Band of the Week: The Strokes

The Strokes met together on Wednesday to start writing new songs. I was going to post a mini-essay about why I love The Strokes that day as something to commemorate the day, but the incredibly odd and oftentimes frustrating phenomenon of time got the best of me. So I'm posting them as band of the week, just because I can.

Why I love The Strokes

It’s no secret that The Strokes are my favourite band. Not to people who read this blog, not to my friends, not even to strangers whom I meet on the bus (I bombarded this guy last week when I heard that he had “You Only Live Once” as his ringtone). I listen to them every day, without fail. Is This It is ingrained in my soul and I’m going to get a tattoo on my right forearm over my vein that says “in the sun sun having fun, it’s in my blood, I just can’t help it”, because that just sums it all up perfectly.

I own all of their albums, all of their singles. I have more pictures of them on my computer than I do of my family, or my friends. As a matter of fact, I'm actually wearing my Strokes shirt right now (I wore it yesterday and slept in it)



I've acquired every mp3 possible of their live stuff (thanks to amazing sites like She's Fixing Her Hair, check it out!) Here is what my wall looks like:





if you look closely, you can see that I have little Strokes photos everywhere:



creepy, I know.



The thing that most people don’t know, though, is how I got into The Strokes. I hate it when people give me that look when I say that The Strokes are my favourite band, usually followed by “oh, so you like mainstream stuff”.

The Strokes were never mainstream to me.

I had never heard them on the radio before I heard Is This It in its entirety. Even now, I think I’ve only ever heard like "Juicebox" twice and "Hard to Explain" once on the radio. I don’t really listen to the radio very much either, unless you count last.fm. I had never differentiated between the singles and the rest of the songs except in the respect that the latter didn’t have music videos. All Strokes songs were, and still are, equal to me.

I’m going to repost part of a mini essay I wrote a while ago, to help you all understand how my love affair with The Strokes began

__

The summer after junior year, my friend Rania and I went to our first rock concert, BFD 2006. It was a life changing experience for me. I was surrounded by the reverberations of the deafening music, by great fashion, by marijuana smoke. It was heaven, I knew I was home. That summer, I discovered how much I could accomplish with Wikipedia, Limewire and blank cd-rs. I’d find one band I liked, search similar artists, listen to them, and if I liked them, the cycle would start again. I made lists of bands I’d heard of, of bands that intrigued me. I spent hours hunting for music. It came to the point where I downloaded a lot of cds and they started piling up without me truly listening to them. After my downloading frenzy, I started to listen to each record thoroughly. I discovered how much I adore The Strokes. In my eyes, they were perfection, I couldn’t describe how or why I felt the way I did when I listened to them. Now I know it was because they were my first exposure to true rock n roll, the stripped down sound that was simultaneously rough and refined. I listened to Is This It over and over, never tiring of it. "Someday" became my anthem. I soon thereafter acquired Room on Fire and First Impressions of Earth (this was during the Fall of 2006, when FIOE had been released nine months prior). Albert Hammond Jr’s solo album was a pleasure to listen to as well, and I soon discovered The Strokes’ b sides and unreleased stuff. I was hooked, and still am.

__

For me, The Strokes were perfect not only because their sound is pure and orgasmic in every sense of the word, but because I discovered them on my own. The radio didn’t help me, neither did MTv or the advice of my friends. I happened across them by chance, because I had downloaded Is This It, and my love for them was completely unadulterated, because I know it was never influenced by anything. I know I love them for their music, for their genius, and not because someone else told me that they were great. But now, you all need to heed my advice and start worshiping this band, if you don't already.

The Strokes - New York City Cops [mp3]
from Is This It

The Strokes - I Can't Win [mp3]
from Room On Fire

The Strokes - Electricityscape [mp3]
from First Impressions of Earth

here is the hilarious mockumentary that they made, called In Transit:


here is my all time favourite live performance:



and here is the runner up:


When he sings "morning" at 1:48, I get a little taste of heaven. Speaking of which, if they aren't going to be there, I sure as hell won't want to go either.