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"An explosion of infectious power pop - ten hypercaffeinated tracks bursting with harmonies and countermelodies, buzz-saw guitar riffs, and enough quirky experimentation to justify Trash Wednesday's reputation as a true original" - HIPvideo.com
Absinthe Mind - Produced/Mixed by Godfrey Diamond (Lou Reed, Aerosmith, Len, Velvet Underground) (PERFECTMIXES.COM)
This year Trash Wednesday exploded onto the music scene with their single, a take on the Beatles' classic, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", a song the band hadn't even planned on recording; the result of an unintentional moment in the studio that occurred while recording their song "Girl, Don't Walk Away", a live audience favorite.
"Our producer, Godfrey Diamond was setting the room up for sound. He had an idea to record the song live, rather than track by track. We started messing around, each of us warming and tuning up while Godfrey was crawling around placing mics and testing sound. We started playing "Lucy" as sort of a lark, and then we just blended it into "Girl". Godfrey got the whole thing on tape and insisted we keep the "new version" of "Girl" which really, now, legally, is "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
Soon after, the band traveled to Berlin and set up temporary house there; the original foursome soon becoming five members. Berlin was also where more unexpected events came to pass. "We wanted to try to do a video in Berlin, mainly because of the art and music scene that's happening there, as well as portray certain visual ideas everyone had." We originally intended to do another song, "Katerina", which is a story about a gypsy fortune-teller we met. Instead, another "Lucy" moment occurred. "We met with several directors and production companies and didn't really click with anyone. The ideas weren't in sync with how we saw ourselves or the music being portrayed and the budgets were, well, way out of budget." Then the band, through mutual friends, met Micky Modo, an Italian fashion photographer at a party in Berlin when she was on assignment for a major clothing line there. The topic of the now seemingly elusive video production came up. "She had never done a music video, and well, we certainly don't know fashion, so we all thought, why the hell not. But really, once we saw her photos and how incredibly artistic she is, it was a done deal. Also, because she hadn't done a music video before, she wasn't going to charge us. Perfect!"
Not precisely perfect as it turned out. Micky Modo wanted to do "Lucy" and a friendly creative argument ensued. In the end though, the ideas discussed for Lucy won out, and an almost free video was, after all, an almost free video. However, what happened next was the biggest surprise of all, the final video and how it suddenly took Trash Wednesday from the underground to the forefront almost overnight.
The production, in the hands of Micky Modo (MICKYMODO.COM) and technical wizards Peter Weigl (STREAMMEUPSCOTTY.COM) and Antje Stoffler-Hamad, finds Trash Wednesday dancing on a multicolored three-dimensional stage. This is clearly a superimposition of images, and Trash Wednesday makes the most of the incongruity, playing enthusiastically for an audience of gyrating silhouettes. Lucy (YVETTE MERVEILLEUSE) herself is imagined as an impassive-looking near-goth girl, glancing to and fro, drifting down John Lennon's famous river in a paper boat, partially concealed by a mesh of colored lines. Trash Wednesday, flipping from side to side like a cardboard cut-outs, conclude the tale with a stinging rebuke. Added to most major music television channels in the U.S., as well a large internet presence with such sites stations as ManiaTV.com coming on board (where TW did "Cyber-Jockeying" choosing the band's favorite videos to air on MySpace Mixtape, as well as being later chosen as "Artist of the Day"). Interviews and appearances in New York, Boston, and other cities in the U.S. soon followed. "The strangest moment has to be walking into American Eagle Outfitters in Manhattan and have the video come on twenty TV screens while you are in the dressing room trying on pants. You step out, and the tourists are staring openly at you, and the sales people quickly come over with ten more pairs of jeans. Definitely surreal."
The title of the album is Absinthe Mind. The heavy symbolism present in the artwork is reminiscent of a time when artists congregated and created their own societies within society at the turn of the century in Paris, and other places in Europe. The drinking of Absinthe, otherwise known as the Green Fairy, seemed to be a common thread amongst most of the artists of the period. Originally from the U.K., Trash Wednesday now considers themselves more of an "international" band rather than from any one place. It comes from spending extensive time in Berlin, Los Angeles, and Italy as well as London with shorter stays in Eastern Europe and New York. It also comes from having members that hail from Germany, the United States, Canada, and the U.K. Lead singer Kid is from the U.K. and as the main songwriter, the British influences are clear in the final musical results. But listen a little more and you will also hear some North American flavors, as well as a little dash of the exotic. "Traveling and living in different places as well as working with people from other countries have definitely shaped the sound we have today." Says Kid. "Being able to be immersed in other cultures for a good length of time as well as being exposed to each city's 'underground' - hearing and playing with artists we would have otherwise never heard really has changed our perspective and shaped us, I think, differently than we might have been."
Why such wanderlust?
"I have always been seeking that place, like Paris at the turn of the century, Florence and Rome during the Renaissance, and other moments in time where artists gathered and were able to work and live inexpensively and creatively in a creative environment. I haven't been able to find it completely yet, but I keep looking. If not, it's something I hope to someday to be able to create with others. I am just not sure where or when that can happen, but I am going to try."
Special thanks to Friday Music (FRIDAYMUSIC.COM) and Maurice Gainen (MAURICEGAINENPRODUCTIONS.COM)
