Chromeo Plot Last Hurrah for 'Business Casual,' Dub Sexism Claims 'Ridiculous'
- Posted on Jul 15th 2011 5:00PM by Kia Makarechi
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Chelsea Lauren, Getty Images
With a summer of appearances on stages across Europe running into a fall tour that spans most of the United States, the electric-dance-pop duo of Dave Macklovitch (Dave 1) and Patrick Gemayel (P-Thugg) is certainly putting their weight behind their latest album, 'Business Casual.'
"This tour is going to be crazy," Macklovitch tells about the nationwide lineup. "We have this kid Mayer Hawthorne opening for us. He did a cover of 'Don't Turn the Lights On' that really caught on the interwebs so maybe we'll try to that live with him. We'll have the Chromettes with us on more dates, we're beefing up production and we're hitting up markets we've never had the chance to go to."
When asked which cities would be added to the list, Macklovitch demurs, saying only that there are "some obvious cities that are missing that won't be missing from the final list." One of the obvious and unlisted appearances will be at the Electric Zoo Festival on New York's Randall Island on Labor Day weekend.
The band is currently not recording new material on account of Macklovitch's teaching load (he teaches French at Barnard and is finishing his PhD in French literature at Columbia) and the fact that they've been touring almost full-time since September of 2010. "We see this as the last hurrah for the 'Business Casual' album, we have four amazing new remixes and we're releasing a video for 'When the Night Falls,' and Solange Knowles will be in the video."
Chromeo are known for live shows that are equal parts frenetic dance party and feel-good sing-alongs. Macklovitch attributes the popularity of their shows to the outlook they bring to performance: "It's a constant challenge, the live show. We try to be as generous as possible at ours. We used to do a lot of banter between songs but we cut it down so that now it's very sincere and in the moment."
In a demo where most fans and artists try to inject humor and irony into everything they do, Macklovitch says the crowd is often surprised by the real glee he and Gemayel give off live: "It's easy to listen to us on the album and dismiss it as trivial or fun, but the literal earnestness comes out in the show. We genuinely like this jheri curl music."
To Macklovitch, Chromeo are about finding that happy middle. "On the one hand, you have these indie bands who are extremely self-aware," he says. "Take LCD Soundsystem for example. That final show at Madison Square Garden was one of the best concerts I've ever been to, but the banter between songs was so tongue-in-cheek and self-aware. We lose all of that. On the other side of us, you have electronic dance music with the heavy-hitting, fist-pumping. We found a middle ground between these two ethos."
"When I was growing up, I idolized '80s crooners," he adds. "The Huey Lewis, white-blazer type of guys. That's what I try to channel, but I do it in my more neurotic, Jewish, Larry David kind of way."
A consistent component of their act and image is the use of their keyboard stands -- two pairs of shapely female legs that were featured on the Fancy Footwork album cover. The legs were the idea of a Parisian design firm named Surface to Air. "I think they got the idea from ZZ Top video for us, which seemed like a cool interext for us," Macklovitch says. "Once we used it for the album art, everyone told us we had to take them on tour with us. To be honest, I'm sort of shocked no one had thought of it before, but we're happy we did and we've ran with it since."
The legs attracted some controversy, leading the band to be labeled as sexist, a charge that Macklovitch thinks is "ridiculous." "They said we were fragmenting the female body because we were sexist, but I don't see how anyone who appreciates the photography of Helmut Newton can not appreciate the legs as the same idea," he says. "People aestheticized female legs years ago. We're just putting a modern take on that."
They first encountered the talk box -- now an integral part of their music -- when they were teenagers. "We heard the Zapp and Roger song 'More Bounce to the Ounce,' and P came to practice the next day with this horrible-sounding, homemade talk box. I made fun of him for it, but when we started Chromeo, it suddenly seemed to work."
But Chromeo aren't all cerebral funk. They'll be sharing the main stage at Electric Zoo, New York City's biggest electro and dance festival, with the likes of Armin van Buuren and Afrojack. "We have our place there because I guess you can't fist-pump the entire day -- it may not be the best for your circulation. We're happy to help provide the sing-along intermission," Macklovitch says, quickly adding, "but be prepared to dance with us too."
- Filed under: Concerts and Tours, News, Exclusive, RPM
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