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The best kept secret in music
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#3: The Hanslick Rebellion, "You Are Boring The Shit Out Of Me"
Re-forming after a ten-year break, these Albany, New York power poppers drop the year's most undeniable riff, and the video is office-nerd genius. - Spin magazine, September 2007
"A venerable Albany band called the Hanslick Rebellion has released a funny video on YouTube of their song 'You Are Boring the Shit Out of Me.' A reference to THE Hanslick? Sure enough! According to the band's site, 'The Rebellion takes its name from Eduard Hanslick, a 19th-century music critic of the Vienna Neue Freie Presse. A feared writer whose opinion could make or break a composer's career, Hanslick was responsible for such gems as "Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto brings to us for the first time the horrid idea that there may be music that stinks in the ear." As Gen-X kids pimping out the ideology of the band they might become, Keaney and Davis would sit in Denny's and rant until the wee hours about how Hanslick's "rebellion" against musical excess should be revived to bring back rock and roll in its purest form, to strip away the decadence and the bullshit.' And they say classical music criticism is dying...."-New Yorker music critic Alex Ross - The Rest Is Noise
"The Hanslick Rebellion were perhaps the most formidable and ferocious band to ever emerge from Albany, a monstrous consortium of fine players, singers, rockers, writers and performers who made the rare leap from campus (in their case, UAlbany) talent shows to success in the regional club scene. The world was a better place because they rocked some stages as hard as stages can be rocked.
"The Rebellion didn’t last long during their first incarnation, but a couple of years back, they regrouped to bring (back) the rock. I took some of my work study students and other miscreant friends down to see them play at CBGB in their first show there after the hiatus. I guarantee you the folks who went with me will remember that show for the rest of their lives. The Rebellion is that good, as was the venue we caught them at (RIP).
"The original Rebellion recorded an unbelievably fine live album at Albany’s QE2 (another lost, lamented, live music club, now the site of the inferior Fuze Box), and Eschatone Records will be reiussing it in full digital glory later this year. The new Rebellion, however, has also been busy, and they’ve got a new disc called The Deli of Life available exclusively through iTunes. Visit the Hanslick Rebellion website at Eschatone to score the new disk and download some faboo audio and video files of the ferocious foursome in action. There’s some great videos of them on YouTube as well, including one of my alltime fave songs: 'Big Hot Monday.'
"Such a great band. Pity we let them escape from Albany. We suck."-J. Eric Smith - The Albany Times Union
Discography
The Deli Of Life EP (Eschatone Records, May 2007) | added to rotation on more than 130 independent radio stations; featured the video single "You Are Boring The Shit Out Of Me" (10,000 views in its first month on YouTube)
the rebellion is here (Eschatone Records, July 2007); currently in rotation on 70+ independent radio stations throughout the United States
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
The Hanslick Rebellion is a ROCK GROUP like they don't make 'em any more. Formed in Albany, NY in 1995 by a couple of teenagerskeyboardist Jed Davis and bassist Mike Keaneythe band rocketed though an immensely successful two-year run in upstate New York, performing its singular brand of brash, honest, visceral-yet-thoughtful rock and roll in front of thousands in the region. They recorded one album, a scorching live tape called the rebellion is here. Then they did what teenage rockers do: flame out. The Rebellion ended in April of 1997 and its two founders didn't speak for the better part of a decade.
But ten years later, the four members of The Hanslick Rebellion found themselves face-to-face once again, instruments in hand, 200 miles south of the band's birthplaceat a rehearsal studio in New York City. There had been other bands for the H-Rebels since 1997: Collider, Provan, Citizen Fury, Rhythm Ritual. There had been session success: Jessica Simpson, The Deuce Project, Bandcamp. There had been songwriting credits: tunes recorded by Daniel Johnston, King Missile, the surviving Ramones. But neither Jed nor Mike, nor guitarist Alex Dubovoy and drummer Mike Kearns, felt like they had ever approached the power and passion they once generated together. After a series of chance meetings, they agreed to put all the old baggage aside and just jam. One time.
Once felt good enough to try twice. Twice became a weekly thing. Weekly sessions made the band tighter and hotter than ever before. And one showa packed and rabid house at CBGB on the 10th anniversary of the Rebellion's first gigwas enough to solidify the unit. The rock group that Metroland critic J. Eric Smith hailed as "possibly the finest band to ever call Albany home" has returned to finish some business.
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