The Duke Spirit Tourzine

Update from Liela

"We are in a celebratory mood. Summer sun, My Sunken Treasure is released and The Guardian wrote one of the sauciest and bestest reviews about it we ever did see! Ha, it even alludes to inappropriate sexy stuff that I'm not allowed to put in this message...

So, let me tell you what we're up to instead -

On THURSDAY JUNE 19th I'm DJing at  My Ex-Boyfriend's Records night at The Old Blue Last, 39 Great Eastern St. Shoreditch, London, around 10.30pm. Its 5 QUID if you get yer tickets before the night xxx

The following Thursday, June 26th, we play a gig in an old cinema at the SEA-SIDE! Dan's home town of BRIDPORT, Dorset is home to THE ELECTRIC PALACE.

And then...it's Glastonbury. And remember, the high number of ladybirds in the fields this year means it WON'T RAIN...."

Love Liela x

Liela Interviews The Duke Spirit's #1 Fan

We have a supercool fan called Lisa who has been following some of our shows for the last year. She requested that we play "A Wild Hope," which we haven't done for about 5 months so, bloody hell, we had to REHEARSE it! Felt good to play it again, it gives me a real buzz that song, especially the end 'an invitation oooh ooh' bit.

I am really touched by how good it is to become friends with an avid fan, once you know they are not weird or stalker-like! She's 19, and reminds me of me when I was 19. Except, to be honest she is way cooler than I was. She has put herself in charge of creating our German Fanclub. Nice job. Anyway, we sat and had a beer yesterday, and having done a couple of interviews myself, I was getting a bit bored so asked if I could interview her, cos she's ace and I didn't want to talk about myself anymore (for friends reading this - yeh I know - unusual...).  --Leila

INTERVIEW WITH GERMAN LISA...

SO HEY PUNK, LET US INTO YOUR WORLD....LAST YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL IN GERMANY, EXAMS NEXT WEEK, AND YOU ARE TRAVELING AROUND TO SEE A ROCK AND ROLL BAND? CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE YOUR PRIORITIES EXACTLY IN ORDER!...

HOW COME YOU KNOW ABOUT OUR BAND? "I saw you as a support band in Cologne last year, I thought you were amazing straight away so the next day I bought the only copy of your first album from Musikladen in Frankfurt where I'm from.  You played your own show in Frankfurt a few days later so I came again. You all talked to me and let me have a beer in your tour coach, which was cool. I'd never really met a band before. You were friendly. In between the Koln show and Frankfurt, I'd looked you up on the internet and realised you had lots of singles out and had been on TV and stuff, so I felt really weird coming to say hi at the next show. It was like I knew more about you then and so I was more embarrassed".

WHAT DID YOU THINK WHEN YOU PLAYED THAT ALBUM [CUTS ACROSS THE LAND] AT HOME ON YOUR STEREO? "That you don't sound like anyone else at the moment, and I love the way you are unique."

WHAT IS IT LIKE LISTENING TO LYRICS THAT ARE IN A SECOND LANGUAGE? I MEAN, YOUR ENGLISH IS REALLY GOOD, BUT DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU FOLLOW THE WORDS? "For the first few times I don't listen to the songs trying to work out the meaning, I just listen. Then after about 3 times, I can understand most of it and just look inside the album sleeve for one or two words. Its not too difficult. But sometimes I hear something in my head and then I look it up and it is totally different, so I laugh"

YOU BROUGHT YOUR MUM TO THE PARIS SHOW. DID THAT FEEL A BIT WEIRD, HOW WAS IT?" It felt good - l love your music and I like it when other people get it too - to spread your sound. My mum and Dad are cool anyway so I like to play them stuff I love"

NAME 5 BANDS YOU ARE INTO? "Queens of The Stoneage, The Distillers, Bloc Party, Juliette and Licks (but only the first album), MIA  and a  Berlin band - The Beat Steaks, they are cool".

