I have always had a soft spot for the Strokes. I remember to this day the circumstances surrounding purchasing their brilliant first record, This Is It. At the time in the early 2000’s punk was big and bands like Blink 182 were still a popular choice. I was about to buy a CD but I didn’t know what. I was leaning towards a Millencolin one (remember those Swedish punk guys?). Thankfully, I took a risk and purchased The Strokes album instead and was introduced to the garage rock revival movement. Lead singer/song writer Julian Casablancas led the pin up boy image which surrounded the band expect these days life seems to be a bit tougher for him. It’s been reported that Casablancas has now run into some financial problems. Next thing you know he might just be busking at some subway station around New York, with designer clothing of course. See what happens when you take a break from your very successful day job and create a side project. Apparently it sends you broke.

The major problem here was Casablancas decided to self promote and fund some show case gigs around L.A for his solo album, Phrazes for the Young. Here in lies the predicament, a dangerous past time for any musician, expect for Radiohead who just make more money when no record companies are involved. Most other musicians can benefit from record label assistance. Maybe he should have thought of this before he used his own money for a four-show L.A extravaganza. It’s reported that he undertook a ridiculously ambitious stage show complete with costume changes and intricately detailed sets. The video backdrop for, “Ludlow St,” was reportedly dominated in imagery of a desert and ended in skyscrapers re-enacting the development of New York City. Epic I know, possibly over the top? Perhaps. The film clip to single, ‘11th Dimension’ is arguably what made him broke! It’s a Michael Jackson/Michael J Fox eighties time warp mixed in with some black and white film exerts. The set design and production values look anything but that of a low key solo project, entertaining none the less.

Even Casablancas has admitted to the failure of the shows in New York Magazine, which were seen as a debacle. “In the end, it wasn’t a positive experience for me at all,” he says. “It was a constant struggle with the venue, managers, lighting guys, video people. I went broke doing it.” He is already trying to determine exactly what went wrong. “I want to do that in New York eventually. Badly”. He said. Given the nature of these remarks it hardly seems that Casablancas, the son of Elite Model Agency Group founder, John Casablancas has exactly gone broke. If I only I was as poor as him.

He later explains why he took matters into his own hands for the shows. “I don’t like the business side so much, but it’s a necessity because I also don’t like the way other people do the business side for me.” A word of advice, find some people you can trust, who can do it for you. Not all business people are merely ‘suits’ who don’t understand the artistic dilemmas of musicians. The result was an artistic endeavour which sadly went horribly awry. He has slammed his label RCA (who distributed the record) for their poor promotion of his album. However, this just seems like another case of ego getting in the way, trying to own every element of his success, expect success it never was unfortunately. Perhaps he needed to negotiate his vision with RCA a little better than he did? If that wasn’t possible, then the shows should have been less ambitious and reserved for Strokes gigs instead.

After initially flirting with the idea of spending more time in L.A he soon came to his senses. “The weather there tricks you into thinking you’re on vacation, even when you’re working fourteen hours a day,” he says. “But when I came back, I was like, ‘Whoh!… I’m glad I got out of there.” After all, there is a strong possibility that Casablancas’ noble attempts to blow an L.A. audience away was just misunderstood and much more suited to the culture of his hometown in NYC. If you do happen to stumble across Phrazes for the Young, it’s well worth the listen. In the meantime stay tuned for the Strokes fourth album which is currently in the making.

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