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Pigeon Comeback?
Today is Tuesday and Pop-Cultured has a little gemstone of gossip. So we received a Google Alert about one of our favorite girls, Heather Chase. Girl’s been down to biz-ness, seriously.
Not only has her band been rocking around town lately, Pigeon sobered-up and went Ivy League slumming last Tuesday! Pige rocked it and debuted a new original song off their sayin’ is a 2011 album. I know, right? Pige’s got new stuff. When did they get back together again and someone please tell me when Heather became college-guy type?
The song’s called Untitled 1. and is apparently an indie-rock number about the perils of 20-something love. The opening lyrics talk about being tongue-tied and the verses seem to hint at a shy girl who can’t bring herself to tell that one guy how much she actually likes him. Aww. Sounds like something Justin Bieber would write.
The official lyrics aren’t online yet and other than a student reporter piece from The Harvard Crimson (pretty legit*) no talk of Pigeon’s 2011 album has reached our ears here at Pop-Cultured yet. But that doesn’t mean it won’t! Keep ya’ll updated.
* Though this might just be an elaborate pop-culture joke by the notorious satirically ironic comedians, The Harvard Lampoon.
This has been Pop-Cultured.
Music for Academics
ARTS
Music for Academics
Pigeon writes like Harvard; jams like Berklee.
CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Thursday, April 1, 2010
“Call the doctor/ Call the philosopher/ Tongue-tied but/ It slips.” Lead singer, Heather Grey Chase’s, slightly out-of-key, gritty vocals belt out lyrics to Pigeon’s newest original song, Untitled 1.; off an in-progress hypothetical 2011 album. Thus affirming vocals are not their forte. However, it wasn’t vocal gymnastics that lured Cambridge’s bookish Ivy Leaguers, and our enharmonic-counterpart souls, to Boston last night.
COURTESY PIGEON
It was more to debunk the college-student-urban-legend of Pigeon; a Brooklyn avant-garde band which frequents underground clubs, low-key bars, and indie gatherings on the northeastern coast, and who cater to places crawling with young scholars looking for a break from studying or refuge from their tangled love lives. Pigeon embodies 20-something angst in both human form and noise. Mayhap gig-goers found the verse mind-boggling (“Lies drip like honey/ Fashion pop-culchur/ Darling, I talk circular.”), but catchy no doubt.
Originally from Philadelphia, and now New York, Pigeon is best known for not being known – at all! They’re considered reclusive, even for an underground band. Maybe that was the inspiration for their lyrics “Marco Polo to/ Our secret reality/ Darling, virtuality.” Quite frankly it’s easier to find local bands in Paris then finding where Pigeon has landed. Then again, that’s fun in itself! Besides, if you can catch them performing (a lot easier than it seems), your musical palate is in for a treat. Pigeon is avant-garde music at its finest.
Pigeon is not for the club audience or the pop-crowd. It’s rebellion against mindless dance synth is academic. It’s pure poetry put to avant-garde sound. Each song (written by Chase) is a poem in verses, artfully divided between back-up singer Monk and Chase.
A majority of Pigeon’s act is covers. Between Chase and Monk, Pigeon uses mainstream songs and renders them in sections, then further splits them into vocal parts for each of the sextet; complimented by violin and classical guitar picking on every rendition – even pop songs. The result is something akin to satire.
How Pigeon has found a fan-following in their odd, pushing even the strangest idea of experimental style, is impressive. Their songs tend to be convoluted; but deciphering their allusion is part of Pigeon’s schtick. These self-coined fashion-rockers (all Pigeon’s members are high fashion models), have unusual takes on music, spanning the genres of pop, rock, folk, experimental, alternative, ambient, punk, and classical. Pigeon’s hodge-podge music styling is typically defined as indie-rock, Vampire Weekend-ish, utilizing keyboards and a synclavier (programmed by pianist Chloé Saurian). They bring to mind artists like Imogen Heap and MGMT. Trademarks are their employ of violinist Erik Monk, who mimics pioneer experimental performance artist Laurie Anderson, and classical guitar fingering by Heather Grey Chase, even on their covers. Besides Chase, Monk, and Saurian, Pigeon includes bassist Dune Ralston, guitarist Feist Ralston, and drummer Libby Fink.
Last night found Pigeon in a loud, dingy, college bar bursting at the seams. Perhaps it was the lead singer’s filmy tulle dress and neon green stilettos that brought the man-crowd. Or the slinky dance moves between band members. Or even the promise of Pigeon playing their irresistible genre-traversing satirical covers of overplayed, well-known artists.
More likely it was the universal, and lovelorn, lyrics to their original pieces like Untitled 1.’s “Reckless words/ Slipped ihaveacrushonyou./ Your sparkle allure./ Media connect…/ I know you can feel it too –/ Just can’t admit it, can you?” paired with singularly catchy electronica that begs to be danced to.
“Del dicho al hecho/ Hay mucho trecho./ Your move.”
Unsound: Electric Souls Abound
Unsound Festival New York: February 4-14th, 2010 marks the Polish music festival’s first venture into North America. Here electric souls will find all categories of music defying our barbaric alternative music-style misnomer; “indie.”
