News from Pop Noir

Multimedia message

2008-05-23T12:40:00.001-07:00

Creepy picture from Continental Inflight magazine.

2008-05-18T18:31:00.000-07:00

POP NOIR IN JAPANESE

Our friend Monique, studying abroad in Kanagawa, Japan, has translated the lyrics to "Don't Fool Yourself" into Japanese.
WE don't speak the language (yet...), but we trust her enough to stick them up on the blog!
The lyrics are broken up into 3 sections; English, Japanese characters, and then the Japanese pronunciation.

“Don’t Fool Yourself"

Mister Kiss-kiss bang-bang, faster pussycat kill kill
See the precious mountain; pressure’s mounting on your will
The devils in the details, if you read between the lines
You know this road’s a dead end, but you still ignore the signs

Don’t fool yourself
It’s something else

You keep slipping up and you keep sliding down that slope
You slither to the rhythm like your snake-hips had a hope
Fumble in the jungle; keep your ear pressed to the ground
You know there’s something coming but you still ignore the sound

Mister Kiss-kiss bang-bang; faster pussycat kill kill
See the precious mountain; pressure’s mounting on your will
Hearts are something tangible, but just beyond your reach
And when you’ve learned your lesson, it’s not one you want to teach

"自分をだまさないで"

ミスター・キス‐キスバン‐バン　もっと速くネコちゃん、殺しなさい殺しなさい
貴重な山を見てる；圧力は君の意志を上がること
詳細に悪魔、君が行間を読むなら
このロードが行き止まりであることを知ってるが、君はまだサインを無視してる!

自分をだまさないで
それは他の何かだ

君はスリップして上がり続けて、そのスロープを滑りおり続ける
腰のしなやかな動きは期待を裏切らないように君は滑らかにリズムをとる
ジャングルにファンブル；地面に君の耳を押し続けて
何か来ることものがあるのを知ってるが、君はまだ音を無視してる

ミスター・キス‐キスバン‐バン　もっと速くネコちゃん、殺しなさい殺しなさい
貴重な山を見てる；圧力は君の意志を上がること
心は確かにそこにある、でも手の届かないところにある
そして、レッスンを学んだ時、それは君が教えたくない

“Jibun wo damasanaide”

MISUTA KISU-KISU BAN-BAN motto hayaku NEKOchan, koroshinai koroshinai
Kichou na yama wo miteru; atsuryoku wa kimi no ishi wo agaru koto
Shousai ni akuma, kimi ga gyoukan wo yomu nara
Kono ROUDO ga ikitomari dearu koto wo shittteru ga, kimi wa mada SAIN wo mushishiteru!

Jibun wo damasanaide
Sore wa hokano nanika da

Kimi wa SURIPPUshite agari tsutzukete, sono SUROUPU wo
Koshi no shinayanaka ugoki wa kitai wo uragiranai youni kimi wa nameraka ni RIZUMU wo toru
JYANGURU ni FANBURU; jimen ni kimi no mimi wo oshitsutzukete
Nanika kuru koto mono ga aru no wo shitteru ga, kimi wa mada oto wo mushishiteru

MISUTA KISU-KISU BAN-BAN motto hayaku NEKOchan, koroshinai koroshinai
Kichou na yama wo miteru; atsuryoku wa kimi no ishi wo agaru koto
Kokoro wa tashikani sokoni aru, demo te no todokanai tokoro ni aru
Soshite, RESSUN wo mananda toki, sore wa kimi ga oshietakunai

2008-05-18T00:54:00.000-07:00

RUBICON

Here's a 17 second preview of our new song "Rubicon", performed live for the first time at Hang The Djs at the Echo in Los Angeles. May 17, 2008.

2008-05-16T14:31:00.001-07:00

Band Practice.
Here's Nico and Joe on the double-kick.
Who's better??? I can't tell.
I just figured out how to send videos from my phone to this page... so expect more inane videos.
Or should I say INSANE videos??? Wooooo!

2008-05-12T14:11:00.001-07:00

So I was at an art show in Echo Park on Saturday, and this was the closing performance. At least I hope it was. It was a guy covered in wigs, sitting on the pavement and giving a speech in Spanish. He had a bunch of silver balloons as well, which he was releasing one by one... and when all the balloons were gone, he locked himself in a car boot, and the car drove away. I captured some of it on my mobile, but I was really just waiting for him to stab somebody, for a minute it seemed like that was how it would end.

