Parliament, Massive Attack, Sonic Youth, Gang Starr. Cameo, Cibo Matto, Björk, Sun Ra, Public Enemy, Prince, Roy Orbison, Ohio Players, Madonna, the B-52's, the Who, the Cramps, James Brown, Joao Gilberto, John Coltrane, Diamanda Galas, Boogie Down Productions, Le Tigre, Abba, Depeche Mode, Guitar Wolf, Pet Shop Boys, Kool Herc, Erasure, Combustible Edison, Dick Dale, Laika and the Cosmonauts, Ghostface Killah, Roni Size, Carl Perkins, Mad Cobra, Archie Shepp. Grooverider, Talking Heads, The Smiths, and much , mucho, muito, beaucoup, mycket more....
HEPNOVA: A Portrait of the Artists as Young Hot Freaks
By Jon Rodis with Hannibal Goodfellow, Friday, January 12, 2007
The Central High School Class of '97 suspected that Nico was a space alien sent to Earth to live among the teenagers, study their social practices, and report back to the Mothership, and to this date no history of The Ronald Raygun / Hepnova regime has controverted this fact. It wasn't his Roy Orbison sunglasses, blond pompador, or the crisp, black polyester suit that he donned well into May--though all of that was suspect in the dark days of post-grunge. Contemporaneous with The Ronald Raygun, Trent Reznor and minions threatened to suck the remaining irony out of pop music; "authentically damaged" had superceded "hip" in the popular aesthetic. Deep in the throes of authenticity myself, I found Nico nearly incomprehensible at first. He was brilliant, witty, urbane, subversive, aloof, and possessed of a relentless levity--but a levity that seemed to lack warmth, in keeping with his alien metabolism. In conversation, I found he was likely to transform anything I said in his presence into a sexual double entendre, aphoristic aside, or semi-camouflaged barb--as if by careful study a trans-galactic cultural anthropologist had uncovered the mathematical algorithm for being Oscar Wilde or Prince and downloaded it into this high school junior's mind. Though he successfully infiltrated the Central High School Bobcat, Class of '97, he never could shake our suspicion that he was an alien.
Instead of beaming up to the Mothership after graduating in 1998, Nico worked at Sweet Tomatoes for the summer and then went to college, where he met John Chase, a wiry Puck with a titanic intellect and a thirst for rockabilly and rap music. The two began playing music after school, where they both worked as well, and writing songs and ideas in their Global Relations class.
While slumming around the Honors College dorms, Nico met Lee-Sean Huang, yet another Political Science major with a quiver of bon mots and a serious music jones. Lee-Sean played keyboards and produced skewed pop music when he wasn't slaying debate opponents, learning another in a seemingly endless series of languages, or guzzling Fanta. He particularly shared Nico's taste for drum'n'bass, experimental pop in the Massive Attack vien, and the powerful New York "New Music" scene that had produced Sonic Youth and Cibo Matto; his Union Jack Doc Martens, post-rave Eurotrash-skewering dress sense, and highly cultivated appreciation for food signalled that he was perhaps some kind of intergalactic funk scientist himself. Like Sun Ra, he brought a totally fresh clutch of serious music ability and a bottomless capacity for ill satire to the Raygun table. The first tracks on which they collaborated, "Telephone Tag" and "La Morsa," impressed Chase and convinced all three that they needed to form a rock and roll band tout de suite.
Unbeknownst to me (and most everyone else), The Ronald Raygun were making brilliant, witty, urbane, subversive, aloof music possessed of a relentless levity--but what I could see now, through the music, was the warmth. You can hear deep musical loves: lounge, rockabilly, surf, breakbeat, funk, bossanova, jungle, and, above all else, that now-unheard rhythmic element of rock and roll music that made even white people in a high school gym want to dance. It would be wrong to say that The Ronald Raygun made music that was unprecedented--you can hear Nico's rhythm guitar revisit the B-52's, the Who, the Cramps, Jimmy Nolen from James Brown's band and others; Lee-Sean's assortment of electronic beats and effects and his frequently inventive psychedelic organ have antedecents in and Bernie Worrell and Suicide's Martin Rev. John Chase provides deep, unconscionably on-time bass playing that finds the common ground between Lee Rocker, Billy "Bass" Nelson, and Conrad Lozano from Los Lobos, and his future wife Susan "Sue-Shi" Webb lends a voice that alternately recalls Peggy Lee and Luscious Jackson's Jill Cuniff, along with unpredictable Latin percussion and snare work. It would be equally wrong to call the band derivative. In the tradition of The Talking Heads, they synthesize musical styles for the benefit of the song rather than for the novelty of the reference. The closest analog in contemporary music is Beck--maybe you see flashes of it in LeTigre's electroclash or even Gwen Stefani and others' "crossover" music. Still, Beck's synthesis is too often a matter of musical appreciation, whereas The Ronald Raygun has genuine energy and enthusiasm. In less heretical terms: Beck is music for the hipster mind; this music is for the hipster pelvis.
