Death Cab, Franz Ferdinand to Tour

Aren't both on indie labels? I wonder who is bankrolling the tour?

Death Cab, Franz Ferdinand to Tour
Feb 3, 10:21 AM (ET)

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The two bands already have a lot of fans in common, and they're both nominated for a best alternative music album Grammy. Now Death Cab for Cutie and Franz Ferdinand plan to share the stage.

The two bands announced Friday they are teaming up for a co-headlining tour in the United States, beginning March 22 in Oregon.

"The co-headlining thing is just to let people know we will be playing sets of equal length," Death Cab bassist Nick Harmer told The AP by phone from Berlin.

Harmer said the idea to tour with Franz Ferdinand came after Death Cab band members began talking about plans to launch a U.S. tour.

"We were like 'Why don't we tour with another big band and see how it goes?" he said.

But don't expect to see any ego blow-ups, such as the ones between Jay-Z and R. Kelly. Death Cab has long had a motto of touring only with bands the members have a personal relationship with, Harmer said.

"The Franz Ferdinand guys all seem to be very much in line with how we feel about rock 'n' roll," he said. "Some people like to be called rock stars. To us, if you're called a rock star that's an insult."

 

I thought indies took a smaller piece of the pie than the majors. May the bands are self financing the tour?

 

list of emo bands ...

never heard a one of them


http://www.fourfa.com/topten/index.html

Emocore

Embrace self-titled LP/CD [Dischord Records #24, 1985]. This band just wasn't around long enough to polish all their songs. Some of the lyrics are kinda funny in their lack of subtlety, but some just cut right down to the core of the human condition.

Rites of Spring - "End on End" LP/CD [Dischord Records, 1985]. I don't even need to talk about this. This band wrote the book.

Dag Nasty - Can I Say LP/CD (CD includes later "Wig Out at Denko's) [Dischord Records, 1985]. Musically, this is fast melodic punk but the vocals are *so* heartfelt and emotive, and the lyrics *so* unrelentingly introspective and hopeful.

Fugazi - self-titled 12" EP, "Margin Walker" 12" EP / "13 Songs" CD [Dischord Records #?, ?]. They showed us that sometimes there's more depth and power in restraint and quietude than in full-power blasting punk. Sometimes you just need to all strum the same octave chord and shut up.

Fuel 7" and LP, or discography CD. If not for this band, I think the world would have been too afraid to infringe on the sound Fugazi had carved out. Fuel wasn't afraid to write great, powerful songs on the Fugazi foundation. (I gather there's a different band called Fuel on the radio these days, kinda techno?)

Jawbreaker - Unfun and Bivouac LP/CDs. Beautiful, angsty pop-punk with a huge minor-key edge, deep, incisive lyrics that cut right to your soul, and a keen sense of when to relax, when to biuld up, and when to just blast it out at full power and scream.

Samiam - untitled LP/CD [New Red Archives, 1990]. Aspired to the same thing as Jawbreaker, but somehow more sincere and honest.

Ignition CD discography [Dischord Records]. From 1984 to 1989 or so, this band covered a lot of ground under the DC guitar rock banner.

Hot Water Music - Finding the Rhythms CD (compilation of early EPs) and Fuel For The Hate Game. Takes the best of the Fuel/Fugazi twin vocal/twin guitar drive and adds a sweaty Avail pop-punk pulse, with scratchy, gruff singing that doesn't need to be beautiful to get the point across. This band positively embarrasses bands with only one singer.

1.6 Band - CD discography. Took the best of the Dag Nasty energy and catchy, corkscrewing riffs and added the best emo style 16-year-old vocals ever recorded.

Kerosene 454 - Situation At Hand [Art Monk Construction]. A temple to the DC octave-chord noisy over-distorted SG/Marshall guitar. This is the guitar sound bands dream about. These are all sweet pop songs made impossibly heavy by the crushing weight of the loudest guitars ever recorded.

Lifetime - 2nd 7" / "seveninches" CD on Glüe Records. Good God, talk about heartfelt singing, adreneline-charged bouncing energy and speed, and the sweetest melodies ever written. This band's mission was to reunite punk and hardcore and emo.