2008-05-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

Looks like we've set a new personal record! What's that, nine months? Nine months without updating our blog! We could have had a kid in that time. Excellent.

Well, we've got lots of exciting stuff going on, so I'm sure we'll be maintaining this thing a bit better from now on.

While you're waiting for us to get our act together, though, have a look at these brilliant pictures from our show at Fullerton's Continental Room last Thursday:

That last picture there is post-show, when we raised the curtain again for Nico's brilliant encore, an impromptu performance of Deep Purple's "Highway Star". Bizarre.. Legendary!!

For more pictures, go to willteeyang.com.. They're excellent!

2007-08-06T00:53:00.000-07:00

P.S.

Luke and Marily Manson have the same t-shirt.

I would elaborate on this, but I'm too lazy. I'll just leave you to wonder what t-shirt it is.

Unfortunately I had a picture (doubly interesting, because MM had no makeup on, and he looks ridiculous), but I threw it away because I couldn't think of anything to do with it.

Oh well, it's not that interesting anyway!

2007-08-06T00:41:00.000-07:00

Jesus! We are lazy about this, aren't we?
Well, the past month or so has been quite busy, so I have an excuse..
But isn't that how all of our posts start?

Anyway, we've been recording, writing new material, building websites, illustrating, being seen, being scene, having our pictures taken, playing shows and making new friends. Tough stuff!

We played a show the other week at Evocal in Costa Mesa, and it was absolutely insane. The most fun we've had in ages. I think it may be the first time that clothes have been removed to our music (hopefully not, though, hopefully it's just the first time we've been privvy too). It certainly was a hot, sweaty affair!
Oh my.
Needless to say, can't wait to play another show there. The vibe was just so great! I know that's a very hippy-dippy thing to say, but seriously, next time we play there, come out and see for yourself.

So, yeah...
I'll post some images and things like that soon, just to make things more interesting for you, dear reader, but I should be off now.. it's almost 1am! What am I doing on the computer at this hour?

Speak soon,
Love,
Joe

2007-06-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

IT"S BEEN FAR TOO LONG, BLOG FRIENDS!!!
It seems every one of our posts starts that way! But we've been mega busy, so it's almost excusable. Almost. We've been putting the final touches on our recordings, which are just about finished, and we've been remixing some tracks too. The remixes will be available TONIGHT at our show at Plush, in Fullerton, on a one-time-only, super-limited-edition CD that you get for free if you say you're there for Pop Noir. But seriously, it will ONLY be available tonight. How exclusive!

In other news, Joe and I have both been illustrating for that cool magazine, THE DISTRICT. I've also designed a few t-shirts for super-hip music newspaper L.A. RECORD. Keep an eye out for those in the next few weeks, they are really fantatstic, if I do say so myself. Maybe once they're out, I'll put some pictures up, so you know what to look for.

If we can't see you tonight, then check out our other upcoming shows. We're doing the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa on July 5th, The Beauty Bar in San Diego on July 27th, and sundry other Los Angeles shows in between!
See you out there, Pop Pickers!!!

Ps. We promise to update this blog more frequently.

2007-05-24T03:56:00.000-07:00

Luke and I are off to Florida in an hour!

Not for anything Pop Noir-related, but because we're receiving the Silver T-Square award from the National Cartoonist's Society for service to the profession and NCS. We're the youngest-ever recipients!
Harry Truman was awarded one in 1950, and Eisenhower got one in 1954..
Cool!
See, we're good at everything.

Well, must go pack my bag.. we'll probably post some pictures when we get back..
See you soon!

2007-05-17T15:57:00.000-07:00

There's a good article in the OC WEEKLY this week, about us. We're in a band called Pop Noir. Very informative!!!

Twin White Dukes
Animated Anglophiles Pop Noir bring some Manchester to OC
By HOBEY ECHLIN

“We live a block from the beach, but we’re as white as ghosts,” says Joe McGarry, twin of Luke, who together are Pop Noir, OC’s most unlikely band of pasty-but-cute, sharp-featured 19-year-old twins in that kind of Gene Loves Jezebel/Edward Scissorhands kind of way. They don’t surf or skate; they paint and make cartoons and animation for friends’ bands (Bad Dudes, etc.) and websites and have been honored by the National Society of Cartoonists. Which isn’t as cool as Mani from Stone Roses and Primal Scream buying them beers, sure, and why wouldn’t he? Pop Noir’s music so far—they are only 19, remember—sounds like a marginal Manchester band from 24 Hour Party People.

