Tag Archives: The Killers

Kids interview A Silent Film; band unveils new Sycamore Tapes videos

For the most part, I’ve given up on terrestrial radio, opting instead for the variety XM provides. UK-based A Silent Film have been getting loads of exposure on satellite’s Alt-Nation station which has their song “Danny, Dakota & The Wishing Well” in heavy rotation.

The band had a late-afternoon slot at the Bunbury Music Festival on July 14 where they played to a thousand or so fans who – much to my surprise – seemed to be intimately familiar with the band’s Coldplay-meets-The-Killers-sounding songs. Later that afternoon, while waiting for Grouplove to perform, I spied A Silent Film’s lead singer Robert Stevenson sitting by his lonesome so I approached him and asked if he – or anybody from the band – would be willing to answer a few questions from our now-expert 11-year-old reporters, Olivia and Connie. He gave me drummer Spencer Walker’s cell phone number and said, “Give Spencer a call or text and he’ll work out all the details.”

The following afternoon we hooked up with Spencer who informed us he was the only member of the band at the park at the time but, “The drummer’s always the best person to interview because we have so many interesting things to say!”


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What Recession? The Killers Sell Out Columbus @ $42.50 a Ticket

May 5’s show featuring The Killers at The LC (which fits 2,000+) has sold out @ 42.50 a ticket. Add in Ticketmaster charges and you realize that people are spending money where it counts.

Lyrics School with Jim Teacher: You Killers Me

Hello friends, I’d like to talk today about annoying lyrics. You know, those lyrical flubs that stick in your craw and you wish you had a magic marker that you could just write on the CD and change. As the frontman and lyricist in a failed New Jersey bar band, I, Jim Teacher, am overqualified to speak on this egregious subject.

For example, Iggy must have thought he hit a home run with “Search & Destroy,” right? Wrong. “I’m a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb.” Not bad, I guess–if you’re a three-year-old raised without language. Iggy could’ve reached a little and made it “I’m a runaway son from the nuclear playground.” Whoa, I just blew my own mind.

See? One wrong lyrical turn can ruin Jim Teacher’s entire high school experience. So why do they (the guys who write lyrics) do it again, and again…and again?

I’m not going to even attempt to answer that philosophical quandary. Instead, I’ll focus my efforts on bitching about specific cases of lyrical neglect.

First up: The Killers in that song where they sing about the guy’s uncle who does cocaine. To start off with, this guy, Brandon Flowers or whatever his name is, isn’t half-bad in terms of lyrics. Now I was predisposed to hate this band because…well, look, they look like a bunch of pussies, but even Jim Teacher isn’t impervious to the impeccable pop hooks. These fucks wore me down, especially since my wife wouldn’t remove the CD from the car and, as we all know, that’s not the man’s job. So I listened and listened. Continue reading