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	<title>Summer's Kiss &#187; Afghan Whigs Press</title>
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	<description>Afghan Whigs, Twilight Singers, Greg Dulli Compendium</description>
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		<title>Billboard.com: Sup Pop&#8217;s Essential 20</title>
		<link>http://www.summerskiss.com/2109/billboardcom-sup-pops-essential-20/</link>
		<comments>http://www.summerskiss.com/2109/billboardcom-sup-pops-essential-20/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:40:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Lee</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghan Whigs Press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.summerskiss.com/?p=2109</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[From Billboard.com&#8217;s Music Milestones Afghan Whigs &#8211; &#8220;Up In It&#8221; (1990) Like a Midwestern Houellebecq on a whiskey bender, Greg Dulli isn&#8217;t afraid to skewer his own desires while chasing skirts. While not as strong as their later efforts, &#8220;Up In It,&#8221; is an excellent portrait of a band finding their identity as chroniclers of [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>From Billboard.com&#8217;s <a href="http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/moments/2008/subpop/albums.html">Music Milestones</a></p>
<blockquote><p>Afghan Whigs &#8211; &#8220;Up In It&#8221; (1990)<br />
Like a Midwestern Houellebecq on a whiskey bender, Greg Dulli isn&#8217;t afraid to skewer his own desires while chasing skirts. While not as strong as their later efforts, &#8220;Up In It,&#8221; is an excellent portrait of a band finding their identity as chroniclers of dark desires in the relatively emasculated nineties. Dulli&#8217;s soulful, blues-influenced voice also sets the band apart from the howling masses of the time, and even to this day, the album stands out as strong and sexy. &#8212; Cortney Harding</p></blockquote>
<p><em>thx lestro</em></p>
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		<title>Whigs Links</title>
		<link>http://www.summerskiss.com/1930/whigs-links/</link>
		<comments>http://www.summerskiss.com/1930/whigs-links/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:13:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Lee</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghan Whigs Press]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.summerskiss.com/1930/whigs-links/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Two Whigs links arrived in my inbox this morning: Afghan Whigs Get Comical &#8211; Whigs references in a comic strip? Guess so. Suburban Voices &#8211; Afghan Whigs Interview from the Gentlemen era (PDF Download). Originally posted at Operation Phoenix Records. thx as always, bea! Archived version of the comic strip, from Mike the Pod (NSFW).]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Two Whigs links arrived in my inbox this morning: </p>
<p><a href="http://blogs.citybeat.com/spill_it/2007/10/whigs-get-comic.html">Afghan Whigs Get Comical</a> &#8211; Whigs references in a comic strip? Guess so.</p>
<p><a id="p1929" href="http://www.summerskiss.com/skadmin/wp-content/uploads/suburbanvoiceissue35_5AfghanWhigsInterview.pdf">Suburban Voices &#8211; Afghan Whigs Interview</a> from the Gentlemen era (PDF Download). Originally posted at <a href="http://www.operationphoenixrecords.com/">Operation Phoenix Records</a>.</p>
<p><em>thx as always, bea!</em></p>
<p><span id="more-1930"></span></p>
<p>Archived version of the comic strip, from <a href="http://mikethepod.com/mikethe1.html">Mike the Pod</a> (NSFW).</p>
<p><a class="imagelink" href="http://www.summerskiss.com/skadmin/wp-content/uploads/biul_afghanwhigs_3.jpg" title="Bands I Useta Like - Afghan Whigs Comic"><img id="image1931" src="http://www.summerskiss.com/skadmin/wp-content/uploads/biul_afghanwhigs_3.thumbnail.jpg" alt="Bands I Useta Like - Afghan Whigs Comic" /></a></p>
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		<title>The Cincinnati Post &#8211; Whigs release retrospective</title>
		<link>http://www.summerskiss.com/1865/the-cincinnati-post-whigs-release-retrospective/</link>
		<comments>http://www.summerskiss.com/1865/the-cincinnati-post-whigs-release-retrospective/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:42:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Lee</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghan Whigs Press]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.summerskiss.com/1865/the-cincinnati-post-whigs-release-retrospective/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Cincinnati Post &#8211; Whigs release retrospective CD on Rhino By Rick Byrd The Afghan Whigs, never high-profile mainstream stars even in their hometown, are getting the prestigious Rhino Records treatment. California-based Rhino, the leading record company for reissues, compilations and heritage packages, today releases the 18-cut &#8220;Unbreakable (A Retrospective 1990- 2006) making the Whigs [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070605/LIFE/706050363/1005">The Cincinnati Post &#8211; Whigs release retrospective CD on Rhino</a><br />
By Rick Byrd</p>
<p>The Afghan Whigs, never high-profile mainstream stars even in their hometown, are getting the prestigious Rhino Records treatment.</p>
<p>California-based Rhino, the leading record company for reissues, compilations and heritage packages, today releases the 18-cut &#8220;Unbreakable (A Retrospective 1990- 2006) making the Whigs the first Cincinnati band to get the Rhino salute.</p>
