"YOUNG, GIFTED AND NOIR"
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Website: http://popnoir.org/
Bio: Shimmering streams of chiming guitar cascade over deep, dark undercurrents of bass and drums ... it's a unique sound born in the drizzle of Manchester, ... (more)
England, and seasoned in the sunshine of Southern California, as were Joe and Luke McGarry, the 20-year-old British twins who head up Los Angeles indie dancerock trio Pop Noir.
Sons of an award-winning artist who designed record sleeves for such luminaries as Joy Division, Slaughter & The Dogs and Jilted John, the McGarry brothers made their debut at a concert in an abandoned indoor skatepark in Costa Mesa, California, in 2004. Since then, they have played more than 170 shows, headlined L.A. landmarks The Viper Room, The Knitting Factory, The Key Club, The Echo and Club NME at Spaceland, supported the likes of The Wombats and The Pinkertones, and played as far afield as London, Manchester and Paris. Along the way, they have acquired a loyal and rapidly expanding fanbase that has pushed myspace plays past the quarter-million benchmark.
Luke, the younger by 45 minutes, plays bass and keyboards and takes main vocal duties, while guitarist Joe handles backing vocals and all the programming and production. Onstage, with an array of loop pedals and sequencers, anchored by the thundering drums of Chilean Nico Saavedra, Pop Noir delivers a stunning live performance that crackles with raw energy and pure electricity.
Currently receiving radio support in Los Angeles from tastemakers KROQ and Indie 103.1, Pop Noir is lining up European dates for later this year.
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This past week has been excellent... Our show last Saturday with Adult. went really well (sold out, rumour has it) and the following night, Factory Records legends, A Certain Ratio, were in town to headline the Part Time Punks festival at The Echoplex. Because we're so brilliant (haha), Ratio's drummer, Donald Johnson, stayed at our house for a week...
Now, we wouldn't let a fabulous opportunity like this go to waste, so Donald, who's also worked with the likes of Bryan Ferry and Electronic, can add Pop Noir to his illustrious list of collaborators!
Here's some videos for you.. First one is of us covering ACR's classic track "Do the Du" in the garage for a laugh, and the second is our song "DIY" and a cover of "Paint it Black" from a show we played with Donald while he was here...
Pop Noir + Donald Johnson / Do the Du from Pop Noir on Vimeo
Pop Noir + Donald Johnson / DIY + Paint it Black from Pop Noir on Vimeo.
This is going to be an amazing weekend / week coming up...
Tomorrow (Saturday) we'll be playing The Echo with everyone's favourite spooky electro duo, Adult.,and then on Thursday we'll be playing in Fullerton, with our special guest Donald Johnson from A Certain Ratio.
Ratio are in town to play the Part Time Punks festival on Sunday (their first appearance in the U.S. in what, 20, 25 years?) and Donald will be joining us onstage to play drums for a few numbers (special surprises included).
Last time he was out here, he played two sold out shows at Dodger Stadium with Electronic (Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr)... Obviously this is a step up!
We finished / uploaded our music video for "Go Ghost" today...
Just a bit of fun for Halloween.
We've just confirmed that we'll be opening for Robyn tonight (Wednesday, October 22) at Spaceland.
It's a bit short notice, but presale tickets are already sold out, so who cares? Haha.
If you want to come, make sure you get there early, so you stand a chance of getting in.
And remember, if you want to get there really early, the first 10 people with the password BRIXTON get in free.
It should be a good one. We'll both be doing special acoustic sets!
In other news, Red Bull shipped us a load of product yesterday. Here's a picture:
7 cases! 24 cans in each case! That's a lot of energy drink.
So yeah, this week's turning out all right.
Love,
Joe
As you may know, Pop Noir has friends in the cartooning industry, and this sometimes leads to interesting adventures.
Yesterday, for example, we played at a party in Malibu, celebrating our pal Mike Ramirez's second Pulitzer Prize. Wild!
It was a good chance to meet some cool people. We hung out with Jaime Murray (from our favourite show Dexter) for a bit,
and bumped into Fred Willard (A Mighty Wind, etc).. Unfortunately he left before we had the chance to get a picture with him, but the encounter looked a little something like this:
It was actually very reminiscent of the time we met Tim Armstrong at a party in North Hollywood:
Anyway, our set was good fun.. we only did about 4 songs, but as it was a backyard party and we set up teetering on the edge of a pool, I think it was probably wise to quit before one of us fell in.
We're doing our best now to keep this blog updated, and we'll have some really cool stuff to announce soon, so check back often!
Love,
Joe
Pop Noir turn 21, party at The Echo, Los Angeles.
Here's the full video of our live performance / interview from a month or so ago at The Roxy in Hollywood. I believe we're posted the teaser vid elsewhere, but this is the real deal!
So I hope you've got 15 minutes to spare...
We played a sold-out show with Sebastien Tellier over the weekend.
Here's some photos of us backstage, all looking suitably sweaty and dishevelled!
A fun night was had by all...
See you at the next sold-out shows!
Just found this video of Joe Pop Noir behind the scenes of The Fall/Holiday 2008 Hause of Howe photoshoot...
There's some good hair-flipping and motorcycle posing in there!
July 26. The coolest show of the summer. This can not be missed.
I mean, we’d be going to this show if we weren’t playing it. Sebastien Tellier is a genius!
And it’s a Saturday night! Who could possibly ask for more?
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