as organically as one of his songs: at 28, the Londoner has amassed a body of instrumental guitar music that defies tidy categorization. What he does isn't really folk, jazz, or new age — and it's far too accessible to be mistaken for avant-garde.
Review: Against Me! at Port City Music Hall
My sophomore year in college I met a girl named Erin. She had bleached blonde spiky hair, tattoos, and a lip ring. She had spent the previous year hitchhiking around the country and while I was attending outdoor arena concerts, she was at basement punk shows.
Beth Ditto | Beth Ditto EP
Remember when Mary Beth "Ditto" Patterson was just a blues singer? The Arkansas-born belter used to wail punk blues for the Gossip - the trio who made her a star - like the second coming of Janis Joplin.
Slideshow: Doomstar gives out amateur tattoos
Punk trio Doomstar administer ink to Phoenix music writer P. Nick Curran; read his story about his experience and watch the video here .
Strange world
Bob Pfeifer's debut novel, University of Strangers (published by Power City Press, the print arm of the punk label Smog Veil Records), is a fictionalized retelling of a sensational, true-life murder case, as related in the voices of real people.
Photos: Dropkick Murphys at Whiskey Republic
The Dropkick Murphys perform live at the exclusive grand opening party for Whiskey Republic on March 14, 2011.
O'Death embark on another folk-punk chapter
It must be a relief to realize that when you hit the stage, people know what they're going to get. O'Death have spent the past several years banging out a reputation as grizzled folk punks who run their sets like moonshine raids.
Less

Topics: Music Features , Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, The Rolling Stones, More

| More

ARTICLES BY DANIEL BROCKMAN

THE CULT SURVIVES ROCK'S HIGHS AND LOWS | May 29, 2012
There is a difference between an unknown musical artist and a superstar, and that difference isn't necessarily musical — it's mythological.

RAZORMAZE ADDS FOCUS TO THEIR THRASH | May 15, 2012
For a kind-of goofy metal dude, Alex Citrone is pretty serious — especially when he talks metal, and especially when he's talking about his band, Boston shred titans Razormaze.

ZAMBRI | HOUSE OF BAASA | May 15, 2012
For those of us of a certain age who remember when school dances had a strict four-fast-songs-then-one-slow-one policy, the memory of bouncing around to "Let's Hear It for the Boy" with the anticipation of "One More Night" or "Take My Breath Away" still makes our palms sweat with hormonal anxiety.

CONFRONTING THE SWEDISH GLOOM OF IN SOLITUDE | May 08, 2012
When I am finally able to get through to the cell phone of In Solitude's tour manager, they have emerged from a massive dust cloud, their metal-mobile finding civilization after a long spell traversing the deserts of Arizona with no idea where they are going.

[R.I.P.] ADAM YAUCH AND THE BEASTIE BOYS | May 08, 2012
ADAM YAUCH, a/k/a MCA, was likely inspired to pen those words, that appear in a tossed off couplet in the middle of what would wind up being one of the band’s final singles, by his immersion in the world of illness.