The job I was holding down in the first few years of the 21st century involved long hours, a fair bit of travelling and a requirement to drop things/change plans at very short notice. I loved it, but the downside was that there wasn’t a great deal of leisure time and it was a period when, for instance, I was going to very few football games as my Saturdays and Sundays were precious.
One of the few ways I was able to keep up with new music was through flopping down on a couch and turning on the television to browse through the video music channels, more often than not settling on MTV2 which was best for the sort of indie/alternative nonsense that was my forte.
It was via this medium that I came across this piece of music:-
mp3 : The Raveonettes – Attack of The Ghost Riders
The video was something to be behold, being a horror/ghost/revenge story, shot entirely in black and white with the two singers/performers looking as if they had just stepped off the catwalk of some fashion show in a top class European city. I had no idea who The Raveonettes were – my hunch was that they were American, mistly likely from either NYC or LA – but I made a mental note to buy something the next time I was in a shop. Of course, nowadays I could just press a few keys into a search engine to find out more and then a few minutes later place an order which would come to my house or place of work within a couple of days, but this was the prehistoric era back in 2002……
It was a huge surprise to learn that The Raveonettes were from Denmark. It was less of a surprise to learn that this was their debut single that had been lifted from a mini-album that had crept out a few months previously. The biggest surprise, however, was seeing that the band were on Columbia Records, one of the largest multi-national labels on the planet, although I should have realised that no small and independent label would have been able to fund the promo video:-
The single was issued on 7” vinyl and on CD. Here’s the various, and all highly enjoyable, b-sides:-
mp3 : The Raveonettes – Rebel Invasion
mp3 : The Raveonettes – Go Girl Go
mp3 : The Raveonettes – Demon’s Fire
The Raveonettes blend of surf/garage/indie proved to be reasonably popular, slightly above mere cult status but never gaining full commercial acceptance. Columbia let them go in 2005 after two albums, but there have been six records since, initially released on the Canadian-based Vice Records and more recently on their own Beat Dies label. There’s been some more than decent stuff over the years, but nothing has ever quite grabbed me in the same way as the debut.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
I fell hard for The Raveonettes on the strength of this single
I can’t remember what made me buy the album when it came out. Did I hear it on the radio? Did I see something on the telly? Did I hear it in a shop? Or did I just buy it on spec? Whatever, I loved this and was mildly disappointed by the shift to a major key for the follow-up. A great debut certainly. (Although I prefer “Do You Believe Her”.)
Saw them at King Tut’s for the first time around the release of this single and they started and finished with the most incredible cover or the Everly Brothers Everyday, pure white noise and then those lovely harmonies. Never missed them after that. They blew the mixing desk one night, well they didn’t, the condensation in the Hut was so bad that the continual dripping shorted the desk and that was it. I like all of their stuff but they never were as good on record as they were live. When they were touring as a four piece with the jazz drummer and the off his tree other guitarist, Manoj Ramdas they were magic.
Below is a live version of Everyday from Roskilde not the Wah Wah Hut but you get the jist, it was always loud
https://app.box.com/s/moem1l68tfk7zwiy1ssle8vqbqz4o5it.
Btw they had a great run of singles, That Great Love Sound and Dead Sound are my favourites but their Christmas song used by Dobies Garden Centres for an advert, which had me spitting my beer out the first time I saw the add, is brilliant and Ode To LA with the Ronnie Spector guest appearance makes up for the terrible lyrics.
The Raveonettes, love them, they need to tour again. The last time they were in Glasgow was Oran Mor 7 years ago last Saturday when James Allen joined them on stage
Deserving of substantially more credit than they received. It’s a remarkable skill to take musical influences from one era and make that sound your very own. They achieved it.
midget submarines comes to mind