Fashion Week Is Coming Early This Year
No, I’m not talking about the annual model/cocaine/fashion-palooza that hits a handful of international cities every year — you’ll still have to wait a little less than a week for the kickoff of that madness.
What I’m referring to is another flavor of madness: the awe-inspiring aural stylings of NYC noisy metallic outfit Fashion Week, who will kick off a Southeast tour with Austin’s Skyacre TONIGHT (dates below).
The tour is in advance support of the band’s forthcoming debut full-length Prêt-à-Porter, which is set for release on France’s Solar Flare Records on February 23rd. Earlier today, “Fendi Bender” — the opening song from the album — was premiered on the Revolver Magazine blog. Pump it directly into your earholes here.
The spirit of the 90s is alive and kicking in Fashion Week’s sound, as previously evidenced by the band’s auspicious 2013 EP on Coextinction Records, the label run by Dave Curran from Unsane and renowned producer/engineer/mixer/puppydawg Andrew Schneider (who engineered Prêt-à-Porter as well).
Want more “info” about Fashion Week? According to the band’s recent “press release“:
FASHION WEEK was formed by singer/guitarist Joshua Lozano and bassist Oscar Rodriguez in Brooklyn, New York in 1987, and over the years went through a succession of drummers, the longest-lasting being Carl Eklof, who joined the band in 1990, after the disbanding of DC hardcore icons, Shout. In the late ‘80s, FASHION WEEK established itself as part of the New York noise scene, releasing its first album, Clorox, through the independent record label Under Pop in 1989. The band eventually came to develop a sound that relied on dynamic contrasts, often between pummeling verses and loud, catchy choruses. After signing to major label David Muffin Records, the band found unexpected success with “Smells Like Old Spice”, the first single from the band’s second album Fuhgeddaboudit, released in 1991. The sudden success widely popularized alternative rock as a whole, and as the band’s frontman Lozano found himself referred to in the media as the “spokesman of a generation”, with FASHION WEEK being considered the “flagship band” of Generation X. The band’s third studio album, In Uterus, was released in 1993, and challenged the group’s audience, featuring an abrasive, less-mainstream sound.
FASHION WEEK’s brief run ended following the death of Josh Lozano in 1994, but various posthumous releases have been issued since, overseen by Rodriguez, Eklof, and Lozano’s widow, Catherine Lust. Since its debut, the band has sold over 25 million albums in the United States alone, and over 50 million worldwide. Eklof went on to form the highly acclaimed Food Fighters, and Rodriguez has pursued a career in politics, and wedding crashing.
Sound familiar? I could swear I’ve heard this story before…
Now, unless Lozano is pulling some sort of back-from-the-dead/faked shotgun blast to the head/Total Recall “who the hell am I?” trick, I’m pretty damn sure I’ve seen him running around Brooklyn aplenty in recent years. As a matter of fact, now that I think about it — I’m almost positive I’ve been playing music with him myself in the band Family for the last few years as well. But music moves us in mysterious ways, and perhaps the Joshua Lozano I know and love is merely a ghost or a figment of my overactive imagination…
In any case, if he really is alive and still rocking faces off in Fashion Week, you can certainly catch the band on tour at the following dates (and/or its record release show back in Brooklyn with Retox, Whores, and Primitive Weapons at Saint Vitus Bar on 2/21):
