The Gutter Twins: Saturnalia

[Frank The Bunny]

Listening first time through right now. Great stuff from Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees and Greg Dulli of Afghan Whigs.

Dark, melodic, atmospheric late night driving through the desert with bodies in the trunk kind of music. Like the soundtrack to some unreleased David Lynch film

www.myspace.com/theguttertwins

They played here about a month ago, I think. I'm kicking myself for missing the show. Would've been good. Other than that, looks like they're playing some of my favorite venues, here in the States and abroad:

Wed 03/19/08 New York, NY Webster Hall
Thu 03/20/08 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
Fri 03/21/08 Atlanta, GA Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre
Sat 03/22/08 New Orleans, LA One Eyed Jacks
Wed 03/26/08 Austin, TX Antone's
Thu 03/27/08 Dallas, TX House Of Blues - Cambridge Room
Sat 03/29/08 Boulder, CO Fox Theatre
Wed 04/02/08 Los Angeles, CA The Avalon
Sat 04/05/08 Dublin, IRE Ambassador Theatre
Sun 04/06/08 Belfast, UK The Limelight
Mon 04/07/08 Glasgow, UK Oran Mor
Tue 04/08/08 Manchester, UK Manchester Academy
Wed 04/09/08 Birmingham, UK Glee Club

appearing at "Domino Festival"
Fri 04/11/08 Brussels, BEL Ancienne Belgique

appearing at "Motel Mozaique"
Sat 04/12/08 Rotterdam, NET Festival Grounds

Mon 04/14/08 Copenhagen, DEN VEGA House Of Music
Tue 04/15/08 Stockholm, SWE Debaser Medis
Wed 04/16/08 Oslo, NOR Rockefeller Music Hall
Fri 04/18/08 Hamburg, GER Logo
Sat 04/19/08 Berlin, GER Postbahnhof
Sun 04/20/08 Vienna, AS Szene Vienna
Mon 04/21/08 Zurich, SWI Mascotte
Wed 04/23/08 Rome, ITA Alpheus
Thu 04/24/08 Milan, ITA Musicdrome
Sat 04/26/08 Barcelona, SPA Razzmatazz
Sun 04/27/08 Madrid, SPA Sala Heineken
Mon 04/28/08 Bilbao, SPA Kafe Antzokia
Wed 04/30/08 Lisbon, POR Santiago Alquimista
Fri 05/02/08 Athens, GRE Fuzz Club
Sun 05/04/08 Istanbul, TUR Yeni Melek

[withahip]

Their myspace doesn;t really help.

You know that name is pretty close to Glimmer Twins:

The Glimmer Twins is a nickname given to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones. The two often use it as a producing credit on Stones albums. The origin of the nickname dates from a vacation cruise Jagger and Richards took to Brazil in 1969 with their then girlfriends, Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg. During several meals, an older English couple ate at the same table as the rock stars and kept asking Richards and Jagger who they were. When they refused to reveal their identities, reportedly, the older couple kept asking, "just give us a glimmer" (as in "give us a hint to your true names"), for the couple did vaguely recognize the men from television and tabloids.

Jagger and Richards were so amused by this recurrent request, they began to call themselves the 'Glimmer Twins' when producing Rolling Stones records.[1] The first of many producing credits for the 'Glimmer Twins' appears on the It's Only Rock'n Roll album jacket and record sleeve. No effort was made to explain that the term was a pseudonym for Jagger and Richards.

[Frank The Bunny]

Sorry. I posted the URL to the wrong myspace page (now corrected: http://www.myspace.com/theguttertwins )

That's actually where they got the name.

Here's the player from their myspace. a couple of the songs don't seem to load

<EMBED src="http://lads.myspace.com/music/player_popup.swf?d=MTUwODc3OTQ4XjEyMDU5NjEzMDU=&n=aHR0cDovL211c2ljLm15c3BhY2UuY29tLw==&u=LTE=&s=MA==&t=dW5kZWZpbmVk&p=" quality="high" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" WIDTH="450" HEIGHT="345" NAME="mp3player" ALIGN="" TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></EMBED>

From allmusic.com:

