Pirate Love

New York legend Johnny Thunders raised the bar for how low you could go to find rock and roll inspiration. His licks sounded caked in dirt and shit, the grimiest, nastiest stuff six strings were capable of mustering. The Norwegian nightmares in Pirate Love know better than most – hell, they named their band after one of the beloved Dolls’ songs. It’s a fitting homage, though, considering Pirate Love’s reputation as untamed 60s throwbacks and some of the wildest Scandinavians this side of Turbonegro. Not a distinction to be taken lightly.

They invented a genre to which they belong (more on that in a bit). But to those of us that don’t speak Norwegian Rock Alien dialect, they’re basically a mind-bending commingling of 60’s garage, rockabilly and psychadelic-flavored awesomeness. Forging their sound since forming in Oslo in 2003, the band waited four years before unveiling their first record, a 7-inch vinyl featuring MTV Europe mainstay “Laughing Gas.” Later that year they’d offer up the manic short-player Death Surf Negro Spirituals, before making their full-length bow in 2008 with a record that fittingly bared the name of the genre they created: Black Vodoun Space Blues.

MP3: "Laughing Gas"

“Pirate Love mixes a delightful refreshing blend of garage, punk, rockabilly and goth, in the veins of The Cramps, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Nirvana and The Stooges.... a primal sound with references to hate, drugs, revenge and violence in a gorgeous package. Sincere sounding, and one can only surmise that the songwriters have had some serious misadventures along the way......"Black Vodoun Space Blues" is an excellent debut from a band that has chosen a path that hasn't already been trampled to pieces.-- ABC News

There are but three North American shows lined up for Pirate Love, so New York and Toronto, prepare your thank yous. Indeed, as should be expected, the band has a stage show for the record books. There’s flailing, thrashing, hurling and a whole host of other colorful descriptors. But words don’t do the trick. Seeing them decimalets do it at 5te a venue, on the other hand, that gets the job done.

06-18 Toronto, Ontario – NXNE – El Mocambo
06-23 Brooklyn, NY – Glasslands 11pm
06-25 New York, NY – Piano’s 9pm
- Musebox

On the day Sky Saxon died, Norway's Pirate Love showed the Big Apple that psychedelic garage rock lives on. Fans of Nuggets, Pebbles, Chesterfield Kings, BJM, Black Hollies and 1001 3 Chord overdriven amp burning bands need to hear Pirate Love. Encored with two belly dancers no less! Lux Interior circa Psychedelic Jungle would have been proud. - Ben Liemer

One member of Oslo, Norway's PIRATE LOVE showed up to play at the NXNE early evening party in a sari and fez, another came in a Mexican poncho, another in a cowboy hat. And then the New York Dolls referencing outfit played the most snarling, adolescent punk of the festival.
Amidst the evenings wall of heavy Can-rock, Pirate Love looked and sounded ridiculous, but in a festival with more than it's share of middle-of-the road rock guys, they were welcome. Joshua Erret - Now Music

Pop Quiz: Pirate Love
By Tari Sirlin August 17, 2009

The dissonance you feel in your gut when you pair “Pirate” and “Love” couldn’t be more perfect. Sprinkle in a glob of garage-surf-punk blanketed with the sharpest of black atmospherics, and you have yourself Norway’s very own Pirate Love. After coming off a huge European tour with Serena Maneesh, the band made a mid-June stop off in Toronto for North By Northeast, before switching gears and making a thunderous maiden trip to NYC for shows in support of their just album, Black Voudoun Space Blues. I was able to catch them at their summer Piano’s show where they pounded out psyche-punk tunes, coming across as a cross between Brian Jonestown Massacre and Turbo Negro. Obviously influenced by their visit to America, the lead singer, David Dajani, appeared on stage in a cowboy hat and daisy dukes. Check out his answers to our Pop Quiz after the jump.
Where do you live?
Oslo. Where darkness reigns.
What’s your favorite piece of clothing?
My purple sequined jacket bought in a really weird shop in Toronto. Then I lost it in New York, so now I gotta preform in my short-ass daisy dukes, which isn’t too bad, I guess.
Beer, liquor, wine or water?
96% Norwegian homemade moonshine. That gets me going.
If you could have any super power, what would you choose?
I’d love to have the power to end all wars and make peace on earth. Or the power to win all wars and rule everything under my totalitarian control.
Do you think about sex frequently?
I’m actually a huge porn connoisseur. Pirate Love bassist Herr R is the same way. So I think about sex all the time. Goddamn San Fernando Valley, I’m hooked!
Have you ever been arrested?
Yeah, a couple of times. I got really drunk and stoned in a club in Oslo many years ago. Apparently, I was walking around with a couple of wine bottles, barefoot and started flying into the walls. Then I faked a seizure and the ambulance showed up. Then I busted out laughing as they tried to “awaken” me, and they called the cops. Didn’t get back into that club for a couple of years..

