Fratellis Cancels May Tour dates

Canceling tour dates is a not a great idea for a young band, which relies on winning fans over on the road so that people actually buy their records and they don't become poor starving artists. Fratellis, a Scottish rock band and apparent rock softies, will not be touring in the US during May. Fortunately, they return in July to the Bank in Philly with the Police and for Lollapolooza in Chicago in August.

Fratellis says that they are exhausted and musically drained after two years of touring. Two years? This is not the rock and roll dream -- bands should continue touring until they either break up, enter rehab, or die, especially in the beginning. Rock bands lead excessive lives because the normal man or woman can't. We live vicariously through rock.

Fratellis has a great, explosive sound. Unfortunately, they have lost sight of what is most important - touring, boozing, and hard drugs.

Arctic Monkeys

I had to delay my review of Favourite worst nightmare because I was at a regional frisbee tournament in Rantoul, Illinois. Rantoul reminds of me of nothing -- the town is dead, revived occasionally by some college guys and girls running around and catching a white disc. Town life centers around the pool at the days inn, where locals sit freely, smoke cigarettes, and converse about the local airfield. Next to the days inn is a taco bell/KFC hybrid restaurant and a Mcdonalds. Besides cancer and obesity, Rantoul is famous for . . . well, lots of land. Miles and miles of grass, trees, and crop. Its great for a weekend of frisbee and watching cows grow, but little else.

There is no relation between Rantoul and the Arctic Monkeys. There are, in fact, polar opposites - black and white, hot and cold, Rantoul and the Arctic Monkeys. I even avoided listening to them on car ride down, just to make sure I understood the difference.

The Arctic monkeys belong in a city -- playing in a small, dark venue surrounded by all of your friends or at a run-down bar, where you keep drinking until early the morning, talking about whatever stuff enters your head. Their music is purposely opposing. Initially, it portrays an urban atmosphere, full of confusion, energy -- it feels overpowering. As both the individuals songs and the album itself move on, the complexity unravels and leaves a subtle optimism, not completely abandoning the confusion, but instead, slowly explaining it.

There is a struggle with emotion throughout the entire album, a fight to find meaning in love and life. Songs such as Old Yellow Bricks leave little hope for happiness -- memories are lost, twisted, leaving an empty nostalgia that transforms the present into a warped version of the past. And then, after such disparity, there is Brainstorm, the first single off the album -- it presents the possibility of reaching satisfaction.

The Arctic monkeys have become on of my favorite bands because their music has both intelligence and a great rock sound.

Yeah it's a loss, just because
It wasn't all you thought it was
You're the fugitive but you don't know what you're running away from
She said I want to sleep in the city that never wakes up