<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t call it a greatest hits because we never had any,&#8221; acknowledges Greg Dulli, a Ross, Ohio, native, Whigs lead singer and songwriter. &#8220;But, in my opinion we are a well-deserved mark (for Rhino).&#8221;</p>
<p>No hits, but they have, indeed, left a mark. By the time of their first major label release, 1993&#8242;s &#8220;Gentlemen,&#8221; the Afghan Whigs already were darlings of the alternative rock scene. They had built a cult-like following with MTV exposure, favorable Rolling Stone reviews and hundreds of gigs in the U.S. and Europe since they formed in 1986.</p>
<p>The band, which split up in 2001, continues to get, perhaps, more appreciation now than in its early &#8217;90s heyday for its brooding post-punk sound, with Dulli&#8217;s R&#038;B swagger and his amazing soul-tinged vocals that always sound like he&#8217;s letting you in on some dark, tortured secret.</p>
<p>In many cases he was. The Whigs were known for wearing their emotions on their sleeves and it was often a sulking, ethereal world the listener entered.</p>
<p>It is rare, but not uncommon, for Rhino to pay tribute to a group whose body of work is still fairly young in the rock scheme of things. (They have already put out a Sugar Ray compilation). It seems the Whigs had a passionate advocate on the Rhino staff, Cory Frye, who says he became a &#8220;militant proponent&#8221; of the band after first seeing them on MTV in 1993 &#8211; and had been pushing his bosses for the release since 2002.</p>
<p>&#8220;To me, you can&#8217;t associate their sound with a particular era. It almost seems to be nostalgia proof,&#8221; said Frye, a Rhino editor. &#8220;Their sound has a forcefulness and urgency that transcends any period it was recorded in.&#8221;</p>
<p>By 1992, the Whigs had released two albums on landmark Seattle indie label Sub Pop, the home to the so-called grunge bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. The Whigs were the first non-Seattle band on the label and perhaps unfairly got lumped in the grunge genre. But theirs was a far more esoteric, cinematic sound and had more angst than even the grunge rockers could come up with. Through it all was a hint of raucous R&#038;B roots that set them apart from the more punk and metal oriented alt-rock of the day.</p>
<p>Dulli said he &#8220;took perverse pleasure in confounding expectations&#8221; they were tagged with because of Sub Pop.</p>
<p>&#8220;To be honest, if you had a Sub Pop logo slapped on your product and you rolled into a town at that particular time, you were going to pack a room based on legend,&#8221; Dulli said. &#8220;Once you had them in the room, what you did with them was up to you. I always said, &#8216;Just crack the door for me I&#8217;ll kick it down.&#8217; &#8221;</p>
<p>After outgrowing Sub Pop, it was on to major label deals with Electra and Columbia. That included &#8220;Gentlemen&#8221; with its masterpiece single &#8220;Debonair,&#8221; the closest the band came to a hit.</p>
<p>The Whigs&#8217; darkest, most brooding work, 1996&#8242;s &#8220;Black Love,&#8221; is considered an alt-rock classic in some circles. The Whigs&#8217; music always had a wall-of-sound, cinematic quality and Frye calls &#8220;Black Love&#8221; &#8220;like a soundtrack to a movie that was never made.</p>
<p>&#8220;It was such a confrontational and brutal record, I immediately fell in love with it,&#8221; Frye said. &#8220;I remember Rolling Stone panned it and I couldn&#8217;t understand if the guy heard the same record.&#8221;</p>
<p>That was often the case with the Whigs, an occasionally misunderstood band, with Dulli sometimes known for his outrageous behavior at club gigs. Through much of the &#8217;90s they flirted with commercial breakthrough success, but never quite got there.</p>
<p>Dulli and bandmate John Curley co-produced the Rhino retrospective, coming up with a cut list that breaks some unwritten rules for such projects. It&#8217;s not in chronological order. For example, it opens with 1990&#8242;s &#8220;Retarded&#8221; and the second track jumps to 1998&#8242;s &#8220;Crazy.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;The goal was to make it sort of like a set list of the show we always wanted to do,&#8221; Dulli said.</p>
<p>That sequencing works like a charm, having the effect of reminding the listener how timeless the Whigs&#8217; unique brand of modern rock can be.</p>
<p>Like any good bar band set, the CD also throws in a couple of new tunes. The band had a brief studio reunion last year to record the two new songs in Memphis with Dulli and bassist Curley hooking up with guitarist Rick McCollum and drummer Mike Horrigan (who replaced original drummer Steve Earle in 1995).</p>
<p>Band members insist there are no plans for any sort of Whigs reunion tour or project.</p>
<p>&#8220;I will forever be a proud man that I stood on stage with those boys for 14 or 15 years,&#8221; Dulli says about the finality of the band. But he can&#8217;t resist adding, &#8220;If some rich guy wants to give us a million dollars to play in his backyard, we&#8217;ll do it.&#8221;</p>
<p>Whigs members remain musically active. Dulli, who now splits time between residences in Los Angeles and New Orleans, is currently working on a new CD with Mark Lanigan as the Gutter Twins. Dulli has released three projects under the Twilight Singers banner; Curley, a Hyde Park resident, runs Ultrasuede studios in Northside, playing with the Staggering Statistics, which this month released a new CD, &#8220;I&#8217;m Thinking About Changing&#8221;; and McCollum lives in Minneapolis, recording and performing with his band Moon Maan.</p>
