We’ve conducted a company-wide poll (yes, all three bi-coastal, night-lit, wi-fi-capable, dumbwaiter-equipped offices) and concluded that Telefon Tel Aviv needs to release more records (a LOT more!) and tour more (a LOT more!), and almost everyone else needs shut it down completely, today, right now.
Joshua Eustis, the surviving half of the original TTA, was last spotted at Manhattan’s Mercury Lounge and is apparently still under contract with Berlin music label BPitch Control, which released the former duo’s last album, Immolate Yourself, which was, and remains, utterly fantastic. BPitch Control’s website lists only one upcoming show, and it’s at some dump called Berghain, which could only be somewhere in central Europe and, thus, nowhere near where it needs to be.
Josh, we need you to bring the road show back to your home country. You have fans here. You sold out the Merc Lounge — on a warm late summer Saturday night, mind you, when New Yorkers had about seven trillion other entertainment options made all the more attractive by the looming six-month deep-freeze — and you know you have loyal followings in other American locales.
We need you now more than ever. Yeah, there’s some okay music coming out here and there. But it’s a seller’s market if we’ve ever seen one: The radio waves have been hijacked by some R. Kelly/Weezy hybrid and a floozy who used lezploitation to get big when Jesus didn’t pan out. People in San Francisco are so desperate for a new jolt they’re paying scalpers $100 a pop to see Die Antwoord, those South African chavs behind the “I’m a Ninja” web video that made the rounds a couple years ago, while in New York, the same ‘zef’ (we looked it up, too) jokers were anointed the new Gogol Bordello after their Governor’s Island show yesterday. Officially. Michael Cera and Dash Snow Terry Richardson presided.
So come back, Telefon Tel Aviv, and play a 70-city U.S. tour and drop three albums before next spring. Our collective sanity depends on it.