Dad Steve, see, is a Factory-era Manchester OG (original gurner). The senior McGarry was mates with late Joy Division manager Rob Gretton, and two drummers in his post-punk bands were A Certain Ratio’s Donald Johnson and Primal Scream’s Toby Tomanov. He was the graphics guy for Rabid Records (Slaughter and the Dogs fans, there ya go) and designed Joy Division’s AnIdeal for Living sleeve. He downplays the Manc legend. “You had no way of knowing how mythical that whole scene would seem 30 years later. At the time, it’s just some assholes next to you in a bar,” he says. “But I do see my sons doing what we were doing 30 years ago.”

Joe (guitar, drum programming, production, good cheer) and Luke (bass, vocals, keys, brooding) never had a chance at a normal SoCal career path. “We grew up listening to New Order, Happy Mondays and A Certain Ratio because these were people my dad knew,” says Joe with a sigh. “Plus, the stories made it all seem really appealing.”

After dad landed a cartoon-syndication deal, the family yo-yoed between the U.K. and SoCal before settling in Huntington Beach so the twins could go to the Orange County High School of the Arts.

Pop Noir’s success as an OC band is bittersweet. They draw well enough in LA at Viper Room and the Echo for a band with just a MySpace and demos. They’ve played the OC circuit, opening for Kinky at JC Fandango’s last year, where they hosted an Anglophile monthly. It lasted just five months. “We had bands we liked, like Explogasm and Army Navy play,” says Joe. “But it got harder to get LA bands to come down.”

“I know it sounds conceited, but we are actually bigger in Europe,” chimes in Luke. Dad helped get the twins a spot on ex-Factory honcho Tony Wilson’s In the City festival in Manchester last summer. “Mani was drunk, buying us pints, and Donald Johnson [said], ‘If you ever need a drummer . . . ’” (They have one now: Nico.) Then they sold out a club in Paris purely on word-of-mouth.

Pop Noir’s MySpace demos reveal a bluesier, sleazier take on the Franzblockillerspol neo-disco thing, more “Rapture” than The Rapture, with Laughing Stock-era Talk Talk guitars that would make Tim Friese-Green blush and Bez dance. “A lot of the bands come out of the whole Gang of Four/herky-jerky thing,” Luke says. “We come at it from the groovier side.

“We either get compared to New Order or early Rolling Stones,” he adds. “We can live with that.”

2007-05-15T01:02:00.000-07:00

HOWE Video

Here's a little video of us extolling the virtues of HOWE clothing. Or, here's a video of Joe extolling the virtues... I remain conspicuously silent. Anyway, we love HOWE. They provide us with most of the fancy clothes we wear onstage.

It's been 2 weeks since our last post! We're terrible at this!!!
We added a last minute show last Wednesday at CLUB NME (at good ol' Spaceland). It was a lot of fun. We always have fun. And then on Saturday we played a party in Culver City for some people from Kung Fu records...home of the Vandals and Stiff Little Fingers... not really our scene, right? Well, again, we had a great time.
Tim Armstrong from Rancid was there.
How punk are we?

2007-04-30T18:10:00.000-07:00

We've just added a show at Spaceland with The Autumns..
And here's another occult flyer:

It's 21+, so anyone underage will just have to wait until Tuesday's show at Chain Reaction!
See you soon.

Love,
Joe

2007-04-30T14:10:00.000-07:00

Look at this good flyer I made last night!

Spooky, yeah?
Makes you want to go to the show, doesn't it? All sorts of things could be going on that night!
Well, it won't be a Satanic Mass in the woods as the video suggests, but it will still be good.

See you then!
Love,
Joe

2007-04-30T13:35:00.000-07:00

WHAT HAVE WE BEEN UP TO?

I'll tell you.

Last week was our mini-tour.. I mean really mini. We played The Key Club in Hollywood on Tuesday, April 24, and then The Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco on Wednesday, April 25. We were going to play a third date on the Thursday in Santa Barbara, but we ended up not doing that. That'll be a story for another time, I guess. Or, I can never mention it again, and leave you to make your own suppositions as to why that show didn't happen. Mysterious!

Anyway, we've got some good pictures and video here.
This is us playing "Santa Ana" at The Key Club..