Falling Forward - Hand Me Down 12"/CD. Right in the middle of a bunch of styles - a bit of moshy east coast hardcore, a bit of emo yelling, a lot of Midwestern emocore melody. Introduced a lot of sxe kids to melodic, sensitive rock that was still powerful.

Split Lip/Chamberlain (same band) - Fate's Got a Driver. Perfectly crafted songs dripping with Midwestern melody and driving energy. Some people hear crooning bar rock, but the emo buildups and the way the singer's voice breaks in the loud parts prove otherwise.

Rites of Spring - "End on End" LP/CD [Dischord Records, 1985]. Essential for the sheer intensity and emotion of the vocals.

Moss Icon - "Lyburnum Wit's End Liberation Fly" LP/CD [Vermiform Records #15, 1988]. The beginning of the soft/loud emo crescendo, and advanced the emo vocals a long way. The CD has an almost-discography of stuff that's very hard to find now.

Native Nod - "Answers" 7" EP and "Bread" 7" / "Today, Puberty; Tomorrow, The World" discography CD [Gern Blandston Records]. The "Answers" record has some of the earliest full-on emo screaming. "Tangled" remains one of the very best emo songs ever. Excellent guitar stuff. "Bread" is a lot more developed, with some of the earliest emo-peggio (god, I hope that term doesn't catch on) twinkly guitar parts alternating with full-bore crashing distortion. The CD includes a later reunion recording (not as good).

Hoover - "Lurid Traversal of Rte. 7" [Dischord Records #89, 1993], and the later 12" EP/CD, which is a 1997 reunion recordings of songs that never got released before the band broke up. Wow. Some people say this sounds like Fugazi,and they miss the point. It sounds like classic DC twin-guitar midtempo style, as do Fugazi and a hundred other bands. The important part was the way the evil slithering basslines made it seem so dark and serious, and the way the singer worked up from whispering to a tortured animal howl at the end. "Cuts Like Drugs" has it all.

Hoover/Lincoln split 7" (Art Monk Construction #1). If you ever had to be stranded on a desert island with four emo records, this has to be one. Perfectly captures everything that was happening in emo in 1993. Gut-clenching pain and sublime beauty at the same time. Amazing.

Lincoln - both 7"s. The first, on Watermark in 1992, was fascinating because it was basically a heavy DC sxe record (Worlds Collide and such), with screaming emo vocals and slowdown emo parts in the middle. They were really the first to do that, and shortly thereafter most moshy sxe bands started doing the screaming thing. The second 7", Art Monk Construction #7, was full-on DC octave-chord painful-screaming emo recorded in 93 but not released until 1995. Both are amazing. The first is extremely rare, so snap it up if you see it.

Nation of Ulysses - "Plays Pretty For Baby" LP/CD [Dischord, 1992]. The first NOU record intruduced the world to the emo-as-über-stylish-mod-fashion-statement and band-as-mock-revolutionaries ideas, along with some of the best chaotic hardcore craziness. But it wasn't until this second LP that they really found their niche, with fantastic songs that just hang together perfectly, unexpected trumpet blasts and low-fi jazz interludes and all.

Still Life - "From Angry Heads With Skyward Eyes" 2xLP / CD (out soon?) [Ebullition Records], plus 8" and 7" EPs. Still Life were really the only emo band that stuck with the chunky palm-mute guitars. The vocals really took the gut-wrenching screaming to a whole new level. With two LPs worth of epic-length songs of unceasing intensity, this record really set a high mark. The earlier 7" was a bit moshier. The later stuff was less so, and more centered on darkly melodic basslines.

Navio Forge - "As We Quietly Burn a Hole Into..." 12" EP (no CD, may be out of print altogether) [Shadow Catcher Records #1, 1993]. Definitely the emo-est of all emo records. Powerfully churns through Fugazi-ish twin guitar attack and deeply sinister, turbulent emotion. Not the throat-shredding screaming, but rather slowly building sobbing and moaning breakdowns with heartfelt poetic lyrics.

all Indian Summer, especially their 7" and the Indian Summer/Embassy split 7". Indecipherable whispered words about milkweed and trees in between blasts of screaming and creamy, soaring, crushing octave chords, while low-fi Bessie Smith jazz records play softly in the background.