The audacious Kraków-born festival gives us, North Americans, a tasting of Eastern Europe’s broad spectrum experimental music scene and culture through gigs, workshops, and panel discussions. Seems “indie” is more than looking like a hipster, listening to underground bands, liking techno, writing poetry, blogging, and reading intellectual works of literature – it’s a philosophy with history and formulated approach.
Palate expansion is required. Performers include influential artists and producers like Lillevan, Pole, Non Standard Institute [nsi], and 2562. They will have your head spinning with hypnotic noise, but don’t forget to drop by a workshop or two the following afternoon. From workshops nurturing children’s electric souls [Kids’ Electronic Music Workshop], critiquing music journalism, and delving into the history of synthesized music to discussing the future music culture with veterans of the art; Unsound has it all.
As The New Yorker pop-critic, Sasha Frere-Jones put in his February 7th review [“Unsound Opinion”], “a well-curated music festival can bring out those artists… some rarely seen…” Spotted in attendance were Brooklyn underground favorites, Pigeon, who despite a public-image phobia, bend out of the normal song-crafting realm putting straight poetry to synthesized beats; perfect accidental avant-garde sound.
But fleeting glimpses of “indie”-bands aside, you just might find yourself rubbing elbows with a few other low-lying high-profiled electric souls of Poland, Germany, and New York’s as the festival phases out this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Blurb from EXTRA (2/2/10)
Heather Chase is indeed back in the US after months abroad in Hamburg and later some on the road with Tokio Hotel. Currently back in New York City, she and music partner, Erik Monk, are rumored to be reviving their former underground band, PIGEON. Chase is also working on fashion projects on the side.
Heather Grey Chase and her twin brother, James, are expected to be at the Philly Loves Haiti radio-thon in their native Philadelphia this Saturday – February 6, 2010.
- Blurb from EXTRA (2/2/10)
Blogmistress Note: Normally I post misc. tidbits on The File’s twitter (@thefiles); Are you a follower yet?
Snap, Snapped: Heather Grey Chase
Today is Tuesday and Pop-Cultured’s all over the Chase. Have you seen IT yet?! You’ve got to see IT! Waking up this morning and checking our inbox was better than a Christmas morning. IT is probably worth a million dollars and we’re kicking our asses for not snap-snapping IT.
What is IT? – The first known pap shot of model (aka Bill Kaulitz’s [better known as GOD] humanoid bitch), Heather Grey Chase, surfaced on the viral feeds this morning. That’s right; a real candid of Miss Chase arriving in her car (which is apparently extremely old school cool??)
Photo Credit: MyNY. Heather Grey Chase snapped by the paparazzi.
We’re hyperventilating! – This is the first photo that hasn’t been hoarded away by Tokio Hotel’s management, or her people. And Heather (OMG) totally looks like what Bill said his type is. You bet we’re insanely jealous; the glam feathers, pale vampiric skin, green eyes, full lips, perfect teeth, and Lady Gaga hair. Ok, maybe not quite so Lady Gaga, but you have to admit the blond streak is pretty cute.
Speaking of Gaga and the paparazzi… “Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga. Yes, that was totally relevant and necessary. Did you know Gaga was called a sexed-up version of a Pigeon (meaning Heather) by a New York beat reporter earlier this year?
This has been Pop-Cultured.
Those Green Gentlemen Post Sad News on Monday
As if Mondays weren’t bad enough – Indie-rockers, Panic At The Disco, posted a seemingly “Nine in the Afternoon”-esque announcement on their official webpage. Prompting a “Northern Downpour” of tears as Ryan Ross, songwriter/guitarist, and Jon Walker, bassist, are leaving Panic to start their own band that will sound like good old-fashion Panic At The Disco. Panic’s drummer and frontman, Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith, will continue to eat “Nails for Breakfast, Tacks for Snacks”, releasing their in-progress album and touring with both Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy by the end of July.
Do you know what I’m seeing? – Panic At The Disco’s overhaul calls to mind Pigeon; another indie-rock band that became a duet and faded into obscurity. Interestingly enough, it seems Panic and Pigeon have other history together too. Brendon Urie and Heather Chase, briefly dated last year.
That Green Gentleman is a little Blue
Archived News from May 8, 2008
Things have changed for Brendon Urie, the twenty-one year old frontman of the feel-good band Panic at the Disco. Recently split from girlfriend of two months, over-achieving supermodel turned singer Heather Chase, Urie has been hard at work with his band to release their sophomore attempt, Pretty.Odd., and turn out the video premiere of “The Green Gentlemen”.
In fact the song is very close to Urie’s heart insiders say. The song which boasts lyrics like, “I never said I missed her when everybody kissed her. Now, I’m the only one to blame…” is said to be dedicated to Chase. Close friends of the singer say he was really heart-broken when they spilt and takes the blame.
Urie wished that it could have worked out, but still wants to be friends with Chase. Chase on the other hand wants nothing to do with him and didn’t even bother to visit Panic during their Bamboozle concert, according friends. But Urie isn’t letting his heart weigh him down. The band is currently on the Honda Civic Tour, riding the sound waves. So as Urie would say, “Things have changed for me and that’s okay. I’m on my way…” and to that we applauded him!
