"Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art."
Photo: Bedder/Getty With the Strokes in the studio hard at work on their long-awaited follow-up to First Impressions of Earth, frontman Julian Casablancas has reiterated drummer Fab Moretti’s prediction about when the album will be released, telling the Chicago Tribune, “I think it’ll be out in September.” Casablancas added, “I’ve written a lot of melodies for it, but the other guys have also contributed a lot more: melodies, choruses, parts. It’s way more collaborative. So it’ll have a different feel than our other albums.” As Rolling Stone reported last month, Moretti labeled the band’s recent studio sessions a “free for all” of musical ideas.
The Strokes have been rumored to be among the six headliners at this year’s Lollapalooza festival, and Casablancas told the Tribute the news is in fact true. The Tribune predicts the reunited Soundgarden, Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, Green Day and Phoenix will also play Perry Farrell’s annual event, but the festival has yet to confirm this potential lineup. Lollapalooza traditionally unveils its list of performers around April 10th.
It promises to be a busy summer for the Strokes, as the New York rockers have already lined up headlining slots at four European musical festivals this summer: Rockness, South Side, Hurricane and Isle of Wight. Casablancas is also still in the midst of touring in support of his solo album Phrazes for the Young.
The mind-bending new video for Julian Casablanca’s “11th Dimension,” the first single off the Strokes frontman’s solo album Phrazes for the Young, debuted at Babelgum today. Inspired by Bruce Lee’s Game of Death, the video finds Casablancas literally jumping dimensions, from colonial times to the neon ’80s to what looks like a Dexy’s Midnight Runners video, where Casablancas’ character finds himself embroiled in moral dilemmas. It’s confusing unless you’ve memorized Phrazes‘ themes to heart, but we have a soft spot for anything that simultaneously reminds us Tron and Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon. The clip was also directed by Warren Fu, a former LucasArts art director who previously helmed the Strokes’ alternate “You Only Live Once” video.
The New York quintet, who scored Rolling Stone’s Number Two Album of the 2000s with Is This It, are reportedly set to continue work on their much-anticipated new album in the new year, and have a headlining slot at Isle of Wight already planned. Still, Casablancas has set aside some January 2010 dates to bring Phrazes to select East Coast venues. Check out the dates below:
Jan. 8 – Boston, MA / Paradise Rock Club
Jan. 10 – Philadelphia, PA / The Trocadero
Jan. 12 – Washington, DC / 9:30 Club
Jan. 14-15 – New York, NY / Terminal 5
The Strokes have announced their first gig in over three years, grabbing the Saturday night headlining slot at the U.K.’s Isle of Wight Festival on June 11-13, 2010. New York City acts will have a big presence at the fest across the Atlantic as both Jay-Z and Blondie are also on the bill. Pink, Orbital and Squeeze will also perform at the fest. Jigga is no stranger to playing the British music festivals having already headlined Glastonbury in 2008, and the U.K. has already proven their love of the Strokes, with the NME naming the band’s debut Is This It the best album of the decade. Rolling Stone’s own decades poll will come out December 8th — and voting in our Readers Poll wraps today, so hurry and get those votes in!
Pending the announcement of any more dates, it’ll be the NYC quintet’s first gig since October 2006. Following their tour behind First Impressions of Earth, the bandmembers splintered into offshoots like Nickel Eye, Little Joy and Albert Hammond Jr. and Julian Casablancas’ namesake solo projects, but now there’s finally confirmed evidence that the Strokes’ long hibernation may be coming to an end. According to bassist Nikolai Fraiture’s Twitter, the band will reportedly reenter the studio in Los Angeles in January to continue work on their fourth album. The news comes after Casablancas admitted the band had a “disagreement” over the direction of the songs they had written.
Photo: Bedder/Getty 