Current - "Coliseum" LP / discography CD (except for a few songs) [Council Records #2, 1993]. Just about as heartfelt as vocals can get, these guys had the quiet/loud poetic-lyrics catchy basslines emo down to a science.

Maximillian Colby / Shotmaker split 12" (Max Co songs available on a discography CD with other essential songs from their 7" and compilations) [nervous.wreck.kids, around 1995?]. Another perfect split record that captures everything about its time. MaxCo combined the DC beauty and fury with a Slinty sense of when to shut the hell up and listen to pins dropping. Shotmaker played rocked-out emo like they were pissed as hell and wanted desperately to play fast but somehow couldn't.

Policy of Three LP (Old Glory Records). DC style with a lot of Drive Like Jehu style mathematical tautness and complexity. They did the evil buildups bursting with tension like no one else could.

Floodgate LP and 2x7". Emotional punk with an insanely catchy songwriting talent stuck in its craw like a fishhook. Eventually the singer always goes crazy and screams like, "goddamnit get this thing out! Aiiiirrgh!"

Julia LP/CD (Bloodlink/Ebullition). Right at the tail of the emo boom, this record had a very tight, well practiced rocking DC groove with a wailing, just-barely-in-control singer always threatening to go completely nuts and topple the beautiful melodies the rest of the band was making. The best part is, strangely enough, an epic length song that slowly, purposefully builds up from nothing more than the sound of a ratchet driver drifting between speakers. There's also a Julia/Sunshine split 7" containing a live version of Julia's last song, and my god that song will break your heart. I saw three members of the band start crying and collapse at the end of that song once, and it broke mine.

Portraits of Past - LP (Ebullition). I personally know this band hated being called emo, but I don't care. This is emo of the highest caliber, with a crashing, shimmering beauty that was quite different from how they started out. Epic length songs build up to suprise stops, with long caressing indie rock guitar parts that break the melody down to its fundamental units, then slowly put everything back together again for a giant exploding finale.

"All the President's Men" compilation LP [Old Glory Records]. One of, in my opinion, very few cohesive and interesting emo compilations. At the time, this was essential for a demo version of Hoover's best, unreleased song "Breather Resist" (now on their reunion EP).

This is the stuff that appeals to me personally most intensely.

Heroin - self-titled 12" EP / discography CD [Gravity Records, 1992?]. This record is the end-all, be-all of emo for me. A wall of furious, chaotic noise, vocal-chord-shredding screaming, lyrics of ultimate disillusionment and pain, just the right amount of melody to pull things together without interrupting the flow of angst. The 12" is a perfectly constructed 20-minute epic of emotional disaster. The 2nd 7" that preceded it is historic for its vocal brutality and unrelenting guitar attack.

Reach Out 7" and split 7" with Honeywell. Thick, heavy, chaotic hardcore with an anthematic, epic feel.

Swing Kids - discography CD or 7" [31G Records]. Hard to sum up in a few sentences. The first track on the 7" is still probably the best single example from this style, heavy and gut-wrenching yet brilliantly musical. In my opinion this was Justin Pearson (Struggle, Locust, etc) at his very finest.

Portraits of Past - split 7" with Bleed [Ebullition]. This was a shock when it came out. The vocals on these two songs stand today as some of the most extreme hair-raising screams ever put to tape. Musically, this and the Reach Out stuff define the Northern California hardcore sound.

all Mohinder (two 7"s and a split 7" with the Nitwits). A deeply melodic hardcore band with basslines that twisted all around your skull, these songs were gems boiled down to one or two minute epics.

Merel LP/CD discography [Gern Blandsten]. Crazy chaos held together by a swirl of oddball looping riffs.

Antioch Arrow - In Love With Jetts LP or CD discography [Gravity]. Chaotic hardcore at its extreme. Nonsensical music somehow rhythmless and tight at the same time. Widely dismissed as fluff at the time for the lack of content perhaps, but these records stand well on their own.

Angel Hair - 7", LP / discography CD [all Gravity Records]. More taut and composed, starting to branch out into more adventuresome music like a Bauhaus cover. Still chaotic and heavy.

Guyver-1 7" - a little later in the game, but fantastically good hardcore.