YOU TOLD ME YOU LOVED BRODY DALLE. I CAN PROBABLY PASS A MESSAGE ON TO HER. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY? "That the first time I saw her on TV I loved it, and I am a big fan. She is the reason I got my lip pierced. My mum went crazy. But my Dad didn't care...I wonder when she discovered she could sing like that? When did she first start making music? She is so cool..."

CAN YOU TELL ME ANY  GOOD SLANG IN GERMAN. NOT JUST OBVIOUS SWEARING, BUT PHRASES YOU SAY AT SCHOOL AND STUFF, THAT's JUST AMONGST YOUR MATES AND LOCAL PEOPLE. (There then ensues about ten minutes of them pissing themselves laughing, which makes me crease up too, but I don't know what they're on about)

"ich glaub es hackt = that's just lame"
"really cool = IN FRANKFURT SLANG*  des ja de burner"
"the frankfurt way of saying Knife = KNEIPSCHE !"
"Toby's BART rocked.  = Toby's beard rocks.."

The Duke Spirit in Brussels 

Liela's Tour Diary from Europe!

Try and contain your laughter as you peruse The Duke Spirit's latest antics on their European tour.  Liela talks the metric system, tour bus movies, and porn.  Ah, life on the road.

22nd - 29th MAY 2008

So now we are on tour in Europe, and it is a perfect season to be here. Balmy nights, strolling past Cathedrals, Cafes and car thieves. Magical evenings tip-toeing over ancient cobbled streets to make it to our shows. Cafe creme and French table wine, summer fruits and times are fine...

Writing diaries online is still weird for us I think. Where is the mystery? Is it evaporating...

Anyway. We switch to Kilometres. Always a bit difficult for us British people who live in an imperial measure. Silly. So, München is 300K but I have no sense of distance or time. It doesn't really matter. We'll just sit here and watch the Bavarian countryside fly past, wild imaginings of dwelling in the castles in the distance.

I notice there is a lot of Porn in the service station, more than I've noticed for a while. But then, some of those trucker stops on the highways of the states last month were pure filth! So, I suppose it's the same the world over.

Today in the van, we watched 'Me You and Everyone We Know' by Miranda July. Although the digital dirty talk is hilarious, it was Christine's flashes of obsessive-compulsive delight that I loved the most, that and the insecure, self-conscious me & you 'shoe-flirting' that she films wearing the ballet pumps in her apartment. A little sparkle of magic in that scene. 

This tour began in Scotland, with that boiling hot mash-up at Cabaret Voltaire in Edinburgh. Curious amount of day-glo jewelry I noticed, but it was a very good thing.

Paris, Point Ephemere. Irresistible. Beside the canal, wine flowing, intense light show and a great bit of luck with the sound guy there called Manu, meant we had a solid gold evening. Emily and Aurelie, our Duke Spirit Embassadors in Paris, you could say, sold T'shirts for us like nobody's business. Thank you ladies.

Rotterdam, Rotown. I have 2 favourite moments, although one of them is not one I would like to encourage. The first was singing the OOOOooohs to Dog Roses as the tram sped by in the windows in front of me, the sides of peoples faces, strobing along in time to the music as I looked out across the room, creating an interactive intensity that only lasted 20 seconds...but was weird enough to etch itself into my memories. The other was a drunk old man on stage, whose crude intentions were scuppered hilariously by a hefty shove off the side, by Tobe and a nice little put-down over the mic. Heh heh. Bet he feels like a right twat now.

Haarlem, Nederlands on a sunday night. A little strange but friendly, as gigs go. The venue is ultra-modern: you drive in put your stuff in the lift which goes down to the side of the stage. It was like playing a minimalist department store. Which I mean as a compliment - who does'nt like to get out of a lift and step straight onto a stage? We met some nice people afterwards, but forgot to take your names and stuff - so I wonder if we'll ever meet again? Touring is like that. Either you never meet people again, or you end up saying hi to someone several times a year in different places around the world, and realise you are seeing them more often than your closest family. Which can sometimes induce mild panic, and other times, a kind of relief, lets face it!