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		<title>Don&#8217;t wait for Whigs reunion</title>
		<link>http://www.summerskiss.com/1862/dont-wait-for-whigs-reunion/</link>
		<comments>http://www.summerskiss.com/1862/dont-wait-for-whigs-reunion/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 03 Jun 2007 18:58:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Lee</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghan Whigs Press]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.summerskiss.com/1862/dont-wait-for-whigs-reunion/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Enquirer Dulli helped compile greatest hits, but won&#8217;t be playing them again When you think of a band getting the retrospective treatment from Rhino Records, the California record label specializing in archival reissues, you think of long-gone or antiquated bands like Foreigner, the Doors or the Doobie Brothers. You wouldn&#8217;t think of the Afghan [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070603/ENT/706030306/-1/CINCI">The Enquirer</a></p>
<p>Dulli helped compile greatest hits, but won&#8217;t be playing them again</p>
<p>When you think of a band getting the retrospective treatment from Rhino Records, the California record label specializing in archival reissues, you think of long-gone or antiquated bands like Foreigner, the Doors or the Doobie Brothers. You wouldn&#8217;t think of the Afghan Whigs, Cincinnati&#8217;s greatest rock band that disbanded recently enough that many supporters hold out hope they&#8217;ll get back together.</p>
<p>Whatever the future does or doesn&#8217;t hold for the band, the Afghan Whigs certainly have the credentials to be remembered with a best-of. Between their 1,500-or-so live shows, which included gigs with bands such as the Flaming Lips and Aerosmith and dozens of headlining tours, or their recording catalog, highlighted by releases on the landmark indie Sub Pop and major labels Elektra and Columbia, the Whigs stand as one of the premier alt-rock bands of the &#8217;90s.</p>
<p>But lead singer Greg Dulli reminds people that it has been six years since the band called it quits, and in a phone interview about Rhino&#8217;s 18-song &#8220;Unbreakable (A Retrospective),&#8221; which arrives Tuesday, he makes a reunion sound far-fetched.<br />
ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Question: Why is the retrospective confined to one disc?</p>
<p>Answer: That was Rhino&#8217;s decision. It could have been two discs. It could have been a (expletive) box set. (Bassist) John (Curley) and I chose the songs given the limitations that we had.</p>
<p>Q: Why isn&#8217;t it programmed chronologically?</p>
<p>A: &#8216;Cause that&#8217;s boring. I wanted to do it like a set list of a show that I would pay to see.</p>
<p>Q: Why no songs from &#8220;Big Top Halloween&#8221; (the band&#8217;s 1988 debut record)?</p>
<p>A: Because it&#8217;s terrible.</p>
<p>Q: There wasn&#8217;t one worthy song?</p>
<p>A: No. That was the (band&#8217;s) unanimous opinion.</p>
<p>Q: The Whigs are often remembered as a grunge band, in part because of your association with Sub Pop. Is that tag fair?</p>
<p>A: That sounds like a really easy designation to me. We were a great rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll band, and that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re being remembered for. We made two records for Sub Pop and four records for other people. My experience at Sub Pop was positive and certainly propelled us to bigger and better things, but I don&#8217;t really feel tagged by the grunge thing.</p>
<p>Q: What was it like playing original rock music in Cincinnati in the &#8217;80s?</p>
<p>A: It was depressing. You were in a desert, which is why we left town and didn&#8217;t really play a lot in Cincinnati in the early days or period for that matter. I&#8217;m happy to see it has improved considerably, but in the &#8217;80s? Dark, dark. We&#8217;d go to Louisville; Lexington; Detroit, Chicago; Pittsburgh; Athens, Ohio; Columbus; Cleveland &#8211; we&#8217;d go everywhere else. We started pulling crowds in Cincinnati when word started getting out from other places.</p>
<p>Q: Was it a burden to be from a town that was not on the rock map at the time?</p>
<p>A: You&#8217;re from where you&#8217;re from. You don&#8217;t get to pick that. We could have packed up and moved somewhere and eventually we all did. It was a great place to base ourselves. It was cheap to live and we were able to get around to a bunch of towns without driving all that far.</p>
<p>Q: Any satisfaction of being the biggest rock band in Cincinnati history?</p>
<p>A: Isn&#8217;t that the Lemon Pipers, Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, the Isley Brothers? Again, you&#8217;re from where you&#8217;re from. I was born and raised in southern Ohio, and I couldn&#8217;t have picked a better place to grow up.</p>
<p>Q: Was there a moment in the early days when you sensed the band was on the brink of success?</p>
<p>A: When we started playing the Metro in Chicago, we&#8217;d play in the middle of the week. The first time we were the third band, second time we were the second band, and the third, fourth and fifth times, we were the headliner, and we had 500 people in there. At that point we were drawing 50 people in Cincinnati. The shows in Chicago let me know personally that we were special. That was probably 1989.</p>
<p>Q: What were your goals at that point?</p>
<p>A: Get somebody else to put out our record, buy a van and keep touring. Modest goals that we could meet and exceed.</p>
