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"The motto of everything is: I
suck, I gotta do better, I gotta work harder" - Julian
Casablancas, anytime, anyday Many groups believe less is more
when it comes to making music, but no band can ever have pursued
the policy as rigorously or as effectively as The Strokes.
On October 28 2003, the band will
release 'Room On Fire', their second album and the follow-up to
'Is This It' which sold over 2 million worldwide. It contains
11 songs and, like its predecessor, is so tautly and perfectly
constructed that there is not one excessive note or lyric
anywhere in its 33 minute and 15 second duration. Tense, fierce
and emotionally complex, it's a masterpiece that refines and
advances everything that made the band so unique in the first
place. Recorded at TMF
Studios on East 12th Street in New York between the months of
May and September 2003, it was produced, once again, by Gordon
Raphael. A product of both The Strokes’ obsessive work ethic and
what Raphael refers to the band’s "weird science", it's a record
of precision spontaneity and primal sophistication that
effortlessly hurdles the band's greatest fear – that of ever
releasing a song that sucks. For the record, the band to date
have recorded and released 23 songs. So far none of them have
sucked.The
first time The Strokes ever sent out demo to a record label was
in 2000. Ryan Gentles - a booker at New York's Mercury Lounge
and subsequently the band's manager (He'd first caught them play
on August 31 of that year at what was their 27th gig) sent a
demo to Geoff Travis at Rough Trade in London. Travis was so
taken with the CD he released it as it came to him, not changing
the songs nor the artwork the CD came in. Featuring three
propulsive and brilliant songs ('The Modern Age', 'Last Nite'
and 'Barely Legal'), it was dubbed 'The Modern Age' EP and came
out in the UK on January 22nd 2001.
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