Köln - Gebaude 9. This was a great show for many reasons. Lots of people came and they were good enough to lose their inhibitions, dance around and stand really close up to the stage and not feel weird about it. Bravo. Also, the glitterball sparked on precisely the right beat of Sovereign's chorus.

8 Songs from Mr. Dan Higgins

Multi-instrumentalist Dan Higgins puts in his two cents of songs he loves to listen to while on the road.  Check 'em out:

1. GOODNIGHT GEORGIE / CLINIC -
A slightly downbeat start to this playlist but it'll get going in a bit, ok. I'm thinking of a playlist that spans a lot of my previous experiences, so: This track reminds me of being at art school a few years ago, listening to this when most people had gone home and working away in the studios, occasionally trying to get my now-wife to come and have a cuppa with me instead of being studious. Reminds me of english autumn.

2. WHO DO YOU LOVE / BO DIDDLEY -
Still a pure statement of rock and roll intention. Gunslingin' bo marshalling an awesome collection of imagery into his persona, a rattlesnake-hide house with a skull chimney. A black ex-boxer, hard as nails, female guitarist, stand up drums, all in the late 50's, proper rock n' roll pissing upon Elvis, Buddy Holly and the rest.

3. GROWIN' UP / BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN -
This is from the first Springsteen album, which I bought once on a whim but now I often play, a good record. He looked damn good, too, around the time of "darkness on the edge of town", new jersey rocker. I'm sure i've tried to nick that look since!

4. HOW TO PLAY YOUR INTERNAL ORGANS OVERNIGHT / STEREOLAB -
This is just a really sweet instrumental stereolab song, incorporating great strings, I love the way they switch the part in the reprise so it plays backwards, and this record sounds really organic too. I love their album titles: "Cobra phases group play voltage in the milky night" for example......

5. LONG BLACK VEIL / NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS -
An old murder ballad, (or execution ballad in this case?) about a man who takes the rap for a murder because he is in the arms of his best friend's wife and can't expose her as his alibi. Its a great version here, mr. cave turns on the otherworldly,out of tune sleaze voice here to good effect. You can almost hear the hero going to the gallows and feel the cold wind blow.

6. IS THAT ALL THERE IS? / CRISTINA -
I don't know much about this song, other than I like it, to be honest. I don't think music always needs a meaning, and there are are lots of middle-aged music journos who want to shoehorn it onto pop music.
Leave it alone, please.

7. TODAY IS THE DAY / YO LA TENGO -
has one of those riffs that is so simple but its instantly in your head. Its like "I wanna be your dog" by the stooges, so darn simple.

8. WE LOVE YOU /THE ROLLING STONES -
The stones in the eye of the storm, court cases and jail waiting in the wings, churning out this throbbing great black acid drone. The rolling stones best psych-rock moment. I like the video they made for this too, mick jagger and marianne faithful as oscar wilde and bosie.....

The Duke Spirit Added to NEW Festival Lineup!

Looks like The Duke Spirit will be back on American soil sooner than expected.  Leila and the boys have just been added to a stellar roster of artists for the inaugural New American Music Festival kicking off August 8-9 at Southside Works in Pittsburgh. The Duke Spirit will be in plenty good company with Bob Dylan, The Raconteurs, Gnarls Barkley, The Roots, Spoon, The Black Keys, and Black Mountain rounding out the lineup.  Tickets are only $25 and you can send thank-you cards to Anthony Kiedis, the curator of the fest. 

In the meantime, here's a couple more pics of their Troubadour show courtesy of IndieRockReviews.

All photos by Travis Sudweeks

The Duke Spirit Bid Adieu to the States

On the last leg of their U.S. tour, The Duke Spirit played to a jam-packed crowd (which included Morrissey) at LA concert hotspot The Troubadour.  While American fans will surely get another taste of Leila and the boys, European fans will still have the pleasure of witnessing the live show as their tour continues 'til August 22nd over the pond.  Check out these awesome pics from the show courtesy of LA Weekly.

