a review of a band that likes The Strokes

The Projectors set out to reintroduce aught rock

The Strokes balanced great melodies and tight, energetic performances with the cleverly aloof and slightly unpredictable vocal of frontman Julian Casablancas. The band’s raw, swaggering debut, Is This It, followed the example of The Stooges and Velvet Underground.

The Projectors may be more reminiscent of Herman’s Hermits than The Stooges, but the band does have some pretty good songs on this newly released self-titled album. The singer, Dylan Rysstad, acknowledged the influence of The Strokes when he described writing these songs: “With the first couple songs, ’When the Lights Came Up’ and ‘Golden Age’, I really embraced certain influences and didn’t try to obscure or hide the fact that it was starting to sound like someone else. The songs I’ve been writing for this project are what I want to be playing and listening to, and somewhat ironically, I feel like it’s the most me, if that makes sense.”

It does make sense—influences are not hard to understand. The “someone else” is The Strokes, and though Rysstad seems to be defending himself here, everyone knows musicians connect with other music just like the rest of us.

More importantly, The Projectors are not straight ripping off The Strokes the way, say, Ed Sheeran ripped off Marvin Gaye. The Projectors are just not able to rip off The Strokes.

The band lacks qualities that made The Strokes debut so good—the energy, the rawness, the swagger. But the music has other well-done elements common to songs by The Strokes—songs like “You Can Only Wait,” “Golden Age,” and “Lost in Spaces” feature a choppy, jangly rhythm guitar, a lead guitar playing simple melody throughlines, and a solid, pulsing bass. This is a warm and sunny sound led by an easygoing, agreeable vocalist.

The Projectors are based in Victoria, British Columbia. The songs on this album were originally released in April 2022, but they have been remastered and now re-released as the band works toward bigger things.

something about "Please Kill Me" by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain

Billed as "The Uncensored Oral History of Punk", Please Kill Me testifies to punk rock's NYC birth in the mid-1970's. The book organizes quotes from a cast of people who were there--participants and witnesses, and these people describe the scene, say who's who, and, of course, talk about the sex and drugs. But noticeably missing in these quotes is elaboration on the rock and roll.

There is no date or period anchoring the end of this telling, but the notable event in the final pages is the death of Johnny Thunders, former guitarist of the New York Dolls and, later, The Heartbreakers. These bands--the Dolls, in particular--dominated the genre's salad days. The Stooges (aka, Iggy and The Stooges) and the New York Dolls are the book's favorites, followed by the Ramones and the mostly derided Sex Pistols. The Dead Boys get minor coverage, too. But the deaths of Sid Vicious, Stiv Bators, and, as noted, Johnny Thunders serve as the conclusion to punk's story--at least in this version, even though Bators and Thunders died 10 years after the core of events described in the book.

If you're really into the music of any three of the above-mentioned bands, then Please Kill Me is sweet, truthy gossip. If you're not, then the quotes and people fast grow petty and irrelevant--the narrators sometimes indulge the "more punk than you" pissing contest that strips punk of its cultural relevance by pretending this raw, resilient music that crackles with energy belongs only to them, those self-important members of their own inertly private country club.