Where do you really want to be right now?
Deep space.
What’s your favorite thing about America?
The immorality of it, the brilliance of it, the art of faking it, the illusions and the dollar--even though it’s pretty weak right now.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
A motherfucking hustler.
If you could only eat one type of food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Russian caviar.
What’s the best bar in Oslo?
Robinet. Great drinks, great music, great bartenders. Even though it’s really tiny.
What’s the best present you ever received?
Probably the gift of being brilliant.
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Tags: Music, People, Interviews, Tari Sirlin, Pirate Love - Blackbook Magazine

New York legend Johnny Thunders raised the bar for how low you could go to find rock and roll inspiration. His licks sounded caked in dirt and shit, the grimiest, nastiest stuff six strings were capable of mustering. The Norwegian nightmares in Pirate Love know better than most – hell, they named their band after one of the beloved Dolls' songs. It's a fitting homage, though, considering Pirate Love's reputation as untamed 60s throwbacks and some of the wildest Scandinavians this side of Turbonegro. Not a distinction to be taken lightly.

They invented a genre to which they belong (more on that in a bit). But to those of us that don't speak Norwegian Rock Alien dialect, they're basically a mind-bending commingling of 60's garage, rockabilly and psychadelic-flavored awesomeness. Forging their sound since forming in Oslo in 2003, the band waited four years before unveiling their first record, a 7-inch vinyl featuring MTV Europe mainstay "Laughing Gas." - Bring Me Up

Link: http://spin.com/gallery/best-new-york-city-music?page=9#main
- SPIN Magazine

NXNE, Day 1
Featuring Bloodgroup, Pirate Love, The Coathangers, Tijvek and HEALTH
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BY STUART BERMAN June 19, 2009 12:06

If you’re going to do North by Northeast properly — that is, see bands every hour on the hour, as if you were going to class — then the goal is not necessarily to see the most hotly tipped bands or perennial favourites. Rather, you must plan your nightly club-hopping schedule around those artists who will make you forget that you’re standing on your feet for six hours straight. This can be accomplished two ways: a) the artist amazes you, b) the artist annoys you. Even in the latter case, it’s better than being OK. Because OK is what makes you look at your watch repeatedly, wondering when the next band is coming on. OK is what makes you feel the nagging ache in your feet. OK is what sends you back to the bar to drop six bucks on another gin and tonic that you don’t need. Fortunately, the first night of NXNE 2009 was not OK.

Bloodgroup (9pm, El Mocambo): Perhaps it is blood that unites this Reykjavik group, because it sure ain’t their fashion sense. We see two guys in hoodies lunging into their keyboards and samplers with stern-faced intensity; a greasy-haired dude in a long-sleeve metal shirt rocking a keytar; a frail, blonde female singer who looks like she crawled out of Courtney Love's wardrobe; and a mustachioed male counterpart who appears to be a stray Fleet Fox. So naturally, Bloodgroup are a melodramatic electro-house outfit that indiscriminately invokes the icy electronica of The Knife, the co-ed, candy-coated choruses of Scissor Sisters and the Twilight-gleaming mall-goth of Evanescence. To their credit, Bloodgroup treat the thankless 9pm opener slot like a 9am superclub stint in Ibiza, but with so many incongruous elements to juggle, it’s hard to fully get into their groove.

Pirate Love (10pm, El Mocambo): While the city’s garage-rock contingent is likely assembling at Yonge-Dundas Square for a much-anticipated appearance from The Black Lips, we stay put for Oslo, Norway’s Pirate Love, a band that shares the Lips’ frenzied festival work ethic — this is the first of seven appearances here this weekend — and their record collection too, ably leading a parade of Nuggets-vintage ’60s-garage signifiers through The Cramps’ psychedelic jungle. And they’ve got an anti-rock star in the making in singer David Al Dajani, a cowboy-hatted, sequined-jacketed howler who, with his humourously indecipherable babble, comes off like a cross between Bobby Gillespie and Bobcat Goldthwait.
- Eyeweekly.com