Photos by Timothy Norris 

 

7 Songs From Liela

Liela was asked to pick the 7 songs that she's been listening to the most while on tour, and here's what she came up with:

1. Lokonon Andre & Les Volcans = Mi Kple Dogbekpo
Right, this sounds like a bit of a mouthful, and it is because it is in an African dialect I am not familiar with. This is the lead track from a comp called 'African Scream Contest' which I just acquired from SoulJazz records before I left on tour. I always trust their compilations, and the front cover was fabulous too. I am fairly ignorant about 'World Music' but I am getting more and more turned on by cranky mid-sixties recordings of African - mainly Ethiopian and Nigerian - RnB songs. I particularly enjoy singing along to words I dont understand, but experiencing them in an abstract, rhythmical sense.

2. Royal Trux = I'm Ready
I've been digging this album, Accelerator for years, and turn to it particularly on tour when I feel ragged but want to keep up morale. I think it sounds like I feel on tour. Worn out, knocked about a bit but still finding life amusing.

3. Townes Van Zandt = Be Here To Love Me
Gorgeous melody and fantastic lyrics, I got hooked on this song the first time I heard it. I made a point of listening to it over and over on our recent drive through the Smoky Mountains. Very fitting.

4. Jimi Hendrix - Wait Until Tomorrow
Come on, this is so laid back and groovesome, you have to listen to this regularly. Remind yourself to calm the fuck down and enjoy yourself.

5. Roxy Music - All I Want Is You
I've been listen to Roxy Music a lot on these long drives in America. I'm always glad to hear Bryan Ferry's clear crisp English accent when I'm away from home. As the highway road markings flash by out the window, this song has the tempo to push you onward, through the boredom and onto the next town.

6. Thelonius Monk - Abide With Me
The opening track on 'Monk's Music', the only album of his that I know well. I adore the feel of the playing on this track. It is an antidote and a confrot to my ears, and then swiftly kicks into 'Well You Needn't', which is SWINGIN' and I love it. I have strong anti-guitar moments and this is the stuff to help me when I need jazz.

7. Shocking Pinks - How AM I not Myself?
I dont know anything about this group - my Aussi friend Johnny put it on a compilation for me and I love it. I guess the are Aussie cult classics. Maybe. It's a bit Radiohead-y and yet so lo-fi it sounds like all the instruments are about to break or snuff out. I'm into this when Im tired. And its short, so I usually play it twice over.

The Duke Spirit @ The Canopy Club - Urbana, IL

Slowly closing out the leg of their U.S. tour and rocking every city in their path, The Duke Spirit take no prisoners, and Urbana IL is no exception.  Check out this awesome review/pics courtesy of www.lintcoat.com.

   

I have so many good things to say I could prattle on for a novella. For starters I have not seen a band work together with such a high level of cohesion.  Liela Moss commands your attention, yet does not overpower or compromise the rest of the band for her singing.  The lyrics are heartfelt, and everyone works to cook everything together, voice, drums, bass and guitars, just so deliciously.  They play it like they mean it.

Showing such excellent stage presence, Liela's dancing and movement is far from the usual nightclub show raunch, more of a meditation and forward moving direction. The kind of woman a woman wants to be and hopes her daughter will grow up to be.  Everyone on stage is onboard. For the love of awesome, she plays the harmonica and shakes a mean tambourine to boot.

I am anticipating The Duke Spirit having several albums recorded, so the show will go on for quite a time.  There is a level of conceptualization given to the album, it really keeps interest, and knowing a little of the background and birth of the lyrics and ideas for the record, makes for a show that allows for no beer or bathroom breaks out of respect for what's going on.  A potential rock opera, with no need for elaborate set decoration or ego wanking.  Just the band.  Genuine and endearing, and refreshing in the sense it goes beyond beer swilling music and into a true time out from everything, focusing on taking it all in.

Photos by Derrick Stembridge

Liela Moss In The NY Post

Liela took some time to talk to the New York Post to talk about her personal style:

(click on the image to see it full size)

The Duke Spirit On Conan O'Brien

Put on a pot of coffee and get ready to stay up late on May 7th, as The Duke Spirit are due to appear on Late Night With Conan O'Brien.