Afterhours Fall 2007 Shows
Afterhours has announced the following European dates. These are the band’s only scheduled shows in 2007. They will start recording a new album in August and plan to release the disc in early 2008.
Sept 24 – Amsterdam (Netherlands) – Paradiso
Sept 25 – Brussels (Belgium) – De Vaartkapoen
Sept 27 – Luxembourg (Luxembourg) – d-qliq (special acoustic show)
Sept 28 – Luxembourg (Luxembourg) – d-qliq
Oct 1 – London (UK) – Dingwalls
Unbreakable - Junk Media
Junkmedia - 5/5
Dark and decadent, Cincinnati’s Afghan Whigs were either your favorite band or something you found genuinely repellent. There was no middle ground. With songs that delved deep into the male psyche and came up screaming, the Whigs got under your skin— bad.
Frontman Greg Dulli played up his role as smooth motherfucker with such gusto on tracks like “Debonair” and the “Be Sweet” (with its infamous “I got a dick for a brain” line) that casual listeners figured they had him pegged as yet another arrogant post-punk rocker with a big mouth and an overactive libido. Lyrics such as “Do you think I’m beautiful/Or do you think I’m evil?” on the devastating “Crime Scene Part One” from 1996’s Black Love encapsulated some people’s frustration with Dulli. But his affinity for soul music and his surprising tenderness — encapsulated on the cover of The Supremes’ “Come See About Me,” darker and sadder than the original by far — reveals a different character, one significantly deeper than expected.
The songs swagger with confidence; the numbers from the band’s last record, 1998’s upbeat 1965, still feel like a hazy, absinthe-fueled party, but much of the earlier material seethes with real menace. Dulli implores his lover “Don’t you let me breathe” on Congregation’s “Turn On The Water,” while the tracks from Black Love, the band’s dark masterpiece, are both claustrophobic and cathartic; even the catchy “Going To Town” has Dulli arming his companion with a “match and gasoline,” the goals being “burn it down, turn around, and get your stroll on, baby.” The epic “Faded,” guitarist Rick McCollum’s finest moment, closes the record on an impassioned-yet-world-weary note. “Do you believe in me baby?” Dulli asks, hardly the braggart from the grungy, Sub Pop album-opener “Retarded,” “Can I believe in you?”
Unbreakable is the first — and, with the band’s plethora of great live cuts, covers and B-sides, hopefully not the last — Whigs compilation and, while the awkward tracklisting leaves something to be desired at times (1965’s “John The Baptist” sticks out like a sore thumb — and where are the singles “You My Flower,” “Honky’s Ladder” or the band’s signature set-closer, “Miles Iz Ded”?), this delivers the goods. For fans, it’s a way to reevaluate old favorites in a new context and hear two recently-recorded tracks, the gripping “I’m A Soldier” and the trip-hoppy “Magazine,” which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on the first Twilight Singers record. For the uninitiated, it’s a treasure trove, with would-be classic singles and songs that feel like missed opportunities on the part of the Whigs’ three labels; how Columbia missed turning the buoyant, sexy “66″ into the club hit of the late ’90s is beyond me.
Mark Cappelletty
Gutter Twins Sign to Sub Pop
Via Pitchfork:
Gutter Twins (Dulli and Lanegan) Sign to Sub Pop
Over a decade has passed since the “alternative rock” bubble burst, so it’s high time to get back to its roots, right? Sub Pop has done just that, having signed the Gutter Twins, aka two of the alt-rock era’s greatest frontmen, Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan.
More of the same at:
Filter
Harp
Plugin Music
CMJ
Spacelab
Unbreakable - St. Petersburg Times
Grade: A
As leader of the terrifically lost, vastly unloved Afghan Whigs, singer-songwriter Greg Dulli mixed the howling self-hate of the grunge movement with the heart-sleeved hope of arena rockers. The Cincinnati-born band should have been bigger, but its emotionally disheveled leader expected this frustrated fate. There’s a bipolar beauty to Dulli’s songs, with soft moments often turning into vengeful screams. On the jarring “Be Sweet”, his pillow talk turns punk ugly… then pretty… then ugly again, as the singer just can’t get a handle on love.
Sean Daly
Unbreakable - Louisville Courier-Journal
Whigged out
By Jeffrey Lee Puckett
3.5 Stars
Greg Dulli didn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve when leading the Afghan Whigs. He nailed it to his forearm with a railroad spike and then walked down the street, shoving it in stranger’s faces. He didn’t whine about his nail-driven heart, either; he was pissed off, and made sure you heard — and felt — every bloody detail.
Cincinnati’s Afghan Whigs are considered by many one of the finest bands of the 1990s, and also one that never quite got its due. Dulli, John Curley, Rick McCollum and Steve Earle unleashed a decade’s worth of dark rock ‘n’ roll splashed with even darker soul, all of it informed by Dulli’s torrential anger and disappointment at himself and the world.
What the Afghan Whigs did exceedingly well was create an atmosphere that was pure Whigs and purely distinctive. The band recorded for Seattle’s Sub-Pop Records alongside Nirvana and made music that was equally powerful, with hooks as big as any that Kurt Cobain crafted. But the Whigs never made the leap to commercial success. Maybe Dulli was ultimately too scary for the masses.
