Monday, November 12, 2007

psssssst!!!!

Ok so some great artists are coming to little old NZ shortly. PJ Harvey, Jon Bon Jovi, Kiss, not to mention all the BDO artists so far announced...

But the most underrated international act of the season, coming to the North Island in December, is The Gossip.

This queer punk-soul band comes from the US, where they've been knocking the socks off people for some time now. Finally they're coming to play for us, and most of the country still have never heard their kickass sound!

I shouldn't pigeon-hole them as queer- they're as queer as the Scissor Sisters, Le Tigre, Bloc Party or Tegan & Sara: ie they have openly-gay band members, but they don't sing all their songs about "life as a homo muso". "Standing in the way of control" is, however, a lovely ditty about homophobia in US politics.

The reason why every man woman and child should wrap their ears around The Gossip is that they are fantastic. Beth Ditto's huge, sexy voice makes the band sound like Janis Joplin in leather pants. Funky leather pants. With hot pink stilettos... they have been likened to The White Stripes if it was fronted by Aretha Franklin. Ditto was also voted NME's coolest rock icon of 2006.

One of the great pleasures of living in New Zealand is that from time to time, we are visited by a huge, stunning and influential rock band, and we get to see them someplace intimate for just a few bucks because they're not mainstream-big enough to have made it on to our radar yet. Let's not forget even Christchurch was once visited by Nirvana, they played the Dux De Lux...

The Gossip are playing December 8th at the King's Arms Auckland, and December 9th at the SF Bathhouse Wellington. It should be something like this:




check out these little mp3s as well :)

http://download.yousendit.com/A2F2EAF355AE4FFE
http://download.yousendit.com/96AA44162103F685
http://download.yousendit.com/108C052813CC9FE6
http://download.yousendit.com/DDA6689E67D786F4

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