the iron curtain

the cold war may be over but these kids are hot

'Cold War Kids'... Regan babies, missile fears, and international blues.

The group started with jangly guitar, hand claps, and a harmony amp in a storage room atop Mulberry Street restaurant in downtown Fullerton, CA. For the first practices, having instruments was not as important as heavy stomping and chanting. Clanging on heat pipes, thumping on ply wood walls. Hollering into tape recorders. Swaying and slipping into alleyways and juke joints of yesteryear. Dreaming the American dust bowl and British maritime.

On the restaurant's rusty roof the sound and feeling was cultivated and burned, built and hallowed out, painted and stripped to the primer. Cold War Kids make songs about human experience in orchards and hotel rooms, laundromats and churches, seat ports and school halls. Using songs of Dylan, B. Holiday, and the Velvet Underground as a road map, they strive to manipulate, structure, and style their music with honesty.
CWK

cold war kids - saint john
velvet underground - sweet jane