“Unbreakable: A Retrospective 1990-2006″ is the first Whigs compilation and it’s a solid, if brief, reminder of their legacy. Two unreleased songs, recorded specifically for this collection, manage to hang with the classics, but it’s the vintage material that thrills, from the blistering “Retarded” to the epic “Crime Scene Part One.” This was Afghan Whigs at their conflicted best, cathartic without the emotional cleansing, uplifting even as Dulli dragged you down.
Jeff Klein Limited CD
Under Asphalt Live Solo
We are happy to announce another installment in the Jeff Klein Limited CD run. We’ll be doin this every once in a while till the new record is out to make some music available to y’all in the interim. (and to still pay off our taxes!)
Under Asphalt is Jeff Klein - solo acoustic live. Limited to 100 copies and all are signed. each also come with seperate unique hand drawn, acrylic, or waterpaint artwork numbered and signed by the artist. A little music, a little art.
You can also hear Jeff Klein live in New York on the following dates:
Aug 7 The Living Room New York, New York
Aug 13 The Living Room New York, New York
Aug 30 The Living Room New York, New York
Unbreakable - Music Emissions
Music Emissions
Dennis Scanlan - 4.5 Stars
How does one begin reviewing a compilation of a band that was so dear to one’s heart? That is the question as I sit with Unbreakable: A Retrospective of The Afghan Whigs playing on the headphones. I know what’s around every corner, I even anticipated correctly the two new recordings that Greg Dulli and gang recorded for this Rhino comp (”I’m A Soldier” and “Magazine”), which both are nice additions to the Whigs catalog. While there is no compilation that could replace the perfect Gentlemen album Unbreakable does a great job on tying as much as one can into one 18 track album.
Apparently Dulli and bassist John Curley handpicked the songs and sequenced them as well. When Afghan albums are so meticulously sequenced this must have been a hard thing to separate tracks like “What Jail Is Like”, “Be Sweet” and “Gentlemen” from their best album, Gentlemen. The album also takes a number of tracks from Black Love and 1965 to fill out the track listing. “Turn On The Water” made the cut from Congregation and the album opener, “Retarded” from Up In It.
So, even though it seems obvious, Unbreakable is a good place for those who have never heard this very influential 1990s band that was so sadly overlooked. Don’t miss out on Dulli’s equally impressive Twilight Singers.
Unbreakable: The Star Online eCentral
The Star Online eCentral
BARRING a dramatic reversal in fortune, Afghan Whigs are almost certainly going to go down in history as a bunch of also-rans. A group that made a number of good records and the odd, daring stylistic shift, but was neither experimental nor commercial enough to be truly memorable.
Nonetheless, this career-spanning compilation boasts a shrewd mix of tunes that ought to appeal to the generation of rock fans (I’m talking about those of you who made the move from grunge to Britpop) that missed out on the Whigs first time around.
The creative core of the group, Greg Dulli (vocals, rhythm guitar), Rick McCollum (lead guitar) and John Curley (bass) were ever-present over the course of the six albums recorded between 1988 and 1998 (the first independently-released album Big Top Halloween has been excluded from this collection).
They’ve even re-formed for two new tracks (I’m a Soldier and Magazine) which unfortunately aren’t among the best songs here.
Generally, though, the whole Afghan Whigs tale has been compiled and presented reasonably in this little nugget. Sure, there are a handful of omissions like early favourite White Trash Party, but it’s hard to dispute that most of the group’s definitive material is here.
The songs range from early brash, near-grunge recordings like Retarded to altogether sleeker animals in the vein of Debonair and Gentleman and culminate in the highly melodic layered products (the brassy, occasionally funky stuff like Crazy and John the Baptist) of what is surely the best and (frustratingly) final Whigs album 1965.
Aside from those two excellent tracks, other personal favourites include the bleak adult tale Let Me Lie to You (“discover your lover between the legs of another”) and the rockier Turn on the Water. Dulli’s preoccupation with the politics of sex-drenched relationships can get a little wearisome and I still can’t shake the feeling that the Whigs could have, and should have, done more than they did, but their story is still worth listening to.
– MARTIN VENGADESAN
Mighty Fine Videos
Mighty Fine has posted videos for two new songs on their Myspace site. Check ‘em out.
Unbreakable - San Francisco Chronicle
If the Afghan Whigs released their first album this year instead of at the tail end of the ’80s, they’d be band of the year among a post-everything demographic looking for something borrowed and something blue. Singer Greg Dulli and company were soulful in a time of anguish; wearing suits in a flannel era. They never stood a chance. But hear them now, on this 18-song retrospective harvesting songs from all aspects of their career, along with two new slow-jamming, indie-rock-tinged tracks, “I’m a Soldier” and “Magazine” (an unreleased demo polished for the occasion). The old favorites are mostly all here: “Retarded,” with its grungy funk; “Gentlemen,” with its self-loathing drawl; “Be Sweet,” with its bitter leer; “and “Crime Scene, Part One.” It makes you want to cry. Come back to the five and dime, Afghan Whigs. We could use a serious soul infusion right about now.
– Neva Chonin
The Gutter Twins: Saturnalia The long awaited debut from Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan
Order CD at Amazon.com
