Hotels 'On The Casino Floor' – My Old Kentucky Blog

Excerpt: “Remember when your punk-rock lesbian classmate made you a mixed tape and you heard Joy Division, Bauhaus and New Order for the first time? Remember how madly in love you fell with all things goth; the music, the fashion, the nocturnal romance of it all? Yet despite your new all-black wardrobe (totally slimming!) your mopester cred was deeply suspect due to your excitement over things like lip-gloss, good grades, and your awesome mom and dad. (Okay, that was me.) Then thankfully you discovered The Cramps, The B-52’s, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, whose combined sense of campy macabre gave you a much appreciated hall pass from that carefully studied affect of perpetual ennui you couldn’t quite pull off. (Again, me.) Well, today’s angsty yet absurdist post-punk fans can find similar respite in Seattle’s sci-fi rockers Hotels. Their newest single ‘The Bat Watusi’ (which, if you choose to love it based on the name alone, I will join you) is a tightly nuanced and ominous track filled with homage to the drive-in horror B-flicks of yesteryear. Not to mention the ghosts of Link Wray and Dick Dale lurking in the shadows. Though cinematic in scope, The Bat Watusi is frantic, sinister garage rock at its ass-shaking core. Is sci-fi-surf-noir a musical genre? No? I think when Hotels releases On The Casino Floor on February 23rd 2011, a concept album about the earth exploding in tandem with the grand opening of the first casino complex in space, perhaps it will be.”

MOKB