The Afghan Whigs - Matamoros

Via Boing Boing: the Afghan Whigs have released the second single to their album "Do The Beast." The video for the song Matamoros features the New York City hip hop dance crew WAFFLE. Their are some absolutely amazing dance moves that have to be seen to be believed. My favorite is a dancer tossing his shoe and perfectly catching it back on his foot in mid-air. This is my favorite music video of 2014.

The Afghan Whigs - Algiers

The Afghan Whigs have released a new album. "Algiers" is the debut single from Do to the Beast. These days the Whigs are only original members Greg Dulli and John Curley. Lead guitarist Rick McCollum was removed from the band due to unspecified personal reasons.

"I respect and have deep admiration for those guys," McCollum says in regards to his departure from the Whigs. "I'm excited to hear what they came up with, but I have to get my personal life back into gear. I have to work on myself, and my personal issues. I want to do stuff on my own, too; my band, Moon Maan, is doing an album. We're brothers, and we're going to have discrepancies, but it's good. It's not like we hate each other; it's a positive thing on all ends."

The video for "Algiers" is a homage to the Clint Eastwood movie High Plains Drifter.

Usher & the Afghan Whigs - OMG

One of the biggest surprises of South By Southwest was Usher playing onstage with the Afghan Whigs. An even bigger surprise is that the idea was Usher's. He is an Afghan Whigs fan.

Afghan Whigs - Double Day

From the vastly underrated album Black Love.

The Afghan Whigs - Let Me Lie To You

Greg Dulli intentionally pisses the audience off by telling them the band will play a fast punk rock song. Another video from the same show has Dulli chewing out an audience member for requesting Freebird.

The Afghan Whigs - Band of Gold

Gina Vivinetto likes to tell me I have a Greg Dulli obsession. It is an affliction suffered by many Generation X hetrosexual males. Music blogger Gregor is a far more extreme case.

i make no attempts to hide my psuedo homoerotic man crush on greg dulli. i know i am not the only straight man to admit such.

Guys of that era looked at Dulli as the epitome of cool. Much like Johnny Cash and George Clooney. Kurt Cobain was a geeky guy everyone made fun of in high school. Dulli was the guy cool enough to hang out with the jocks and potheads in the smoking section. Dulli wouldn't have a girlfriend. He was the guy around several girls and no one would know if he did or didn't hook up. He would never say but may write a song about it one day.

I hope that explains everything to Gina.

If Miss Bullwinkle can post pictures of celebrities with shopping carts than I can listen to Dulli. I take the Congregation album over Nicole Ritchie any day.

Update: Dulli's 120 Minutes appearances with Donal Logue are hysterical. It is impossible not to like Dulli.

Afghan Whigs - Bulletproof

I always thought Greg Dulli wrote Bulletproof about Kurt Cobain. Dulli never explains what his songs are about. He would be horrible for VH1's Storytellers. I do know the the Whigs were tight this night. Dulli's snippet of a Supremes song was a sublime moment.

Live Afghan Whigs From 1991

Captain's Dead has mp3s the the Afghan Whigs at the Satyricon in Portland. The performance took place June 29, 1991. The sound quality is excellent and there is a rare live version of Conjure Me.

Afghan Whigs - My Curse (Marcy Mays & Greg Dulli Versions)

My Curse is a song the Afghan Whigs originally recorded in 1989. Greg Dulli sang the original version. The band sat on the song until The Gentleman album. Marcy Mays sang the album version. Her voice served as the female character involved with Dulli's Gentleman. The album is about a disintegrating relationship between two lovers. Think of the album as the male version of Liz Phair's Exile In Guyville.

Mays only live performance, with the Whigs, of My Curse was at Reading in 1994. Is it me or is Mays and Dulli really taking on shine to each other. Besides the whole kissing onstage thing.

Mays was playing in Scrawl before there was such a thing as riot grrl bands. I saw Scrawl twice.



Dulli sings My Curse during a 1998 performance. I'm amazed how both Dulli and Mays sing the song with such emotional force.



Update: I have to post a great performance of Blame, etc. The lyrics are amazing.



I reply, that I don't believe
I'm ever gonna die, I don't
Do you?

Blame, deny, betray, divide
A lie, the truth
Which one shall I use?

Afghan Whigs Tunes

The Afghan Whigs - Somethin' Hot

Afghan Whigs - Lost in the Supermarket

Rare Greg Dulli Tracks

Twilight Singers bassist Scott Ford has posted rare Afghan Whigs and Twilight Singers tracks on his blog. You can hear the tracks at Megaupload.

