Blonde Redhead and Modest Mouse @ SXSW

March 26th, 2007 by Rachelandthecity

I remember the first time I heard about the band Blonde Redhead. It was 1999 and I had just moved to Astoria and I was reading a magazine article about The Red Hot Chili Peppers where Anthony Kiedis said that all he had been listening to was some band called Blonde Redhead. So, the next time I was in Manhattan I asked some guy on the street where I could buy used CD’s and was pointed toward Kim’s in the East Village. Once there I picked up one of their records from 1995, thinking I would start from the begining. That evening when I got home I was really excited to hear it and so I stuck it in my computer to check it out.

My first reaction?

“WTF is this shit?”

No kidding. I thought it sucked. Even though I did warm up to them much later on, I still wasn’t terribly excited to see them on the first day of SXSW. However, they were playing a party my friend was promoting and another friend that was with me on the trip really wanted to see them - so we went.

You know what?

They were actually pretty good this time around.

Check out a tune from their upcoming release 23, which comes out on April 10, 2007.

Blonde Redhead - 23 - MP3

In other interesting news from the first day of SXSW - Modest Mouse’s brilliant marketing scheme was to have old Mexican dudes hand out balloons to rev us up for the release of We Were Dead Before The Ship Sank. Talk about immigrants taking jobs that Americans won’t do!!!!