Perfect Strokes

On Dec. 31, 1974, a fissure in the time-space continuum erupted in the dank, smoke-filled backstage room of a hip New York City club and transported The Strokes twenty-five years into the future.

That fateful night was to be their first gig; the five had just dropped out of college to be rock stars. And rock stars they would be: great frocks of rock star hair, hip rockstar leather jackets and fabulous rockstar names like Julian Casablancas (vocals) and Fab Moretti (drums). Their half-drunk and too-cool glares confirmed what their pulsingly primitive riffs and bar-brat lyrics suggested: All these boys knew how to do was screw and play rock and roll.

A different era, indeed. But, as long as the new millennium still had all the tight pants, sweaty gigs and cheap sex a rock star could desire, they were all for it. Which is not to say that the time travellers would try to catch up on everything they missed. Truth be told, they didn't give a shit about the last quarter century--they were punks before punk and weren't about to pay heed to any of the trendy imperatives or ironic baggage of the "Modern Age."

Which is exactly what they contrarily titled their first single, a chugging burst of pelvic swagger that's not merely retro but spurting forth from the utterly timeless source of rock. The British music press--known to shamelessly splooge themselves prematurely on unproven talent--immediately started creaming like rabid fangirls. Britain's own rock stars were at the time either dabbling in international diplomacy or toying around with cartoons, and these cocky pretty boys became immediate sensations, with hardly anyone in their home country ever having heard them.

Vain enough to be flattered, but too hip to buy into the hype themselves, The Strokes laughed at the overzealous expectations of all this fawning, titling their first LP Is This It? as a flip off to those hailing them as the Velvet Underground reincarnate. Then they proceeded to meet those expectations head-on, with 11 straightforward rockers that drip with the essence of raging youth and smoulder with the grit of the mustiest garages.

However, claims that The Strokes are the second coming of the Velvets are a little carried away. There are, after all, lots of bands, like Spoon for instance, that are mining the attitude and sounds of Television and the NYC proto-punk scene with more craft than these kids have just yet. But The Strokes, robbed of their historical context and thrust under the demands of the indie rock scene, won't give the arty pretensions of their peers both past and present any room to get in the way of their fun. To these time travellers, it's a new millennium, they're as young as babies and hot as hell and, even if it's the 21st century, they're still probably gonna get laid after the show.

--By Greg Bloom