Afterhours

MILAN’S “KILLER” ROCK BAND AFTERHOURS ANNOUNCES TWO RARE NORTH AMERICAN APPEARANCES
June 13 at Toronto’s Hard Rock Cafe (NXNE)
June 16 in New York at Mercury Lounge

Italy’s top alternative rock outfit Afterhours celebrates a May run of sold-out dates at home with a June pair of special appearances in North America. Afterhours will perform at Toronto’s Hard Rock Cafe on Friday, June 13 as part of NXNE, Canada’s number one showcase for new independent music and sister festival to SXSW. The band will also play in New York at the Mercury Lounge on Monday, June 16.
Afterhours’ latest CD, I Milanesi Ammazzano il Sabato (The Milanese Kill Saturdays), has already charted in the Top Five in Italy. The project is lead singer Manuel Agnelli’s ode to his hometown of Milan, a city often referred to as the New York of Italy due to a shared focus on business from finance to fashion.
The title of this eighth studio set is Agnelli’s play on the words of a similarly titled 1969 work by Italian crime novelist Giorgio Scerbaneco, the last before the author’s untimely death, whose work envisioned a Milan in which rampant consumerism would replace quiet family based communities.
The story of Afterhours’ (who took their name from the Velvet Underground song) formative decade in 1990’s Milan shares a similar narrative with Manhattan’s gentrification of the era: much like their American indie counterparts, they booked themselves into now defunct clubs (Helter Skelter), put out DIY record releases through an indie store/label (VoxPop), and even self-funded a showcase jaunt to Gotham’s bygone New Music Seminar, all the while trying to keep together a lo-fi scene of like-minded musicians, writers and artists in a fast paced high-fashion metropolis.
Called a “…brutal masterpiece…” by Italy’s La Repubblica, “I Milanesi Ammazzano il Sabato” is a set of Agnelli’s reflections on the evolution of Milan into an impersonal city where people come to work then leave. Saturdays, author Serbaneco proposes, is the only day of the week on which one could find the time and opportunity for a killing. Agnelli’s alternative vision conveys the existential loneliness of leisure time in the metropolis.
The “I Milanesi Ammazzano il Sabato” project continues Manuel Agnelli and Afterhours’ creative collaboration with American cult rocker Greg Dulli that began when the Twilight Singers joined Afterhours to co-headline an Italian tour in 2004 – the genesis of a relationship which has seen the two bands contribute repeatedly to each others’ work. Dulli went on to produce Afterhours’ last effort 2005’s “Ballate per piccole iene” (Ballads for Little Hyenas), an English language version of which was released in 2006 by the One Little Indian label in the US and UK. Afterhours also served as the Italian backing band to Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan’s Gutter Twins project and Agnelli co-wrote 2 songs with Dulli on the latest Twilight Singers album “Powder Burns”. Afterhours then shared the stage with the Twilight Singers for a 25 date North American tour in 2006, the most extensive by an Italian rock band. Other guests on “I Milanesi Ammazzano Il Sabato” are co-producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Goldfrapp, Giant Sand), Stef Kamil Carlens (Deus, Zita Swoon) and Brian Ritchie (Violent Femmes).

Afterhours:
Fri. 6/13 Hard Rock Cafe Toronto (NXNE)
279 Yonge Street, Toronto, ON
10:00pm Tickets: $19 (NXNE Festival 1-day Wristband)
Info.: http://www.nxne.com/tickets-0
Mon. 6/16 Mercury Lounge: NYC
217 E. Houston St. (Corner Ave A & Houston), New York, NY
10:00pm Tickets: $10
Info.: http://www.mercuryloungenyc.com/calendar/show/1624/