And here's Luke in the van on the way to San Francisco:

Nico playing air guitar at a gas station somewhere near Bakersfield:

And all of us leaning into the wind in Soledad, outside a Carl's Jr.:

Good trip.
Talk to you later.

2007-04-28T12:38:00.000-07:00

For the last few months we've been busy recording with our friend Bryce Martin, and finally we have new music to share with you. The new material also features our incredible drummer, Nico.

We're living with these mixes for a couple of weeks before we do our final bits of tweaking, but we're excited about this stuff, so we thought we'd share some of it with you on myspace... whether you want us to or not!

We've put some new material down and re-recorded songs that you may already be familiar with. Right now we've uploaded new versions of "DIY", "Don't Fool Yourself" and "In Like a Lion". We've also included "Santa Ana", which you might know from our live shows. The sessions also included recordings of "Girls of Prey", "The Seaside", "Perfect", "Bang The Drum" and "How The West Was Won".

Hopefully all this and more will be available soon on an album.. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the rough mixes that we are sharing with you online.

Love,
Pop Noir

2007-04-19T01:20:00.000-07:00

"Blogger" is such a jerk! I can't figure it out. Why can't I title my posts anymore? This is ridiculous.

Anyway... we've just added a show at Chain Reaction in Anaheim on May 8th. It's all ages, and we'll be playing with Monsters Are Waiting and The Deadly Syndrome. The tickets are $10... which is a bargain, I know!!!
Who knows when we'll be playing Orange County again after this? We don't, so you better come out, you might not see us for a while!!!

In other news, I (Luke) have had two drawings published this week in the LA Record and The District Weekly. The drawings are of Blood Brothers and Raekwon, respectively. Keep an eye out for them!

2007-04-14T11:34:00.001-07:00

Click the following links to read reviews of us and our video for DIY from French magazine Gonzai.

www.gonzai.com/pop-noir-video

www.gonzai.com/pop-noir

My favourite bit in that one is the description of Pop Noir as "The Arctic Monkeys without acne".

Check out the whole magazine at www.gonzai.com.

Merci beaucoup, a bientôt!

-Joe

2007-04-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

There's a brief mention of our performance at the Beauty Bar on San Diego's nightlife blog "Napkin Nights".
Follow this link to read more, and check out some pictures from the night here.

There'll be more news soon, I'm sure of it!

2007-04-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

Pop Noir have been busy little fellows these past few weeks.. that's my excuse for not updating this blog for ages again.
We have done some good stuff, though! This blog post will be part 1 of 2 in which I will share our adventures for the week of April 2 - April 9.
Monday night we were at the Viper Room. We're very proud of ourselves, as it was our first time headlining the Indie 103.1 sponsored weekly show and, not to sound too cocky or anything, we were pretty great! The sound there was good, too. What fun! Our pal Jennie Warren took some excellent photos, which I will now show you.. hold onto, er, your hats, or something!

Okay! That's my post covering Monday.. Later on I'll post some pictures etc. from last night's show in San Diego..
Byyyeeee.

2007-03-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

Right, so I think the recording is just about done.. finally!! If there's anything more to be done, it's just final touches etc. We're quite the little perfectionists!
We have a show at The Beauty Bar in San Diego.. so that's new. April 6th! Come check it out.

We're playing in LA tonight.. The flyer I made is rather nice, if I do say so myself.

Normally I wouldn't be bragging about things like that, but I'm just using it as an excuse to post the picture the flyer was based on:

Amazing!

Anyway, after tonight we have two very important, very BRILLIANT shows lined up: Plush Cafe tomorrow, and The Viper Room on Monday night..
Now, we want everyone who can come to be there on Monday, so email/myspace us is you want to be on the guestlist..

Okay!

2007-03-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

So much to tell you!

Monday night we returned to JC Fandango (our favourite club), to open for The Pinker Tones, from Spain. We premiered our newest song, which is going under the title "Bang The Drum".. I'm not sure if that will change.. Anyway, we were great, The Pinker Tones were great, and they were really nice guys, too.
Also, we nicked the rehearsal PA from one of the back rooms of JCF, so now we have a PA to practice with! When I say "nicked", though, I mean the club owner let us take it. I just wanted to make us sound like bad-asses. Ha!
All in all it was a great night! Thanks to everyone who came out. We had a brilliant time.