<p>Q: Did your goals change when you signed with Sub Pop and later Elektra, and you saw the success of bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam? Did you ever consider the possibility of getting that big?</p>
<p>A: I never really thought that. I thought we were too eccentric and herky-jerky and weird. I always just wanted to roll into a town, have 1,000 people come, and blow the roof off. I really had nothing bigger than that in mind. When we started playing bigger places and playing festivals for 50,000 people, it was pretty mind-blowing. Starting something in a basement in Fairmount and getting to go around the world and see places you&#8217;ve only read about was thrilling.</p>
<p>Q: Why end it then? Did you feel the band reached a plateau?</p>
<p>A: My reason for leaving the band was we had done what we were gonna do. There was no plateau. There was a beginning, middle and end.</p>
<p>Q: No regrets?</p>
<p>A: None. To be honest with you I don&#8217;t have any regrets in life. I feel for people who do.</p>
<p>Q: If there are no regrets, does that mean there&#8217;s no reason to ever do a reunion?</p>
<p>A: I don&#8217;t feel the need for one. I don&#8217;t think any of us do. I think we did what we did and we loved what we did and the sheer factor that we&#8217;re still friends is miraculous.</p>
<p>Q: So this is likely the last Whigs record?</p>
<p>A: That would be a fair assumption. We gave it hell for 14 years. That&#8217;s probably three times as long as most bands are together anyway. I have fond memories, but I also have a future to look forward to.</p>
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		<title>Afghan Rebels</title>
		<link>http://www.summerskiss.com/1858/afghan-rebels/</link>
		<comments>http://www.summerskiss.com/1858/afghan-rebels/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 31 May 2007 11:21:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Lee</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghan Whigs Press]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.summerskiss.com/1858/afghan-rebels/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[City Beat: The Afghan Whigs, one of Cincinnati&#8217;s greatest musical exports, rise again with career retrospective BY Brian Baker Like anyone who was in Cincinnati in the late &#8217;80s and aware of local music, I have profound and personal recollections of The Afghan Whigs. The first came just before the band&#8217;s 1988 self-released debut, Big [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.citybeat.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A139415">City Beat: The Afghan Whigs, one of Cincinnati&#8217;s greatest musical exports, rise again with career retrospective</a></p>
<p>BY Brian Baker</p>
<p>Like anyone who was in Cincinnati in the late &#8217;80s and aware of local music, I have profound and personal recollections of The Afghan Whigs. The first came just before the band&#8217;s 1988 self-released debut, Big Top Halloween, when Bucking Strap frontwoman Anna Scala dropped in to Wizard Records one afternoon to relate studio tales from her recent session providing background vocals for &#8220;Scream&#8221; and &#8220;Sammy.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re like the Replacements overdosed on Coltrane,&#8221; she noted with fervor. &#8220;They&#8217;re going to be massive.&#8221;</p>
<p>Fast forward nearly a decade, after the Whigs had long since gone on to belong to the world at large. I ran into bassist John Curley and his wife at the Hyde Park Art Show and, after a couple of subsequent conversations, Curley &#8212; knowing my graphic design background &#8212; invited me to submit design suggestions for the gatefold vinyl issue of the Whigs&#8217; upcoming album, Black Love.</p>
<p>One evening, after tweaking the concept (which was never used) in the Curleys&#8217; kitchen, we retreated to the living room where John cued up the unmixed version of Black Love. As &#8220;Crime Scene Part One&#8221; poured out of the massive speakers, I was aware that the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck were standing straight up, a state in which they would remain for nearly an hour. When the tape drew to a close, I looked at John, wide-eyed, slackjawed and wordless. He smiled his stoic bass-player smile and said quietly, &#8220;Yeah, I know.&#8221;</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Black Love didn&#8217;t strike the rest of the world the way it should have and the Whigs made only one more album, 1998&#8242;s 1965, before the band bowed out on their own terms in 2001 with their dignity and their friendships intact. In the six years since the dissolution of the Whigs, Greg Dulli has found further success with the Twilight Singers; Curley has become an in-demand producer/engineer locally and plays with Staggering Statistics; Rick McCollum has enchanted the Minneapolis scene with Moon Maan; and original drummer Steve Earle fronts Cincy&#8217;s Earle Grey on vocals and guitar.</p>
<p>All of the band&#8217;s members routinely field questions about the possibility of a Whigs reunion, questions that will likely be renewed with the June 5 release of Unbreakable, an 18-track compilation featuring two &#8220;new&#8221; songs.</p>
<p>The term &#8220;retrospective&#8221; is required in cases like this, as the Whigs had no discernible chart hits to collect and exploit. The loyal fan base that followed the Whigs faithfully over their 15 year run is more than ready to sign up for Unbreakable, particularly for the new tracks that it adds to the band&#8217;s canon.</p>
