Afghan Whigs and Twilight Singers frontman Greg Dulli recorded this version of Leonard Cohen’s “Paper Thin Hotel” as part of Old Ideas with New Friends, a new series of Cohen covers.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/videos/new-and-hot/greg-dulli-sings-leonard-cohens-paper-thin-hotel-20120124#ixzz1kOgmqjBe
Greg Dulli listed his top 10 albums for 2011 at Kerry Brown’s Ain’t No Sleep When You’re Living the Dream blog.
Here they are:
The Rapture In The Grace Of Your Love
Vetiver The Errant Charm
The Antlers Burst Apart
Trombone Shorty For True
Gillian Welch The Harrow & The Harvest
Metronomy English Riviera
David Lynch Crazy Clown Time
A Winged Victory For The Sullen Winged Victory for the Sullen
Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys Grand Isle
M83. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
via Examiner.com by Cole Waterman
Top 11 indie albums of 2011
3. Twilight Singers, Dynamite Steps (Sub Pop) — Greg Dulli and company’s first studio LP since 2006 finds the common themes firmly in place—hedonism, lust, and the resentment and regret that come with the light of day. Dulli’s impressionistic lyrics exorcise his demons through all manner of late night fantasies while the bastardized concoction of rock, soul, and electronica provides a suitably noir atmosphere. The piano-led “Get Lucky” is Dulli at his most self-deprecating and honest, while “Waves” finds the group rocking out in an industrial din. The work’s theatricality and sense of connective themes cement prove Dulli doesn’t just write songs, he writes albums, each song fitting together like a chapter in a book. The title track (a warning to a former lover or a prophecy from the Devil to Jesus?) closes the record with a resolution lesser songwriters can’t help but envy.
The Afghan Whigs have announced performances at the May 31st Barcelona and June 9th Porto dates of the Primavera Sound festival in Spain.
2. TWILIGHT SINGERS, “DYNAMITE STEPS” (Sub Pop)
Greg Dulli drops another stunning soundtrack to the dark, art-house thriller playing in his mind. “She Was Stolen” is a sweet-sounding lover’s lament/revenge fantasy. “On the Corner” conjures all sorts of seductive danger, while “Waves” is a return to his harder-edged, grungier days with the Afghan Whigs. It’s the most compelling rock album of the year.
December 6, 2011 by GLENN GAMBOA, Newsday
Cole Waterman, Examiner.com
Greg Dulli might be older, but that doesn’t mean he’s getting soft; he’s harder than ever. (C’mon, like a Dulli review can open with anything but a double entendre.) And finally fans of his Twilight Singers have a document of the collective’s frenetic live shows to convert those criminally uninformed of their greatness.
The Afghan Whigs announced two 2012 shows featuring original members Greg Dulli, Rick McCollum and John Curley. This will be the band’s first performances in 13 years. The shows will both be a part of the All Tomorrow’s Parties’ I’ll Be Your Mirror festivals. The first show is at Alexandra Palace in London on May 27. Greg Dulli will curate the Asbury Park, New Jersey festival on September 21-23. The Afghan Whigs will be the headliners for the night of September 22nd.
London show info/tickets
Asbury Park show info/tickets
ATPFestival.com Release
Press:
Billboard.com
Pitchfork.com
PrefixMag
AV Club
Rolling Stone
Paste
Spin
Village Voice
NME
Newport Kentucky’s Southgate House, the historic live venue that has played host to several Afghan Whigs and Twilight Singers performances over the years, is closing at the end of 2011.
From the Cincinnati.com article:
“Speaking as someone who plays and enjoys original music, it’s going to be felt,” said former Afghan Whigs bassist and Ultrasuede Studios owner John Curley, who now plays in a band called Fists of Love with Schadler. Curley even had his wedding reception there in 1993, when he and the Afghan Whigs played some of the songs from their breakthrough album “Gentlemen” live for the first time.
“It’s not like we can lose a venue and it won’t have an impact. What impact that’s going to have is hard to say,” Curley said. “The emotional impact will be great among a lot of people who go to see shows there and have been playing there a long time.”
Rating: 8.0
Pitchfork.com | Stuart Berman
If men are indeed pigs, then Greg Dulli’s body of work amounts to a veritable slaughterhouse. And yet, his talent lies not only in his unwavering ability to deconstruct the male ego, but also translating all that psychological tumult and turmoil into rapturous, crowd-pleasing live entertainment. Debuting in 2000 with an album produced by UK downtempo dons Fila Brazillia, the Twilight Singers were initially conceived as a low-key counterpoint to Dulli’s more frenetic previous band, the Afghan Whigs. But over the past decade, thanks to an ever-expanding and rotating cast of collaborators, Dulli has effectively built up the Twilight Singers into a more elaborate rendering of the Afghan Whigs’ rock-noir vision, enhancing the cinematic quality of the Whigs’ mid-1990s catalog and honoring their reputation for breathless, soul-revue style performances that go on for hours. By feeding Dulli’s unsavory songbook through all manner of medleys, impromptu covers, and crowd-participation gambits, the Twilight Singers have essentially become the Bad Seeds by way of Prince– emotional devastation you can dance to.
The Twilight Singers’ first-ever live album is now available for digital purchase from Amazon.com and iTunes. Grab it at the links below:
