http://www.myoldkentuckyblog.com/?p=7771
The Rakehells
N, pl: (rākˈhĕls) Dissolute men in fashionable society [syn: rakes, profligates, rips, bloods, roues]
After five years spent scuzzing up New York’s increasingly fey club circuit, the Rakehells finally hit the recording studio. The result is a 15-track album that harnesses the band’s influences the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Ramones, the Stooges, and the Rolling Stones, as well as more contemporary bands like Guns N’ Roses and Metallica.
The Rakehells are James Roe (vocals), Johnny Lowe (bass, vocals), Howard Stock (guitar left), Mikey Devigne (guitar right), and Patrick Paredes (drums). Comprised of half British and half American band members, the Rakehells build a bridge across the great pond with their unique vision of what rock and roll should be… aggressive, yet danceable pop with an in-your-face attitude and catchy hooks.
It may have been fate, or maybe even the Rock Gods themselves, who dispatched these rockers from their respective homelands to join together to create a new brand of ruckus. Whatever the case may be, their sneer and swagger will almost certainly catch the ears of those willing to party.
Need proof? These are real fan testimonials:
- “I go to see The Rakehells because I can’t afford to see the real Mick Jagger, so I’m willing to settle for James.” —Aaron Smith
- “The Rakehells either make me forget I had a bad day or they give me the gumption to take my bad day out into a dark alley and beat the ever living crap out of it!” —Brooke Wenth
- “If my ear was a clit, The Rakehells would be the tongue.” —Anne Morgan
- “The Rakehells will fight them on the beaches and then machinegun their heads off with blistering rock’n’roll.
The best in New York City.” —Neil Morgan - “It’s a good thing that The Rakehells’ songs are short because they have an infectious energy that drives you to devour your own body parts while they’re on stage!” —Susan Potoroka
- “There is nothing more that I like to do than jam out with my clam out at a Rakehells show.” —Ralee Bankston
- “They GET it! And when you’ve GOT it you can GIVE it to others!” —Elliott Blakely
The album, Please Yourself; or, the Devil in the Flesh, captures the frenetic energy of The Rakehells’ loud, debauched shows thanks to Mitchell Rackin, who recorded the band “live” at Seaside Studios in Brooklyn and later mastered the disc, and Elliot Blakely, a fan of the band who brings years of industry experience as a sound engineer to his mixing of Please Yourself.
Catch The Rakehells live at the Pabstolutely Festival in Youngstown, Ohio, on Sept. 11; The Trash Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Sept. 25; and at the CMJ Festival in New York in October.
For more information, visit therakehellsnyc.com.
Dear Sir/Madam;
Next Friday July 16th The Rakehells are playing one of our most favorite venues, Trash Bar in Williamsburg.
What makes this place extra special is that besides not gouging you on beer prices, if you show up at 8pm you get to drink for FREE in the back room for ONE WHOLE HOUR. Yes, it’s PBR and well drinks, but what the hell? It’s FREE!
We play at 9pm, right when you’ve got your bargain buzz on and we have a particularly good set list this time. So here’s the strategy: Show up at 8pm. Do not be fashionably late: This is as counterintuitive as Joe the Plumber voting Republican. The door guy will make you pay $7 probably, but then you race in, belly up to the bar, and proceed to gavage yourself on hooch. Keep an eye on the clock and at 8:50pm, order a drink. Put it down somewhere dark and then at 8:51pm, order another one. Keep this going until you get busted. What recession?
Shut up.
You WISH I was your boss! H
Please join us for a cordial night of gin and cheer this Friday at Hank’s Saloon. There’s no cover and let’s face it, who doesn’t love sticky floors and the pervasive stench of sin?
We’re on at 10pm in a lineup that also includes Mount Joy (Philadelphia), The Hydes and Holy Roller Sideshow. And who’s that cheeky monkey at the end of the night? None other than Guitar Bomb, The Rakehells’ axe murderer and chief proprietor of the low lounge.
Do it!
The Rakehells
The Rakehells guitarists Mike Devigne and Howard Stock duke it out over which albums most inspired their own upcoming CD, Please Yourself; or the Devil in the Flesh, due September. Maybe they’re both right. Judge for yourself here: RHpr2top10MH
(Full text version below)
NEW YORK CITY (May 6, 2010)—The Rakehells guitarists Mike Devigne and Howard Stock square off over which of the following classic albums most inspired the Rakehells’ sound on the new album Please Yourself; or the Devil in the Flesh, set for release in September.
The Rakehells, who also include James Roe (vocals), Johnny Lowe (bass, vocals) and Patrick Paredes (drums), are available for interview on a broad range of topics, from pop culture to music to technical discussions regarding what equipment they use/recommend.
Mike Devigne’s Top Five Albums (in alphabetical order)
Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited
Dylan ditches the pussy folk scene, picks up an electric guitar, and becomes cool. Because of this album I’m almost certain that he began banging much hotter chicks. It would be the perfect album if Subterranean Homesick Blues was on this record instead of his next. By the way, Subterranean Homesick Blues was the first hip hop song ever written. Yes, hip-hop was invented by a Jewish guy from Minnesota.