<p>&#8220;Magazine&#8221; was one of a handful of songs the band had demoed when they split in 2000; some extra tracking buffed it up for the collection. The other new track on Unbreakable, &#8220;I&#8217;m a Soldier,&#8221; was made specifically for the album. The band members &#8212; including latter-day drummer Michael Horrigan &#8212; convened in Memphis last year and threw around bits and pieces until the song took shape.</p>
<p>&#8220;Greg had some ideas, a general kind of song that he felt would be good to do, but it was just kind of a general description, not any sort of musical thing,&#8221; says Curley. &#8220;We talked about it in subjective terms the way most people talk about songs, and once we got down there we started trying out riffs, like we usually would.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m a Soldier&#8221; shows just how quickly The Whigs&#8217; comfort level returned, as the track is a showcase of the Whigs&#8217; best qualities: slinky, sinewy Soul interwoven with noisily melodic Indie Rock, a chaotic and visceral combination that threatens to spin out but never quite loses its center.</p>
<p>Once Dulli and Rhino Records agreed on the need for a Whigs retrospective, Unbreakable took shape with Curley and Dulli trading wish lists of the Whigs&#8217; tracks that would make up their dream collection.</p>
<p>&#8220;Greg and I sent each other a couple of e-mails and we both picked out a list, and most of our stuff matched up,&#8221; says Curley. &#8220;These songs were popular among our fans and songs that we were proud of songwriting-wise, where we thought we had stretched our abilities. And we wanted to put a cohesive record together, something that would stand on its own as a record, so that was a consideration.&#8221;</p>
<p>That depth is plainly evident in Unbreakable&#8217;s historical significance &#8212; opener &#8220;Retarded&#8221; from Up In It, three from Congregation, their dark, minor-key cover of the Supremes&#8217; &#8220;Come See About Me&#8221; from the Uptown Avondale EP, all from their Sub Pop days &#8212; blended with appropriately toned selections from their Elektra and Columbia catalogs.</p>
<p>The best news to come from the release of Unbreakable might be Curley&#8217;s admission that the success of &#8220;I&#8217;m a Soldier&#8221; has hinted at the possibility of a full-fledged Afghan Whigs reunion. While everyone&#8217;s hectic schedules would make it difficult, all four are receptive to the idea of working together again, as no one expressed an opinion against it.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think with any Whigs event, there&#8217;s always a certain amount of that,&#8221; says Curley with a laugh. &#8220;We don&#8217;t have any plans to (reunite) right now, but who knows? The door&#8217;s open for anything.&#8221;</p>
<p>Considering the disparity between the Afghan Whigs&#8217; critical and commercial success, you could make the case that Unbreakable represents the legitimacy of their legacy. When Curley considers the concept of Unbreakable as vindication, his answer is humble yet confident.</p>
<p>&#8220;I feel like we were a great band, and I feel like the people who found out about us and got to see us think we were a great band,&#8221; says Curley. &#8220;I don&#8217;t feel like we need to be vindicated. I&#8217;m glad that we stand the test of time for people.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>Pitchfork Reviews I&#8217;m a Soldier/Magazine</title>
		<link>http://www.summerskiss.com/1857/pitchfork-reviews-im-a-soldiermagazine/</link>
		<comments>http://www.summerskiss.com/1857/pitchfork-reviews-im-a-soldiermagazine/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 30 May 2007 13:32:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Lee</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghan Whigs Press]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Pitchfork: Forkcast New Music: The Afghan Whigs: &#8220;I&#8217;m a Soldier&#8221; / &#8220;Magazine&#8221; Pretty much every song Greg Dulli has ever written is about how he wants to have sex/do drugs with you or how he used to have sex/do drugs with you and doesn&#8217;t want to anymore. Somehow, he&#8217;s been doing this for two decades [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/forkcast/43234-the-afghan-whigs-im-a-soldier-magazine">Pitchfork: Forkcast</a><br />
New Music: The Afghan Whigs: &#8220;I&#8217;m a Soldier&#8221; / &#8220;Magazine&#8221;</p>
<p>Pretty much every song Greg Dulli has ever written is about how he wants to have sex/do drugs with you or how he used to have sex/do drugs with you and doesn&#8217;t want to anymore. Somehow, he&#8217;s been doing this for two decades and it hasn&#8217;t gotten boring yet. So when the Afghan Whigs reunited last year to record two new songs for the Rhino Records anthology Unbreakable, and Dulli told interviewers that one of the tunes, &#8220;I&#8217;m a Soldier&#8221;, was inspired by the war in Iraq, it seemed like a recipe for disaster.</p>
<p>Luckily, you can&#8217;t teach an old horndog new tricks. Although &#8220;I&#8217;m a Soldier&#8221; might actually be about a soldier in Iraq, it sure sounds like it&#8217;s about how Greg Dulli wants to have sex with you. The song begins with a martial beat and Dulli grunting like a private on the march&#8230; or a man thrusting his pelvis into the object of his affection. Soon enough, he&#8217;s panting about guns and &#8220;unload[ing] the lead into the night&#8221; and &#8220;giv[ing] &#8216;em everything you got&#8221; and stuff, while powerhouse background vocalist Susan Marshall (who you might recognize from her tours with Cat Power or her work on the Whigs&#8217; final album, 1965) moans and wails.</p>