TS - Dead to Rights (Live)
TS - Decatur St (Live)
TS - Underneath the Waves (Live)
TS - Umbretta (Live)
TS - Layla Coda (Live)

AW - Ooh Child (Studio - Five Stairsteps cover - Uptown Avondale Sessions)
AW - Blame, Etc (Live)
AW - If There’s a Hell Below (We’re All Gonna Go) (Live)
AW - Creep (Studio)
AW - Lost in the Supermarket (Studio)

TS - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down/Candy Cane Crawl (Live)
TS - They Ride (Studio)
TS - Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair (Studio)

Underneath the Waves is the best song written about post-Katrina New Orleans.

New Afghan Whigs Song

The song is called Magazine. The track sounds more Twilight Singers than Whigs. Greg Dulli refers to the female love interest as "my enemy." The fact that the lyrics are wrapped in sentimental music makes it all the more creepy. Dulli does the clever thing of having Dana Hamblen sing the lyrics, "You think that I don't know how to destroy ya, don't cha?" No male songwriter has better captured men's bruised vanity from women they have scorned.

The other female singer on the track is Susan Marshall. She has been the backup singer of choice for the Whigs and Cat Power.

The Whigs only put out the song for their greatest hits record Unbreakable. There has been talk from fans that the Whigs should get back together. I'm curious as to what readers think. The band was controversy in their hey day. Drugs and fist fights onstage will do that. (Watch the band smoke weed in this Youtube clip.)

My pal can't stand the Whigs. Go tell her how Whigsy you are.

Afghan Whigs - Going To Town

The groove in this song is incredible.

Go to town, burn it down, turn around
and get your stroll on, baby
I'll get the car
You get the match
And gasoline

And as we ride
Away into the countryside
I feel as though I must confide
There is a cost
When you say
Now we got Hell to pay
Don't worry, baby, that's okay
I know the boss

Very few people would doubt that Greg Dulli has partied with Lucifer.

Afghan Whigs - Going To Town mp3

Update: the Whigs medley of their own When We Two Parted and Lauryn Hill's Ex-Factor was a popular concert staple. The songs are both about breaking up.

Afghan Whigs - When We Two Parted/Ex-Factor medley mp3

New Afghan Whigs Song

The new Afghan Whigs' song I'm a Soldier is on their Myspace site. It sounds really good for a song they threw together in less than a week. The vocals of Greg Dulli and Susan Marshall (taking a break from touring with Cat Power) sound great.

Where the song is weak is lyrically. Dulli said the video to the song is going to be controversial. Obviously, the song is meant as a statement to the Iraq war. The lyrics just aren't very strong. Dulli usually spends months reworking the words of songs. He wrote this on hiatus from the Twilight Singers tour. The Whigs wanted to put two new songs on Unbreakable. The album is a greatest hits package.

I was hoping for a box set of rarities. The Whigs are nortoriously stingy with their recording output. They have refused to rerelease their first album Big Top Halloween. I want their metal cover of How Soon Is Now and the original demo version of My Curse on a box set. The latter was originally recorded in 1989 and called Ciaphas.

Afghan Whigs - My Curse demo (aka Ciaphas) mp3

Update: Spin has an interview with Dulli about the song I'm A Soldier.

Gentlemen and Exile in Guyville

The albums Gentlemen and Exile in Guyville both came out in 1993 and garnered critical acclaim and controversy. Both albums dealt with sex and destructive relationships in unflinching detail. It didn't help that Greg Dulli and Liz Phair were the two most narrassistic people in indie rock. They were good looking and talented and knew it. In another era they would have been rock stars. The flannel shirt generation didn't want singers who seem to enjoy photo shoots.

Listening to both albums, I am left with the impression that the album is the male and female perspective of the same relationship. Be Sweet and Flower is about people using their partners for sexual conquests. Dulli sings, "I've got a dick for a brain and my brain is gonna sell my ass to you." Phair sings her famous "I want to be your blowjob queen" line.

Dulli and Phair have publicly talked about public restroom sex (the former) and much younger sexual partners (the latter.)

Be Sweet mp3

Flower mp3

When We Two Parted and Divorce Song are the consequences of lovers who can not communicate with each other.

Dulli deals with the male resentment of a relationship coming to an end.

If I could have only once heard you scream
To feel you were alive
Instead of watching you abandoning yourself

Phair sings about being on the receiving end of that anger.

And it's true that I stole your lighter
And it's also true that I lost the map
But when you said that I wasn't worth talking to
I had to take your word on that

When We Two Parted mp3

Divorce Song mp3

I always wondered what kind of music Phair and Dulli would make if they dated.

Going To Town

This is an oldie, but I have always loved this song.

Afghan Whigs: Going To Town mp3.