TOSCS wrote:Who is this Gogol Bordello?
This review was in one of the weekend papers:
Gogol Bordello are surely several years Pussycat Dolls' senior but, since the New York gypsy punks don't perform in sequinned thongs, you can't really hold it against them. Not that you would necessarily put it past them. Lavishly-moustachioed leader Eugene Hutz is already wearing a pair of bejewelled velvet knickerbockers beneath a lurid wife-beater vest.
If sartorial elegance and choreography aren't GB's forte, it barely matters. Slowly but surely, the overwhelming joie-de-vivre of their live performance has been inspiring crazy devotion, and "Start Wearing Purple", from last year's Underdog World Strike album, has become something of a word-of-mouth anthem.
Should the phrase "gypsy punk" have you murmuring "bloody Levellers" with the next breath, fear not. Gogol Bordello's sound - a heady blend of folk musics from Nazareth to Nashville - can more accurately be compared to Les Negresses Vertes, Joe Strummer's Mescaleros, Szeki Curva and Mano Negra.
The oppositional lyrics are Route One: the refrain "Well, fuck 'em, we don't give a fuck" seems to crop up in three or four songs. But the way this audience (comprised mainly of schoolies waiting for the Strokes in the afternoon sun) respond to their accordion ska rhythms and hi-speed barn dance hoedowns, it's easy to envisage Gogol Bordello becoming the surprise hit of the 2006 festival season.
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/musi ... 096311.ece