<p>&#8220;Magazine&#8221;, the second new Afghan Whigs track on Unbreakable, began its life right before the band broke up in 2000, but wasn&#8217;t finished until last year. The song also appears to be about doin&#8217; it, though where, with whom, and under what circumstances remain unclear. It&#8217;s one of the more genuinely pretty tunes in the Whigs catalog, with muted synths and electronic twitches. Dulli&#8217;s voice is in tender, caressing loverman mode, even if he refers to the person he&#8217;s seducing as &#8220;my enemy,&#8221; and the girl (played by Dana Hamblen of the Cincinnati band Fairmount Girls) sweetly coos, &#8220;You think that I don&#8217;t know how to destroy ya, don&#8217;t cha?&#8221;</p>
<p>Ah well, love and war were always pretty much the same thing to the Afghan Whigs.</p>
<p>[both from Unbreakable: A Retrospective 1990-2006; due 06/05/07 on Rhino]<br />
Posted by Amy Phillips</p>
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		<title>Conjure Them</title>
		<link>http://www.summerskiss.com/1838/conjure-them/</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 01 May 2007 11:45:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Lee</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghan Whigs Press]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.summerskiss.com/1838/conjure-them/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[HARP Magazine By Fred Mills Greg Dulli is in a good—make that a great—mood. He’s in his favorite city, New Orleans, working on the debut from the Gutter Twins (his collaboration with Mark Lanegan), about which he enthuses, “I don’t know where it’s going yet; it’s schizophrenic. But I guarantee that if you like music [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://harpmagazine.com/articles/detail.cfm?article_id=5520">HARP Magazine</a></p>
<p>By Fred Mills</p>
<p>Greg Dulli is in a good—make that a great—mood. He’s in his favorite city, New Orleans, working on the debut from the Gutter Twins (his collaboration with Mark Lanegan), about which he enthuses, “I don’t know where it’s going yet; it’s schizophrenic. But I guarantee that if you like music at all, you are gonna love this.” And 2006’s Powder Burns, by his still-extant other project the Twilight Singers, appeared on scores of year-end critical best-ofs.</p>
<p>Dulli’s ebullient demeanor extends to a look at his Afghan Whigs back pages with Harp. Our conversation is occasioned by Rhino’s release of Unbreakable, an overview of the group’s 1986-2001 career that additionally includes two new songs the Whigs—vocalist Dulli, guitarist Rick McCollum, bassist John Curley, drummer Michael Horrigan— briefly reconvened for last year to record especially for the anthology. Unbreakable is sequenced thematically, not chronologically, because as Dulli explains, “I wanted to do it like a setlist, as if I were going to perform a show that night.”</p>
<p>Big Top Halloween (1988, Ultrasuede): The Afghan Whigs form in Cincinnati in ’86, quickly amassing a local following (thanks in part to a residency at a lesbian bar), and eventually garner national attention with their debut. “We didn’t pick anything from that [for Unbreakable] because it sucks! None of us like that. The scary part was actually going in a real studio and trying to recreate what we had been doing live. I think we were a little overwhelmed and weirded out and probably, ah, medicated too.”</p>
<p>Up In It (1990, Sub Pop): Sub Pop gets wind of the Whigs, does a Singles Club 45 with them, then puts them in the studio with grunge guru Jack Endino. “We went out and did that record in about six days, I think. [Endino was] a mad-scientist kind of guy but very kind and gentle, and he coaxed a good performance out of us. By that time we had done some gigs with Mudhoney, the Fluid, Tad, and I think in retrospect, if you listen to Big Top Halloween and then Up In It, it’s all of a sudden Black Sabbath and the Stooges became a big part of our thing! [laughs] I think we were unconsciously influenced by the fact that we were supposed to fit in with that gang.”</p>
<p>Congregation (1991, Sub Pop): Whigs tour Europe, break up, re-form, and record their third album; it features a controversial sleeve (a naked black woman clutching a white baby) and a controversial cover (“The Temple,” from Jesus Christ Superstar). “I felt like it was the first time I was excited over the possibilities of our band: ‘Okay, I’m gonna play a slow song now. I’m gonna play a pretty song, and I’m not going to be afraid to play it.’ And I think that came from doing a couple of the Euro tours. I felt I could be myself. I wasn’t worried about tags or anything.</p>
<p>“When we turned in the Jesus Christ Superstar song, those Sub Pop guys were like, ‘No fucking way!’ And we were like, ‘Then fuck you!’ That was sort of us starting to hold our ground: ‘Hey man, maybe we’re not part of the factory model.’”</p>
<p>Uptown Avondale EP (1992, Sub Pop): Five-song collection of soul covers, including Supremes, Al Green and Freda Payne. “We wanted to represent it [on Unbreakable] because in our opinion it was a transition point, as far as the style of music we were doing and kind of wearing our influences on our sleeves for the first time. We were always doing mash-ups and strange, rearranged cover songs in our live shows.”</p>
<p>Gentlemen (1993, Elektra): Elektra is victorious in a major-label bidding war and the Whigs, recording at Ardent Studios, deliver their masterpiece, alternately corrosive and lacerating, seductive and soulful. “Elektra had a legacy. At the time we signed they only had something like 25 acts and it was a boutique label. We liked the Cure, Metallica, Ween, Joni Mitchell, the Doors, Tom Waits—it had a cachet we liked.</p>
