And the band itself came with a great sense for fashion, style and visual aesthetics. They combined the rough garage rock spirit with a stiff-upper-lip attitude, catchy radio-friendly melodies and danceable beats with an on-point-production. Even an act like Canadian band HOT HOT HEAT (has anyone heard from them lately?) released records in the same vein. Obviously the THE STROKES happened three years prior, as did their British colleagues THE LIBERTINES. It’s identified as one of the ignition moments of the ‘indie movement.’ Of course, you can claim that there’ve been other bands before who enjoyed more mainstream, commercial success. Being universally praised as one of the seminal records of the 2000s (we still got no proper name for that decade, have we?) it sold 3,6 Million copies, bringing the band a certain amount of fame. These days the critically acclaimed self-titled debut of FRANZ FERDINAND celebrates its tenth anniversary. And FRANZ FERDINAND was one main reason for it. Two years later, the KAISER CHIEFS sang Ruby, Ruby, Ruuuuby and the party moved on to the slick student clubs. One year later getting into the club became harder when you didn’t show up early enough. “Burn down the Disco” … a few weeks later the number of people on the dance floor increased, going up to 40 or 50. And although it was sticky and sweaty, you could clearly sense the spark in the eyes of each and every attendee, and the pure enjoyment of singing these songs. There was about 10 to 20 people maximum on the small dancefloor. They might have been playing hot new stuff like ARCADE FIRE from Canada and some British dark wave rockers called EDITORS. MAXIMO PARK and THE STROKES were mandatory, same goes for the good ol’ SMITHS. The DJs spinning records, CD’s more accurately.
It was one of the rare ‘indie’ nights that occurred on a regular basis. The author remembers a small basement club in a bigger East German city. “It’s always better on holiday / that’s why we only work when we need the money”
0 kommentar(er)