Nico told me recently that people didn't know if this music was supposed to make them laugh, so the question of the hipster mind is equally germane to The Ronald Raygun's lyrics as its music: How exactly is someone supposed to respond to "Physical Tourrette's," for example? Ought one to stick out one's leg "like a battering ram"? Is "Sex Power" a satire of other sex/dance anthems or, itself, a sex/dance anthem? The Ronald Raygun does not ask such questions. If you must, by some inner compulsion, then this band is just not for you. For sympathetic listeners unaccustomed to the shades of irony in the lyrical terrain between the Connor Oberst and "Weird" Al Yankovic: Starting from Connor Oberst, add a healthy dollop of cleverness, a pinch of malice, and the will to emerge from the fetal position and oscillate wildly. This will bring you to The Smiths. From there subtract any trace of self-loathing, distribute the party hats, and light the tiki torches. Now you should be listening to the B-52's first record. (If you get to the Dead Milkmen, you've gone too far.) Add some brazen, funk-dripping sex ala Prince and the suggestion of Itchy and Scratchy / Doctor Octagon-esque violence, and you will have reached The Ronald Raygun. In other words, it's okay to laugh, but while you're laughing with your dorky, burn-out friends in the corner someone else will be ass-grinding a literary criticism graduate student on the dance floor. The genius of this band is that they will be your party band either way.
So what happened to the band? They released one official record, 1999's uncategorizable self-produced electro-rock manifesto "Tourist You Are The Terrorist," of which they pressed only 1000 copies on the Hepnova imprint. This record was an uncategorizable flurry of styles and featured raps from then-unknown MC Netmaster 10base-T. A tough year later, they put together the dark-edged, unvarnished LP "Dojo of Hardcore," which veered scarily between frenetic dance-rock born of the live gigging they'd done and disturbing dirges of self-negation and self-abuse. This record never saw wide release. The shifting tectonics of time dragged the members of Hepnova far apart geographically, but spiritually, they've maintained a freaky Karamazov-like connection. Lee-Sean was the first to get sucked into the vortex of reality, when his undeniable brilliance caused the recruiting goons at Harvard to head-hunt him away from sunny Arizona to the frigid climes of Cambridge. Chase and Susan were lured to Houston, where Chase, serving in the "Teach for America" program, introduced James Brown music into the Special Education curriculum and organized an after-school death/power metal camp to keep kids off the streets. Susan became a major presence on the fundraising scene and played drums in hot rock groups. Nico stayed behind in Tempe, slogging through his BA and making noise-saturated electrobilly and rap records under the Tsar Nicholas and Iced Weasels brands. In 2001, Nico and Lee-Sean began to record under the Hepnova name exclusively, producing an EP of covers (including the stone perfect Britney Spears medley "Hit Me Britney") and one of originals (including the dancefloor banger "Internal Ratchet Action").
Now, this fresh Web presence is bringing their music to a new audience. People who couldn't get access to their music before can hear and buy it here, and many who found their music too strange or assaultive the first time around can listen to it anew. Old fans will be delighted at the historical material and wild photos. Listeners will be surprised at how many elements of the Raygun / Hepnova sound made it into the manstream half a decade or more after the original band dissolved. The new music of Hepnova is as vital and crisp as their old music, but with an added sense of production values that used to get plowed under by their punkiness, and perhaps a maturity that makes for friendlier listening. Their new single "I Don't Want You" picks up where 90s dance music left off and adds a tuneful minimalism and hard urban-funk aesthetic. Their forthcoming self-titled album is sure to provide the soundtrack for a thousand backseat rumbles -- and this time, it won't be just the kids that are alright. The whole freak family will scoop Hepnova's new groove.
PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT BY PUTTING US ON YOUR TOP FRIENDS!!! We are thrilled to have you as our new friend and in support of a FREE BURMA! Please visit the site listed for more information and how you can help. Tell your friends and family about the atrocities occurring today in Burma such as: *GENOCIDE 400,000+ *BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS *2 MILLION + DISPLACED REFUGEES *WORLD’S LARGEST RECRUIT OF CHILD SOLDIERS UNDER THE AGE OF 17 *SYSTEMATIC RAPE AND TORTURE OF YOUNG CHILDREN *ONE OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST OUTBREAK AREA OF HIV AND AIDS WITH NEARLY NO TREATMENT FOR MOST OF THE INFECTED *NO FREEDOM *WORLD'S ONLY NOBLE PEACE PRIZE WINNER JAILED FOR THE LAST 16 YEARS FOR SPEAKING OF DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM
We are going on a mini-tour starting tomorrow! Make it out to one of these shows and support us! We will hopefully have a couple more dates scheduled by tonight, so check back for updates!
