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Death from Above 1979

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Death from Above 1979 is a Toronto based Canadian indie rock duo. Members are Jesse F. Keeler on bass/synths and Sebastien Grainger on vocals/drums. Refusing to employ a lead guitarist, they play loud synth infused dance-noise on the drum and bass combination alone.

Death from Above 1979 is currently recording a new album, which it plans to release in three versions: the traditional bass/drums lineup, a full band lineup with musicians assembled by Grainger, and a remix album.

Although they reportedly met at a Sonic Youth concert, Keeler and Grainger sometimes jokingly claimed to have met in prison, on a pirate ship, or in a gay bar, leading some journalists and fans to believe these hoaxes. They also claimed to have lived in a funeral home at one time. In 2005, the video for "Romantic Rights" won a VideoFACT award at the MuchMusic Video Music Awards. They played "Romantic Rights" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, with Max Weinberg on drums for part of the performance.

Contents

Name Change Controversy

The band was originally named simply "Death From Above", a name which appears on their first released recording, Heads Up!. The duo changed their name after an unusually personal and acrimonious legal dispute with New York City dance music label Death From Above, with the members of DFA1979 denouncing Murphy in messages on their website. Death from Above had been a working name of LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The reason for the seemingly arbitrary date of 1979 comes from Sebastien Grainger's birth date. From Sebastien's prospective, this is what it stood for: "1979 is the year of my birth, 1979 is the year of off the wall, 1979 is the year of pleasure principle, 1979 is the last year of the last cool decade, 1979 is scratched into my arm, 1979 is scratched into my arm, 1979 is scratched into my f**king arm." He also stated in an interview given to MTV: "I was born that year, and it's never going to be wrong." (source: "http://www.mtv.com/news/yhif/death_from_above_1979/")

Other Bands/Projects

MSTRKRFT

MSTRKRFT, a net-hack pseudonym of derivative MasterKraft, is Jesse F. Keeler's electronic band along with producer Al-P. MSTRKRFT is currently signed to Last Gang records, and works out of Toronto. Their debut album is set to be released on July 18, 2006, and they have released their first single, "Easy Love". Two of their remixes can be found on Death From Above's 2005 release Romance Bloody Romance.

Femme Fatale

Femme Fatale was a band that featured Jesse F. Keeler before Death From Above 1979. The name comes from a song by the band The Velvet Underground. An EP, titled "From the Abundance of the Heart, The Mouth Speaks", is available off the DFA1979 merchandise website. It's considered a more hardcore sounding version of Death From Above, and also notes Sebastien playing drums on an early release titled 'Fire Baptism'. Sebastien Grainger played drums for Femme Fatale in live shows, as well.

Black Cat #13

Black Cat #13 was a band that also featured Jesse F. Keeler, and was started in 1998, lasting untill 2000, when the band split due to musical differences. The band released all vinyl releases, and are very hard to find, aswell as considered collector's items by DFA1979. Unlike Femme Fatale, Sebastien had no role in Black Cat #13, though Al-P produced many of their releases.

Current Status

The band currently seems to be on something of a hiatus. The "memo" part of the website hasn't been updated in over a year, and Jesse is primarily active with MSTRKRFT. In the "Eye Weekly" of the 25th of May 2006, Jesse insists, however, that the band has not split: "Sebastien is in Poland right now, so I haven't talked to him about new music lately, no. But we worked really hard touring and we didn't want to make a record about being on the road. We want any new music to be more fluid."

Jesse Keeler is currently working with Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, contributing bass to the new album.

Discography

Albums

EPs

Singles


External links

 

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