150 Attorney St.
New York City, New York

12:00 Gaijin A Go-Go
11:00 Les Sans Culottes
10:00 The Sense
9:00 Cheaper Faster
8:00 Cannonball Jane

It takes a special strand of rock & roll quirk -- or is it lunacy -- to be an American-born band but sing in French. Yet the seven hipsters in Les Sans Culottes ("Those Without Undergarments") may just pull it off -- and, to be fair, one of the group's singers is originally from Paris. The rest, though, hail from the States, all eventually enrolling in the Rhode Island School of Design, where they formed. And on Fixation Orale, their fourth proper album, the Brooklyn-based septet bops through twelve tightly-wound guitar-songs that might otherwise be Kinks-like, if it weren't for all the French. As it is, this sharp pop is ironically inventive and totally fun. Swirling keyboards and airy, toe-tapping rhythms flutter around boy-girl harmonies that discuss "menage a toi"s and ice cream. Sill, though, it's near impossible not to snicker at the band and wonder if they're for real. Perhaps some questions are better left unanswered. Rolling Stone

?A mock Japanese pop band that flatters more than it mocks, Gaijin a Go-Go plays sequin-studded ?60s swing-rock that?s good for a laugh and a twist. The band members are mostly westerners from New York, but they all have fake Japanese names. Sample lyric: ?Japanese breakfast cha cha cha / I try to be polite, so I just have green tea cha cha cha.? Sample song title: ?Wasabi Man (Moog Power).? The music is as hammy as it sounds, but the grooves are intensely infectious for those who like their ham heavily glazed. Be ready for ace costumes too.? The Onion

"In a world that's rapidly running out of new musical combinations, I can honestly say I've never heard this one before: early Eighties hip-hop crossed with girl-group pop. Sharon Hagopian records as Cannonball Jane when she's not teaching elementary school music classes, and her debut is ten tracks of music history fantasy camp. Cheap-o beats and Spectorian production flourishes provide the backdrop, but the glue that holds it together is Hagopian's surprisingly lovely voice, either solo or ethereally multi-tracked. Maybe it's time to start believing in genre crossing again. " Splendid Zine

More links to individual band pages at http://sin-e.com/html/calendar.html.

Added by cfmonkeywerks on May 9, 2005

Comments

cfmonkeywerks

I really like Cannonball Jane's album, and am looking forward to seeing her live.

cannonballjane.com (note - this website made my firefox browser crash; maybe IE will work better, or you will have better luck)