On April 17 at 7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET, Yahoo Live will live stream RX Bandits' concert from the Trocadero Theatre in Philadephia. Tune in HERE to watch!Sometimes touring can be a drag for a mid-level rock band, driving from city to city on an seemingly endless road to nowhere. But earlier this week, RX Bandits singer/guitarist Matt Embree is thrilled to be on the road between East Coast dates. "We're going on a tour of places that were in The Wire, all the cool places where they shot that show," he says, as the band heads toward the Baltimore area. "It's my all-time favorite television show." When we inform him that's one series we hadn't had the chance to catch up on, he recommends binge-watching. "Well, you're stoked, because you can watch literally every episode in a row," he says.We try to delve a little into the band's current tour, but Embree isn't finished talking about HBO crime drama, which originally aired for five seasons from 2002 through 2008. "If you're not into the kind of show that's really slow-going and takes its time to build characters, you won't like The Wire, but I implore you to give it a shot.
It's like watching a book. There's a ton of dialog and every character is really developed, way more than the average TV drama... Even people you'd consider the bad guy are humanized to the point where you're not really rooting for one person over the other."You could say that RX Bandits' music has evolved into sort of the audio equivalent of The Wire — if you were watching in on hallucinogens. Not that it has anything to do with crime, but it too is dense and not immediately easily accessible, but if you take your time to get into it, you'll find your just rewards. Over the years, RX Bandits — which also includes guitarist/keyboardist Steve Choi, bassist Joseph Troy, and drummer Chris Tsagakis — have evolved dramatically from their early days as a ska-punk band to their current incarnation of a modern prog-rock outfit. The transition was so dramatic that Adam Lovinus of the O.C. Weekly once wrote it sounded "as though the band spent a year studying the vintage East Coast punk stylings of Television."
We ask Embree about that comparison and joke maybe the writer was thinking of Embree's obsession with The Wire on television, which he can appreciate, but he feels no kinship with Tom Verlaine and company. "It's not that I don't respect Television, but I'm not really a fan of the music they created, so I don't know where that comes from at all," he says.While Embree may not be tripping on Marquee Moon, he's OK with the prog-rock connection. "That's a good description as far as music monikers go," he says. "Music monikers are usually totally annoying, but as far as what that means, which I'm assuming for most people it just means music that has a lot of parts and changes that is also rock 'n' roll. We do have a lot of changes and a lot of different parts in our songs, so I'm alright with that."Released last year, Gemini, Her Majesty, the band's seventh album, undoubtedly has the most musical changes of RX Bandits' career. The band went into the sessions for the album with the thought of making a pure studio creation and would deal with figuring out how to perform the songs live later, which ended up posing a challenge.
"There are a few songs that are really hard to pull off live, mainly because of the tons of layers of harmonies," Embree says. "The other guys are also playing intricate parts, so it's hard to be able to pull off those harmonies. We haven't been able to do two or three songs live, but we're getting there." With the use of additional technology, though, the band has been able to tackle some of its more adventurous musical creations. "Tsagakis has like a sample pad, where you can load different samples on it, but we're not like playing along with tracks. We'd never do that, but he's triggering different sounds that are on the album while he's playing drums, so it adds a whole new element to the live thing."While RX Bandits may be pushing toward the future in their latest recordings and live performances, Embree admits his latest musical inspiration comes from the past and is probably not who you'd think. "The last person I ever studied on guitar — and this is going to sound pretty silly — is Slash," he says with a laugh.
"About a year ago I started going on YouTube and watching Slash solo sets over the years and then I started watching Guns N' Roses over the years and learning all the solos."This discussion gets Embree riding a wave of nostalgia. "The first music I ever got into big time was metal," he says. "Then I got into the harder alternative stuff like Faith No More's The Real Thing. I was like 10. I was super pumped on that. Pearl Jam Ten, Metallica The Black Album, and then I went back and bought To Kill 'Em All and everything before the Black Album and Guns N' Roses, especially since I loved Terminator 2."Embree goes on to enthuse about the "You Could Be Mine" video, which pits Arnold Schwarzenegger's terminator against Axl Rose. "I was like, yeah, Axl, chills with the terminator, dude," he says.The wave of nostalgia continues as Embree recounts how his parents bought him a Fisher Price record player when he was about 4 years old. It only played 45s, so at that time, he was grooving to singles like Stacey Q's "Two of Hearts," The Fixx's "One Thing Leads to Another," Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer," and the Romantics' "Talking in Your Sleep."
"I still love all those songs," he admits.At this point, 20 years after the band first emerged as the Pharmaceutical Bandits, and nearly 15 years after the band's current lineup first came together, Embree has no illusions that RX Bandits will ever have a hit single like the ones he grew up with, but he's OK with that. "I don't think we're a radio-friendly act," he says. "But, if for some reason, a lot of new people enjoy our music, that would be great. I'd love to have the type of fanbase we have in America — which I find humbling and empowering — in other countries. That would be a dream come true."Follow Craig Rosen on Twitter. The Lego Man: what is his purpose, his name, and how has his life has made an impact? The Giant Lego Man Had a PurposeOn the morning of October 25, 2011 in Siesta Key Beach, Florida Jeff Hindman was out walking when he found an 8 foot tall, 100lb fiberglass Lego man that had apparently washed up on the beach. On it's shirt were the words NO REAL THAN YOU ARE.
On his back was the number 8 and the name Ego Leonard. LEGOLAND in Florida and the LEGO Group were contacted and denied any ownership of the figure. As the story got out details began to emerge. It turns out that this wasn't the first sighting of the Lego man, he has appeared in a similar fashion in the Netherlands and England in 2007 and 2008, respectively, and is the work of a Dutch artist named, you guessed it, Ego Leonard, who assumed the identity of the Lego man when he was contacted about the indecent. Since the discovery, millions of people have read about the Lego Man and seen his picture, as the story quickly went viral and was prominently featured on Google, Yahoo, and YouTube.The figure was clearly made to draw publicity, but the question was why? What was the artist's message? Or did he just put the figurine out there to make money? He came bearing a messageOn the artist's webpage is this message to explain the Lego man's voyage, translated:"My name is Ego Leonard and according to you I come from the virtual world.
A world that for me represents happiness, solidarity, all green and blossoming, with no rules or limitations.Lately however, my world has been flooded with fortune-hunters and people drunk with power. And many new encounters in the virtual world have triggered my curiosity about your way of life."- Ego LeonardIn this we find clues, but no answers. The Lego man's shirt read NO REAL THAN YOU ARE. This is clearly what the artist wanted to say, and when you read it it seems to be missing a word between NO and REAL...and the most likely words are more and less. No more real than you are...of course not, he's plastic, though more can be read into that. No less real than you are.. assuming that YOU is referring to the general public, with this phrase one might think that the artist is calling the public plastic, or fake. Saying that the people of the modern world are no better than a bunch or Legos. Or maybe the artist has trouble with English. All we know is that he went through significant trouble to put the figurine there, and therefore he wants the message to be contemplated, if not just to make people think.