Thursday 17 July 2008

If you don't know The Black Lips by now...

You will never ever ever know me, ooooaaahh ooaahh. I am, of course, joking... no I'm not actually. If you really don't know The Black Lips by now you really are a massive bloody idiot. A massive bloody idiot with a brain so small, I'm gonna put it at the end of this sentence. Look, there it is, stupid small brain.
I do, however, want people to know about this band so I'm willing to extract little nuggets of tantalising Black Lips trivia and force them upon your being. In doing so, said nuggets will be wedged firmly into your grey matter and render you helpless when the sound of the greatest motherfucking band in the universe wafts into your untainted ear holes. So here it goes then, The Black Lips, your new favourite band, uno, dos, tres, cautro.

Originating from Atlanta, Georgia, The Black Lips are a 4 piece flower punk band and are made up of:

Jared Swilley (Bass/Vocals)























Cole Alexander (Guitar/Vocals)
























Joe Bradley (Drums/Vocals)























and Ian St Pe (Guitar/Vocals)























Jared, Cole and Joe met at school and formed the band with another friend, Ben Eberburgh. Tragically Ben died in a freak traffic accident leaving the boys to consider their options. They had just released their self titled album and were gaining a fearsome following on the now legendary Atlanta underground circuit. They carried on with the band, bringing in New Orleans born Ian St Pe. The tragic events of Eberburgh's death inspired the stand out track 'How do you tell a child someone has died' from their latest LP, Good Bad, Not Evil.
From the moment Ian joined the band they never looked back and have since toured for almost 7 years non-stop, playing; underground gigs, house parties, outlaw festivals, basement shows, street corners, roof tops and countless support shows for bands such as The Raconteurs, Be your own pet and Yeah yeah yeahs. They've release 5 albums, one of them being the greatest live record of all time, 2 DVDs, shitloads of 7 inches and have started their own garage rock label, Die Slaughthaus. All this and they're still only 23.
So now you do know The Black Lips you'll be able to enjoy them pissing into their own mouths and setting fire to their guitars on stage, using severed pigs heads as stage props, playing the west bank of Israel, talking to you on their fan hotline, setting fire to fire crackers dangling precariously from Ian St Pe's grill and being the single greatest live act alive today.
This band are truly awe-inspiring live so make sure you check them out at the following UK dates:

20th July-Lattitude Festival
29th August-Surfstock Festival
30th Electric Picnic
31st Connect Festival
16th September-Heaven(London)

And if you didn't believe me, here's links to videos of the guitar igniting Coachella gig, part 1 of a series of Vice video's taken from their visit to Israel and the video to their latest single "Bad Kids".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2AAKmW3ta8

http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1143372178

http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1519675199

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