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ARTIST
OF THE WEEK
New York trio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs were formed two and a half years ago when singer Karen O and guitarist Nick Zinner decided that a rock n' roll band might be more fun than the folky duo they'd been planning, and their intelligently sleeze-addled, idiosyncratic punked pop has carved a glittering swathe through New York's underground, billing them as the next hip slice of Big Apple Cool.
Karen O met Brian Chase at art school in Ohio, but quit mid-way through and moved to New York enrolling in film school. It was here that she met Nick through a mutual friend, and decided to form a band. Their first project was called "Unitard", but during one night of alcoholic excess they decided to alter their planned musical path and form a grimy, sleazy rock band. Recording three songs on a four track, they then proceeded to go around telling everyone they were the best band in New York!
And it worked - it got them their first show, supporting The White Stripes at Manhatten's Mercury Lounge in the summer of 2000. Their original drummer couldn't make it, so Karen called up Brian and asked him to take the stool.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs - named after the babbled phrase beloved of New Yorkers - write sweat-splattered tales of crazed lust and frenzied partying, with tonges planted firmly in their cheeks. And these larger than life tunes are matched by the band's burgeoning iconic status - drummer Brian Chas's geek-chic, Nick's jet black shock, and Miss O's gleeful stage persona and inimitable DIY style, currently being copied by every cool alt-rock fan throughout the US.
They began life as just another Brooklyn band wanting to shake some action in a local scene, but when The Strokes "happened", and Julian Casablancas appeared on US comedy institution "Saturday Night Live" wearing a YYY's pin, all of a sudden everyone wanted a piece of their little band. The media machines fired up, and the ratio between the bands released music - at the time a precious few songs - and the column inches they'd won meant the band had to fight against accusations of being mere hype.
However 2002 made the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs infamous. Their self-titled debut EP got rave reviews on both sides of the pond, and a notorious show at the South By South West in Texas saw a boisterous Karen O trash the backstage area, steal Clinic's onstage surgical wear and knock Courtney Love into a spread of potato salad. Meanwhile, a tour of three continents with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion served to polish the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' rock debauchery skills.
By the time 2003 arrived, the first Yeah Yeah Yeah album titled "Fever To Tell" was one of the most eagerly anticipated debuts of the year, and despite the many cries that they could never live up to the huge expectations, they seem to have pulled it off and impressed even the most cautious critics.
Now about to release their new single "Pin", on June 23rd we feel we should point our MTV viewers towards an up-and-coming talent that really can't be missed.
So leaving the last word to the New Musical Express; " Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs' Karen O is an alien. A champagne-swilling shape-changing, fire-snorting devil chameleon from Planet Catwalk. She's the Ting of frontwomen: every alternative female rock icon absorbed into one amorphous entity....She's your wettest dream and your sweetest nightmare rolled into on - the shyest, sexiest, sassiest and scariest woman alive"
Like them or loathe them, you won't be able to ignore them, and as for whether they really are the material of wet dreams and nightmares - well we'll leave that decision up to you.
HH
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