<p>“By then we were playing all the time; for Congregation, I’m relatively certain we played 220 live gigs. That was probably the only time in my life I wrote songs on the road, too. I’ll be living with that album until I’m dead—and I don’t mean that in a bad way either! I think the planets aligned for us on that one. And it was also the culmination of us playing together for five or six years so I think we knew what to do.”</p>
<p>Black Love (1996, Elektra): Following a grueling 1 1/2 year tour supporting Gentlemen, original Whigs drummer Steve Earle is shown the door while the other members wage their own battles with burnout. “I think Black Love is misunderstood, and I probably could have used a guiding hand on that because I kind of went a little nutty. I love the atmosphere of the record, the spookiness of it. We made it out in the woods in this little town called Woodinville, about 30 miles outside of Seattle, on a horse farm. There was lots of naked horse riding, mushroom taking, stuff like that.”</p>
<p>1965 (1998, Columbia): New label, new town, new attitude—the Whigs record their swansong in New Orleans and go out on top. “It’s my favorite Whigs album, almost hands down. I had a lot of issues with depression over the years and sort of, ah, fucked myself up a lot. And wrote about it a lot! I’d become an accomplished miserablist. So I think I kind of got myself together. I moved to New Orleans, and it was just magical. You start looking at the songs, and while there are moments of melancholy and blue, there’s fucking fire in that motherfucker too. It was a celebration. We were, for all intents and purposes, a live band, so I think that one captured it. There’s not a stinker on that record. I love every song.”</p>
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		<title>Afghan Whigs Return &#8216;Unbreakable&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.summerskiss.com/1818/afghan-whigs-return-unbreakable/</link>
		<comments>http://www.summerskiss.com/1818/afghan-whigs-return-unbreakable/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Mar 2007 02:16:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Lee</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghan Whigs Press]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.summerskiss.com/1818/afghan-whigs-return-unbreakable/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Spinner.com The Afghan Whigs will get a well-deserved retrospective, &#8216;Unbreakable,&#8217; due May 1, but former Whigs frontman Greg Dulli is quick to point out that the collection is not a greatest hits. &#8220;We didn&#8217;t have any hits. We were an album band,&#8221; he told Spinner. &#8220;I felt very strange picking songs out of their context [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.spinner.com/2007/03/22/afghan-whigs-return-unbreakable/">Spinner.com</a><br />
The Afghan Whigs will get a well-deserved retrospective, &#8216;Unbreakable,&#8217; due May 1, but former Whigs frontman Greg Dulli is quick to point out that the collection is not a greatest hits. &#8220;We didn&#8217;t have any hits. We were an album band,&#8221; he told Spinner. &#8220;I felt very strange picking songs out of their context just as a primer for someone who may have heard of us [or] never heard us. We put together an overview of the 13, 14 years we spent together.&#8221;</p>
<p>Given that the Whigs &#8212; who started on Sub Pop just before the grunge explosion &#8212; were flirting with stardom with the stunning &#8216;Gentlemen,&#8217; yet never had any &#8220;hits,&#8221; is Dulli surprised by the attention the band still commands? &#8220;Not at all,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I think we were a great rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll band that turned a lot of people on, put on great shows and were incredibly loyal to our audience as they were to us. I think it&#8217;s rather apropos.&#8221;</p>
<p>In fact, Dulli says the band still gets offers to reunite. And while they did so for two new songs on this collection &#8212; &#8216;I&#8217;m a Soldier&#8217; and &#8216;Magazine&#8217; &#8212; that&#8217;s the extent of their reformation. &#8220;We&#8217;re not going to do any shows,&#8221; he says. &#8220;We knew that going in. We knew it the day we broke up.&#8221;</p>
<p>But that doesn&#8217;t mean he didn&#8217;t enjoy going back one more time. &#8220;I will say, almost without a fault, I had incredibly great memories. Anything that was ever negative about being in that band fell to the wayside.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>Greg Dulli Talks &#8216;Soldiers&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.summerskiss.com/1809/greg-dulli-talks-soldiers/</link>
		<comments>http://www.summerskiss.com/1809/greg-dulli-talks-soldiers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Mar 2007 03:25:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Lee</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghan Whigs Press]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.summerskiss.com/1809/greg-dulli-talks-soldiers/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[SPIN.com: Greg Dulli Talks &#8216;Soldiers,&#8217; New Gutter Twins Project At the request of Rhino Records, the Afghan Whigs reentered the studio to record two new tracks for their retrospective, Unbreakable (out May 1), their first release since 1998&#8242;s 1965. &#8220;I&#8217;m a Soldier&#8221; and &#8220;Magazine&#8221; were the resulting songs, which have joined a tracklisting including tunes [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.spin.com/mp3/2007/03/070308_afghanwhigs/">SPIN.com: Greg Dulli Talks &#8216;Soldiers,&#8217; New Gutter Twins Project</a></p>