Last night we made our San Diego debut, and that was also a good evening! I'm not really sure what to tell you about it.. We only played a short set, 20 minutes or so, but it was still great fun. We managed to squeeze all our hits in there (tee-hee). But don't worry, we'll be playing longer at our upcoming shows. You'll get your money's worth! I actually have no idea what else to say about this show.. We should have some pictures from both shows soon, I think.. I'll post those as soon as we get them.

What else is new? We're going to try our damnedest to finish up our recording this week.. There is a light at the end of the tunnel!! The stuff's sounding good, hopefully you'll be hearing it soon. The new version of "DIY" has been played a couple of times on INDIE 103.1 fm this week, perhaps you've heard it? I know some of you have, you've told us!

Hmm.. something else. Oh yeah! Luke and I went to see The Presets last Saturday at EXPLEX. We didn't even know that place existed! Well, we did, and we knew it was underneath the Echo in Echo Park, but we couldn't figure out where..We figured it out, and let me tell you, that place is great!! It's now our goal to play there, just because it has such a cool vibe.. Playing the echo is tons of fun, and EXPLEX is kind of like a rave version of the Echo, if you can kind of figure out what I mean by that.. I don't know. We'll try toget a show there, then you can come see us and find out what I mean.

Okay, I think that really is all I have to report!
See you Thursday (Club Audio), Friday (Plush), or Monday (THE VIPER ROOOOM!!)!

Love,
Joe

2007-03-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

People keep asking us, SAN DIEGO'S CLUB POP NOIR HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH US.
It was very nice of them to name an entire club night after us, but we think it just causes unnecessary confusion!
Their club opens at the end of this month, we're debuting in San Diego a week before, on March 24th.
So NO, we're NOT playing Friday, March 30th in San Diego, or any other Friday in San Diego as far as we know.

Don't waste your money, we won't be there!

In other news, we have a show Monday night at JC Fandango in Anaheim with The Pinker Tones, an incredible electronic band from Spain. Tickets are $15 dollars, but if you print out and bring this flyer, you can get in for just $5!

So, come out on Monday, or next Saturday, but not next Friday to Club Pop Noir, because that's something else entirely.

Love,
PN

2007-03-05T01:19:00.000-08:00

Wow, I really can't believe how terrible we've gotten at updating this blog.
I'm still trying to figure out a clever way of reworking our site, so that will be my excuse for not keeping this thing up-to-the-minute. That and the fact that we're still in the recording studio, so really nothing has changed.

Oh, well, we're now recording at a different location (a house), so I guess that's new. We should post some pictures, but really, we're just in a bedroom. You all know what a bedroom looks like!
Actually, I missed a great opportunity to take some pictures when we were tracking drums. We were in a garage full of hunting paraphernalia, so I could have shown you plenty of Pop Noir with boxes of bullets, deer heads, and snake skin. I suppose I could just go in the garage and take photos, but I think that would be a bit weird.

Another new thing, we were interviewed in Dirrtyglam Magazine.. check it out here:

dirrtyglam.com

Good stuff.

Well, that might be it for now.. I'm going to go watch The Sarah Silverman Program.

P.S. Come to The Viper Room on April 2nd (if you're 21+ or have a fake ID).. We're headlining, It's an Indie 103.1 night, and there's free vodka for everyone! What more could you possibly ask for? Oh yeah, you can get in for free if we like you enough to let you know the password! Perfect.

Ah, Young Love.

2007-02-02T11:22:00.000-08:00

We've really not been updating this thing often enough, have we? Well, I have a feeling that will change soon.
We're working on redesigning the website, making it more high-tech! And by that I mean trying to make it so updating the thing is less work! You see, when it comes to anything other than music or artwork, we're very lazy.
So this update is taking a long time, because I have to figure out all this boring html, javascript, asp, flash programming code blah blah blah nobody wants to hear it! But trust me, when it's done it will be worth it!

In other news, we played with Young Love at the Knitting Factory last night. Good show! It was a ton of fun. Thanks to everyone who came out, and thanks to Dan from Young Love for having us. That was our first time playing the Main Stage at the Knitting Factory, so now we've played every room in the place. Wonderful.

I think we might have pictures soon. There was a professional photographer we met before the show, I think he took some during the set, and I know he took some band photos of Luke, Nico and I..

Anyway, I think I'm going to go.. but hopefully we'll have a new website soon and all that, and we'll be updating more frequently!

Love,
Joe