STG Announces Upcoming Events: The Cult and More

Ticketing Information:  Available online atTickets.com, in person at the Paramount Theatre box office (M-F 10am-6pm), 24-hour kiosks located outside the Paramount & Moore Theatres, charge by phone at (877) 784-4849, or online at STGPresents.org.

Born out of the ashes of the UK post-punk scene, The Cult evolved to become one of the most influential and controversial rock bands of the late 20th century, selling millions of albums, headlining arenas and stadiums around the world, infusing innovative possibilities into the worlds of music and art, and quickly ascending through the ranks of the indie music world to achieve global status. As early as its first American tour in 1984, The Cult became one of the handful of important bands in the U.S. post-modern and hard rock communities. The band was embraced by the lost children of The Doors and Velvet Underground, and a generation that was waking up to the influence of 60s and 70s rock icons like Led Zeppelin, The New York Dolls and David Bowie. Formed in Brixton, London in 1983 as Death Cult, The Cult's music transformed from punk rock to post-punk, psychedelia, heavy dance music, and transcendental hard rock. As one journalist noted, "Using a few simple riffs and images, The Cult creates an entire environment, one more exciting and stimulating than our own." And that may just be what separates The Cult from other artists. Imagery is all-important to vocalist/lyricist Ian Astbury, imagery in the music and in the art that accompanies the Cult's projects. Astbury is attracted to words and the image that each word creates. He is engaged by the power of nature, folklore, the concept of destiny, animal power symbols, the survival of the species, spirituality, and certainly the Native American myth and culture, a subject of many of The Cult's songs. The constant core of The Cult is Astbury and guitarist/composer Billy Duffy. Attitude incarnate, the chemistry between these two vastly different artists - equal-parts genuine affection and palpable tension - remains the source of their long-standing partnership. Duffy grounds Astbury's esoteric side with a hard rock perspective, and there is no doubt that at all times, these two have each other's backs.

  

  

 

Henry Rollins:

"Capitalism" Tour

Date: September 10, 2012 @ 8:00pm

Special Guest: The Dodos

Date: Friday, October 19, 2012 @ 9:00pm

Venue: The Neptune (All Ages / Bar w/ Valid ID)

Price: $20.00 in advance, $22.00 day of show, not including applicable fees
Seating: General Admission
On Sale: Friday, June 29, 2012 @ 10am

Ticketing Information:  Available online atTickets.com, in person at the Paramount Theatre box office (M-F 10am-6pm), 24-hour kiosks located outside the Paramount & Moore Theatres, charge by phone at (877) 784-4849, or online atSTGPresents.org.

 

They call New Orleans a melting pot. When one thinks about it like that, it's hardly surprising that this is where Calexico reconvened to record their seventh full-length album, Algiers. Joey Burns and John Convertino have long called upon an extended range of musical influences, blending them together so distinctly that the results have almost become a genre of their own. Nonetheless, the choice of New Orleans may still come as a surprise to many. Calexico are, after all, associated with a style that their name - borrowed from a small town of less than 40,000 inhabitants on the border between the US and Mexico - has always defined with an unusual precision. Their work has spoken of dusty deserts and the loners that inhabit them, mixing America's country music heritage with that of a Latin persuasion. In other words, it isn't obviously affiliated with the sounds that have made New Orleans one of the premiere tourist destinations in the US. What's emerged as a result of this decision, however, is arguably the most exciting and accessible record Calexico have made. It's a fact emphasised by the band's decision to name the album in tribute to the neighbourhood where they worked: Algiers. The feel of Algiers is recognisably classic Calexico, but their style been revitalised and reborn by the experience of recording in the city. Its influence isn't necessarily sonically evident, but there's a strange, powerful connection to the sounds that have always coloured their own, influences Burns has previously identified as including "Portugese fado, 50's jazz, gypsy or romani music and its offshoots, 60's surf and twang from Link Wray to country's DuanE Eddy, the spaghetti western epics of Ennio Morricone and dark indie rock singer songwriters." You can hear ample proof of this in the dozen songs that make up Algiers. 'Epic', the magical opening track, swoons with an unexpected, easy-going romance and boasts a strangely calming, emotive chorus, and 'Para' - which Burns admits nearly didn't make the record as "it felt too confessional" - is dark and brooding. 'Hush', featuring Paul Niehaus on both his trademark pedal steel and Moog synth, meanwhile finds Burns at his most sensitive, echoes in his delivery of Bruce Springsteen at his most melancholic, a comparison one might also draw, for other reasons, when confronted by 'Splitter's uplifting rumble. Then there's 'No Te Vayas', a collaboration between long-term Calexico member Jacob Valenzuela and Jairo Zavala of Depedro, and the trumpet-embellished drama of 'Sinner In The Sea', which reflects Burns' desire "to map out a song that embraced our west coast roots to our experience working in Havana with Amparo Sanchez a few years ago" and which he flippantly describes as, "LA Woman heads to the Florida Keys and drives across the water to Cuba". One can't ignore the majestic closer, 'The Vanishing Mind', either, arguably as powerful as anything they've ever written. New Orleans, it seems, agrees with Calexico.

  

  

  

Date: November 1, 2012 @ 8:00pm

Venue: The Neptune (All Ages / Bar w/ Valid ID)

Price: $20.00 not including applicable fees
Seating: General Admission
On Sale: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 @ 10am