<p>At the request of Rhino Records, the Afghan Whigs reentered the studio to record two new tracks for their retrospective, Unbreakable (out May 1), their first release since 1998&#8242;s 1965. &#8220;I&#8217;m a Soldier&#8221; and &#8220;Magazine&#8221; were the resulting songs, which have joined a tracklisting including tunes like Up In It&#8217;s &#8220;Retarded,&#8221; Gentleman&#8217;s title track, and 1965&#8242;s &#8220;Crazy&#8221; and &#8220;John the Baptist.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Rhino Records asked us to write a new song for the retrospective,&#8221; singer/guitarist Greg Dulli revealed to SPIN.com. &#8220;&#8216;Magazine&#8217; was left on the tapes from the old days &#8212; that was a song we were working on right before we broke up.&#8221;</p>
<p>But it wasn&#8217;t a challenge for Dulli and company &#8212; bassist John Curley, lead guitarist Rick McCollum, and drummer Michael Horrigan &#8212; to revisit unfinished work, as Dulli maintained he and his bandmates &#8220;are still bros,&#8221; and that entering the studio with them &#8220;was like riding a bike, a bike you know well.&#8221; They brought that kinship while crafting the intense and stunning soundscapes of &#8220;I&#8217;m a Soldier,&#8221; which boasts dark and softly dissonant melodies and a sweeping, sneering chorus.</p>
<p>Dulli penned the four-minute opus in an hour after watching a documentary on the war in Iraq. &#8220;I&#8217;ve never written an overtly political song, and I&#8217;m not sure that is one, but one of the soldiers made the exclamation, &#8216;I&#8217;m a soldier,&#8217; and was very emotional about it,&#8221; Dulli recalled. &#8220;He talked about his dead friends, and he had his doubts as to why he was there &#8212; I was moved by that particular statement.&#8221;</p>
<p>Though Dulli added only two new tracks to Unbreakable, more fresh material can be expected from the singer, who is currently in a New Orleans studio recording with ex-Screaming Trees singer Mark Lanegan under their Gutter Twins moniker. &#8220;We&#8217;re going to keep on working on the new album until June, our deadline to have all the songs recorded, and then we&#8217;ll chose from what I hope to be a lengthy bit of material,&#8221; Dulli said of the Gutter Twins&#8217; impending project. &#8220;If you know us, you know it probably won&#8217;t sound like sunshine and puppy dogs.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>Pitchfork: Afghan Whigs Retrospective Revealed</title>
		<link>http://www.summerskiss.com/1783/pitchfork-afghan-whigs-retrospective-revealed/</link>
		<comments>http://www.summerskiss.com/1783/pitchfork-afghan-whigs-retrospective-revealed/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:42:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Lee</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghan Whigs Press]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.summerskiss.com/1783/pitchfork-afghan-whigs-retrospective-revealed/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Pitchfork: Afghan Whigs Retrospective Revealed On May 1, Rhino Records will release Unbreakable (A Retrospective), an 18-track overview of the Afghan Whigs&#8217; dark, decadent career. Notice how it isn&#8217;t called Unbreakable (Greatest Hits), because the Afghan Whigs didn&#8217;t really have any hits. It also isn&#8217;t called Unbreakable (Best Of), because &#8220;Summer&#8217;s Kiss&#8221;, &#8220;When We Two [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/40774/Afghan_Whigs_Retrospective_Revealed">Pitchfork: Afghan Whigs Retrospective Revealed</a><br />
On May 1, Rhino Records will release Unbreakable (A Retrospective), an 18-track overview of the Afghan Whigs&#8217; dark, decadent career. Notice how it isn&#8217;t called Unbreakable (Greatest Hits), because the Afghan Whigs didn&#8217;t really have any hits. It also isn&#8217;t called Unbreakable (Best Of), because &#8220;Summer&#8217;s Kiss&#8221;, &#8220;When We Two Parted&#8221;, &#8220;Fountain and Fairfax&#8221;, and &#8220;You My Flower&#8221; aren&#8217;t on it, and that&#8217;s just criminal. (What were the criteria for inclusion on this thing anyway?)</p>
<p>What is on Unbreakable is 16 songs from the band&#8217;s Sub Pop albums Up in It and Congregation, Sub Pop EP Uptown Avondale, Elektra albums Gentlemen and Black Love, and Columbia album 1965. And, as previously reported, the compilation includes two brand new Afghan Whigs songs, &#8220;I&#8217;m a Soldier&#8221; and &#8220;Magazine&#8221;, recorded when singer/guitarist Greg Dulli, bassist John Curley, guitarist Rick McCollum, and drummer Michael Horrigan reunited last fall.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s doubtful that the reunion will extend beyond those new songs, however, as Dulli is still very busy with the Twilight Singers and his collaboration with Mark Lanegan, the Gutter Twins.<br />
Tracklist:</p>
<p>01 Retarded<br />
02 Crazy<br />
03 Turn on the Water<br />
04 Debonair<br />
05 I&#8217;m a Soldier<br />
06 66<br />
07 Be Sweet<br />
08 Come See About Me<br />
09 Uptown Again<br />
10 What Jail Is Like<br />
11 Magazine<br />
12 I&#8217;m Her Slave<br />
13 Going to Town<br />
14 Gentlemen<br />
15 Let Me Lie to You<br />
16 John the Baptist<br />
17 Crime Scene Part One<br />
18 Faded</p>
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