Guns’n’Roses Appetite for Destruction
The quintessential hard rock album for any person who believes that rock and roll should be tough and badass. Though this album doesn’t sound like any Stooges record, I believe that its rawness and attitude display a modernized interpretation of that classic band. I’ve always thought that you should be afraid of the guys that wrote these songs.
Metallica Kill ‘Em All
What is so great about this album is that the songs are so goddamn heavy without sounding too prog. Many of the guitar riffs are the blues played at 100 miles per hour. This being Metallica’s first album, it is obvious that they are hungry and very pissed. Needless to say, the sound of the band progressed throughout the 1980s only to become used toilet paper ever after. But Kill ‘Em All remains the bridge between blues-based heavy metal to technical thrash and over-the-top distortion.
The Ramones Pleasant Dreams
If punk rock was not invented in Detroit circa 1969 by the Stooges, then it was invented in Flushing Queens, N.Y., circa 1975 by the Ramones (not by the Sex Pistols in London). Pleasant Dreams was released in 1981 right after End of the Century, which was produced by Phil Specter, and a failure of a record in my eyes. The Ramones got back to basics and write silly, catchy tunes with a hint of romanticism via Joey Ramone. Not many people share my opinion, but I believe that this record defines the pinnacle of their penmanship.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse Ragged Glory
I pick this mostly because Howard hates Neil Young. What he doesn’t understand is that Neil Young is right up there with Hendrix when it comes to guitar playing. If I were to hear an unreleased/never-heard recording of a Neil Young guitar solo, I would be able to identify it as him immediately because his tone and expressive capabilities are so unique and identifiable. This can only be said about a handful of guitar players throughout the history of rock and roll.
Howard Stock’s Top Five Albums (in alphabetical order)
Mr. Bungle California
Mr. Bungle’s peculiar brand of rock is perfect for shorter attention span—songs turn on a dime, usually in totally unpredictable directions—but it wasn’t until California, the band’s final album, that the band put together a record that wasn’t too much of an aural trial to make it a regular player. Much of California is, surprisingly, quite beautiful, and rather than fall back on slapstick, many of the lyrics verge on the profound. There is so much going on beneath the surface of California that it’s actually rather difficult to sum up, but it somehow combines manic humor with melancholy, creepiness, terror and hip-swinging joie de vivre. That, combined with the band’s effectiveness at plundering multiple genres to pull off this feat, should put California on everyone’s list of top albums.
Motley Crue Girls Girls Girls
Say what you will about hair metal, but any genre that encourages you to get out of your bedroom and into someone else’s is all right by me. Nobody nails it like Motley Crue, and this album has a special place in my heart not only because it is fucking awesome, but because it contains the first proper rock tune I ever heard—the Crue’s cover of Jailhouse Rock, which I heard on some other kid’s Walkman in science class. Sure, there are a couple of sappy slow ones—in its defense, the one “ballad” is actually about violently murdering one’s girlfriend—but apart from a couple of minor missteps, listening to this album makes you feel a whole lot better about absolutely everything.
Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols may not have invented punk, but they certainly put it on the map—and in doing so created a market that made it possible for bands like the Ramones to exist. Hell, they even saved squalid noiseniks The Stooges from their rightful place as an obscure footnote in rock’s spotty history. Still derided by the ignorant as a talentless boy band (Sid Vicious notwithstanding), Never Mind the Bollocks is an album that successfully repackages the scattershot suburban rage of the disaffected 1970s youth with solid-as-a-rock riffs and a sackful of pop hooks to hang its choruses on. Culture has yet to see anything more cynical—or truer to the punk ethic—than this album.
Social Distortion Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell
Combining dive-bar blues with the outlaw mythology of rockabilly, Social Distortion embodies the self-pity of the addict, the impotent rage of the drunk whose only real outlet is a fistfight he can’t win. And nowhere are those last shreds of dignity in the face of self-inflicted squalor more apparent than on Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell. There isn’t a bad song on the album, it never loses its groove, and who couldn’t love a lyric like this: “It was a hot summer night in mid-July. I had a hangover and a black eye. Her mother said I was a loser, a dead-end cruiser, and deep inside I knew that she was right.” Rock gold.
The Wildhearts Earth Vs. The Wildhearts
The Wildhearts are the best rock band that nobody’s every heard of—and I do not say that lightly. Often described as combining the heaviness of Metallica with the Beatles’ pop sensibilities, what hits the jackpot for me is the band’s ability to laugh at life’s little indignities, as is bountifully apparent in such songs as My Baby Is a Headfuck, TV Tan and Love U ’Til I Don’t. This album has got me through more than its fair share of heartbreaks, disappointments and general malaise, and for that I tip my hat to this heavy, catchy, wryly amusing masterpiece. It took me a couple of listens when I first heard this album, but I’ve been a rabid fan of everything this band has put out ever since.
Press contact: info@therakehellsnyc.com, or call 917 650 4170.
Click here for the full track list from The Rakehells’ forthcoming album, Please Yourself; or, the Devil in the Flesh: RHpr1tracklist
