STACK #181 Nov 2019

MUSIC FEATURE

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs Fever To Tell

During their Falls Lorne

performance, Karen O sported a multicoloured geometric print poncho with neon accents that matched her fluoro pink eyeshadow and single fuchsia fingerless glove. Tiger-print leggings and black trainers completed the look, which would definitely have been classified a fashion Don’t if attempted by anyone else. In Karen O, designer Christian Joy (who also dresses Childish Gambino and Maggie Rogers) found a willing muse since these art-project creations helped the Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer transform into her brazen, predatory onstage persona. Yeah Yeah Yeahs certainly look like such a disparate trio – Zinner resembling a long-lost member of The Banshees, and Chase, an accountant (don’t worry, he agrees).

Year 2003

Bryget Chrisfield explores a favourite record which spelled the lift-off to cultural stardom for an important act. This month:YeahYeahYeahs’ Fever ToTell (2003).

O n New Year’s Eve eve (30 fromYeah Yeah Yeahs dedicated Maps , the band’s signature heartsick ‘ballad’, to the late Rowland S. Howard. Given that we were all blessed with the blissful ignorance that used to accompany attending rural festivals - before rubbish phone reception was addressed - this is how the Falls Lorne massive heard about the passing of the guitarist best known for his work with Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party (Howard had released his genius, second solo set Pop Crimes a mere two-and-a-half months before his death). As we attempted to process this sad news, hoping our ears had deceived us, Karen O poured her grief into this song’s crestfallen chorus, “Wait, they don’t love you December), 2009 at the Lorne edition of Falls Festival, Karen O

Live photographers often capture Karen O mid-back bend, brightly painted lips ‘swallowing’ the entire head of her microphone. As a performer, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer leaves absolutely everything she’s got on that stage. Karen O is one of only a few female voices in Lizzy Goodman’s ace book Meet Me In The Bathroom: Rebirth And Rock And Roll In New York City 2001 - 2011, which covers Yeah Yeah Yeahs exploding outta Brooklyn just after The Strokes took over Manhattan – and then the world – alongside the other, typically all-male, definite-article bands of that time (The White Stripes were an exception). “Do I think being a girl had anything to do with our outsider status as a band?” Karen O pondered. “I think it had everything to do with it.” But Karen O initially wanted to be a filmmaker, only picking up a guitar as a ‘project’ to pass time during the two-month winter

As a performer, [Karen O] leaves absolutely everything she’s got on that stage

like I love you”. We sang along, shell-shocked, and when the luminous guitar freakout that closes out this song kicked in, we could’ve sworn it was the spirit of Howard wrenching

Howard had been secured as support act for some of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Falls sideshows that year, which he obviously had

school holiday period. “From the four [guitar] lessons I took when I was 18 years old, I’ve been able to write hundreds of songs,” she told Goodman. “You don’t need to know much to write a good song.” After hearing some songs Karen O had written on acoustic guitar, Zinner said, “I immediately knew I would be making music

out those chords through Nick Zinner’s phalanges. As well as trademark buzzsaw guitar tones that make it impossible to discern the

to cancel just a few weeks out. Zinner also appears briefly as a talking head in Richard Lowenstein’s must-see documentary, Autoluminescent: Rowland S. Howard .

nuts and bolts of their playing, this pair also shared an ability to produce reverb-drenched riffs that shimmer with melancholy beauty. As Zinner’s “all-time favourite guitar player”,

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NOVEMBER 2019

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