July 24, 2008 @ Gil’s Bar and Grill with Nothing Gained (London), Age Of Distrust, and more 27 W. 2nd Street Chillicothe, Ohio 45601 $6.00 - 8 PM - 18+
July 25, 2008 @ Artist Underground Cafe with Dragonship and Antietam 1600 Monument Ave. Richmond, VA 23235 $5.00 - 8PM - ALL AGES
July 26, 2008 @ Gil’s Bar and Grill with This Final Hour and Ascender Shipps Corner Shopping Center Virginia Beach, VA 23452 $5.00 (21+) or $10.00 (under 21) - 9PM
July 31, 2008 @ Stage 1 Live with Glitzy Akimbo, With Eyes Wide Shut, Wounds to Wisdom, The Greenery, and Falcon Does it Dirty 203 Olive Street Grand River, OH 44045 (near Cleveland) $10.00 - 7PM - ALL AGES
THANKS FOR THE ADD!!!! YOUR SUPPORT MEANS SO MUCH TO US AND THE 50 MILLION SUFFERING PEOPLE OF BURMA! YOUR FRIEND, U.S. CAMPAIGN FOR BURMA, ARIZONA CHAPTER http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5584384651 http://www.myspace.com/uscampaignforburmaaz BURMA WATCH.ORG http://burma-watch.org SUPPORT THE MONK'S PROTEST IN BURMA http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24957770200 ADDITIONAL BURMA INFO. http://sophielwin.blogspot.com http://groups.myspace.com/helpfreeburma
Stop by our offices in NY and LA to pick up brochures and ask all your questions. JNTO North America website: www.JapanTravelinfo.com Yokoso! Japan (Yokoso means Welcome)
Hello dear friend and funky supporter, A lot of funky hot things have been going down and we want to keep you in the loop.
In September we are performing in Germany and Poland, if you are in the area, this is your chance. Our tour dates are in the flyer below, please pass this information to everyone you know that lives in the area and wants to get down with the funky groove....
Our song "Choose Your Way" came Finalist at the prestigious John Lennon Song Writng Contest, and we are now releasing it as a 5th single from our Debut album. Come and hear it on our Space.
You can hear us and more cool music from Israel on the Soupygato Show. And be sure to vote for this show too by clicking Here.
Wishing you a funky summer!!! Peace and Love Funk'n'stein The Band We're Back........
Prove it. Head over to www.getstokd.com and upload a video of you bustin' a move to "Fa Fa Fa" for your chance to win $1,000! If you don't already have the song (shame on you), we have provided it for you on the site. So at the very least you get a free Datarock track for your troubles. And if you want to take it to the web yourself, shoot a video of your best moves and upload it. It's a Datarock dance revolution! Imagine thousands of Datarock fans around the world united by electro-retro-pop dance moves. Spread the computer love. Enter the Stok Dance Challenge!
One skill that i believe that people should have is the art of poetry and the ability to make positive literature rhyme. People feel many different emotions through the gift of music. Music is God's given gift to the human ear. I, myself, as an individual, believe that concious music was born to free the people's mind through positive, social, political, and everyday life issues that we experience day by day. People that i pertain to as robots simply insist on living their lives according to the standards that are layed out to be heard by the federal communications commision. This cycle is simply made to feed the machine which is the government. This is a chain cycle. There are so many youth that live in poverty and have no other resource to actually access real music besides the AM/FM radio. I have a question. How are poor people that have an immense amount of talent with a positive message behind it supposed to prosper with an established expectation? Who establishes that? This bullshit government does. They simply display negative messages that youth are influenced by. These kids do not know any better and choose to act out these messages that are fed to them due to the fact that its provided by the government. Now what? These kids get locked up and then they suddenly owe the Man (government) money. Fines, court costs, probation fees. So now whos profiting off of this? They put it out there but at the same time theyre opposing it with their self proclaimed constitution. I really dont undersatnd. Can someone please help me comprehend my misunderstandings? thank you for your time, domes boogie
cool...you guys got the merch panel up! im gonna submit your gallery for "featured contributor" (I think it's worthy) and also add a banner on our myspace that links to your merch.
Hey Nicholas, that's really cool. That's the only electric guitar that I own but its versatile enough that I recorded our entire album with it and do all my gigging with it.