Although Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli first met at a party in 1989, the two didn't start making music together — and become friends, for that matter — until the following decade, after both had experienced successful careers as members of the cult grunge bands the Screaming Trees and the Afghan Whigs, respectively. Their similarly troubled pasts (and presents) forged a strong bond between them, helped only by their similar musical tastes and expressions. Lanegan showed up on the 2003 album Blackberry Belle by Dulli's new group, the Twilight Singers, and Dulli appeared on Lanegan's 2004 solo full-length, Bubblegum, and toured with his band as a piano player. It was in fact around this time, too, that the idea for the Gutter Twins began to take shape, first with Lanegan telling a journalist, unbeknownst to Dulli, that the two were collaborating. The first recording happened at the end of 2003, but as both were heavily involved in other projects — Dulli with the Twilight Singers and the Italian band Afterhours and Lanegan not only with his solo work, but as a singer for Queens of the Stone Age and on collaborations with Soulsavers and Belle & Sebastian's Isobel Campbell — the first actual live Gutter Twins appearance didn't take place until September 2005, in Rome. In 2006 the Twilight Singers released A Stitch in Time, an EP that featured two collaborations with Lanegan, who was practically a member of the touring band at that point, anyway. Finally, signed to Sub Pop, the Gutter Twins released their debut full-length, Saturnalia, in March of 2008.

And the allmusic.com album review:

The Gutter Twins' first full-length record may not have shown up until early 2008, but Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan had been working together since the early part of the millennium, Dulli with Lanegan on his solo work and Lanegan with Dulli's group the Twilight Singers, even touring as part of the band and showing up twice on the 2006 EP A Stitch in Time. It therefore makes sense that much of Saturnalia sounds quite similar to the Twilight Singers' material, particularly the songs where Dulli takes full or most of the writing and singing duties. This is by no means a bad thing; Dulli is all powerful, surging hooks and biting, twisting electric guitars, and Lanegan's baritone — when he sings both lead and background vocals — give the words an extra power, subtlety, and resonance, helped no doubt by the visceral growls he adds to lines in "Bête Noire" and "Circle the Fringes." These are songs drawn from the Gothic tradition, where good and evil and pleasure and pain crisscross and entwine facilely and indelibly, where the secular and the sacred have no clear defining lines. Religious imagery weaves its way in and out, as much a part of the tracks as are the sex and violence and drugs and all the other Lanegan/Dulli constants. "I hear the Rapture's coming," they sing in "The Stations," recalling both life and death as Dulli's snarl rises over his partner's moan, while Lanegan takes the lead on the gospel-inspired "Who Will Lead Us?" and the ominous storm cloud of "All Misery/Flowers," which starts with "Little girls might twitch at the way I hitch" and ends with the refrain of "I tell you my story so that you might save me," as Dulli sings softly behind. So well, in fact, do the two voices work together, that the one track to which only one contributed (Dulli wrote and sings alone on "I Was in Love with You") seems almost out of place, shiny nickels and dimes on the offering plate stuffed with bills. Saturnalia is mysticism and hedonism, saints and sinners, dark and light, but this is no clear-cut Manichaean collaboration. Both Lanegan and Dulli represent this, both contain all the good and the bad they sing about, sometimes at different moments but very often together, and it's that joined duality, that very disturbingly human quality, telling us things about ourselves we'd rather not acknowledge, that makes the album so absolutely alluring.

[Blackheathen]

Great find Frank!
Seven Stories Under and The Stations are my favourites.

[Kounelaki]

Pour toi, François :

http://www.noisemag.net/?p=1284

[Mr. Brian]

I've known Greg Dulli (one half of the Gutter Twins) since the 80's mostly from the Afghan Whigs, not to be confused with the newer band "The Whigs". The Afghan Whigs were supposed to be the next big thing but we all know how that goes. He is originally from the area I'm in. People seem to love him or hate him. He can be an arrogant bastard at times but he's tops with me. You should check out his band after The Afghan Whigs called The Twilight Singers, they put out several albums.

The Gutter Twins were on Letterman last night, it should be on my Tivo

[blinkilite]

i heard their song "idle hands" as a KEXP song of the day podcast on my itunes... went and had another listen just now... gonna go check out their other stuff on myspace.

thanks for the link

[Frank The Bunny]

i heard their song "idle hands" as a KEXP song of the day podcast on my itunes... went and had another listen just now... gonna go check out their other stuff on myspace.

thanks for the link

Idle Hands is a free download from their label's website:


And you can listen to the whole album for free here:
http://free.napster.com/player/album/12742840