Organ Magazine mentions Cult With No Name Release

ALSO CHECK OUT
CULT WITH NO NAME - mellow, warm two piece balladeers with warm, subtle electric piano/keyboards and a Scott Walker flavour or two to add to their Pet Shop feel. They’re from London, they have a certain restrained dramatic style that’s worth a moment or two - www.cultwithnoname.com

Cult With No Name Receives Favorable London Press

Nosferatu DVD Coming Soon

Jackson Del Rey does it again...He writes a new film score for the 1922 silent horror film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens ("Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror"). As in Battleship Potemkin, Del Rey & The Sun Kings perform the dark haunting music for the original adaptation to Bram Stoker's Dracula. Directed by F.W. Murnau.

Due to be released in November 2007, check the record label website for more details: http://trakwerx.com/label.htm

HARP REVIEWS BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN CD

Jackson Del Rey was a founding member of L.A. experimental rock combos such as Savage Republic and 17 Pygmies. If you’re familiar with these bands, you’ll understand this gives him a very good pedigree for undertaking his new project – creating a soundtrack for Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 silent film about a shipboard food protest that results in carnage, and brings the seeds of revolution to the port city of Odessa. Instrumental, incorporating a variety of Del Rey’s expected pan-national musical influences, and relentlessly dark, this is wonderfully crafted chamber prog of the highest order. The disc is beautifully packaged, and a great addition to Del Rey’s canon. He was off the music scene for a decade and a half, and it’s nice to have him back.

By Byron Coley
First printed in November 2007

Battleship Potemkin Review Hits Top 10!

Del Rey & The Sun Kings "Battleship Potemkin" has just been featured in RODEO ITALY (Milan) as among the best 10 Records of the month.

With "Nosferatu" being released later this month, they are sure to receive more attention in Italy.

17 Pygmies is NOW The 17th Pygmy

Approximately eight months from their last release (Groundhog Day to Halloween to be exact) The 17th Pygmy has indeed released Ballade of Tristram’s Last Harping their second full length CD in less than one year (somewhat different than the band’s previous 17 year hiatus between releases, eh?) Formerly and perhaps to be known again someday (you never know) as 17 Pygmies, the seventeenth pygmy (Jaxon Del Rey) decided that The 17th Pygmy (are you still following?) was a name that better reflected the ‘60s Psychedelic -70’s Classic Rock direction of the new recordings. Think The 17th Floor Elevator or perhaps The Exploding Plastic Inevitable Pygmy. Consisting of original 17 Pygmies and Savage Republic member Jaxon Del Rey, Jeff Brenneman (formerly of White Glove Test) on Guitars, returning classical Guitarist and now vocalist Meg Maryatt, former Swivelneck and White Glove Test member Tony Davis on Bass, and Drummer Dirk Doucette from you guessed it…White Glove Test, The 17th Pygmy have combined their unique talents to create a musical tribute to the style and inventiveness of some of their favorite music, namely ‘60s Psychedelia and ‘70s Classic Rock. Specific musical touchstones will be found in Phil Spector, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, the Kinks, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and although somewhat out of the box, but to be honest, Nick Cave (the band just loves the guy) are all paid homage to in one way or another as part and parcel of the musical pastiche that is Ballade of Tristram’s Last Harping.

17 Pygmies slated to play IPO Los Angeles

International Pop Overthrow 2007 - Los Angeles

See details below

Tuesday, August 7: Spaceland
1717 Silverlake Blvd.
Los Angeles 323 661-4380
www.clubspaceland.com
$8

8:30 Io Perry
9:00 The Unbearables
9:30 17 Pygmies
10:00 The Red Button
10:30 Astra Heights
11:00 The Prix

17 Pygmies YOUTUBE Videos on Brainwashed

17 Pygmies REVIEWS, VIDEOS AND MORE...

Check out the link below to see live interviews with Jackson Del Rey, WZBC live performances and the LIVE SHOW at P.A.'s Lounge in Boston.

http://brainwashed.com/

lucidculture REVIEWS 17 PYGMIES LIVE SHOW IN BOSTON

Concert review: 17 Pygmies at PA’s Lounge, Somerville, MA 5/25/07
May 27th, 2007

Following Randi Russo and her band is never easy, but long-running California act 17 Pygmies proved more than worthy of the task. The band setup for the current tour includes three guitarists, including Jackson Del Rey (ex-Savage Republic) on Strat as well as a 12-string acoustic player and their frontwoman switching back and forth between acoustic guitar and accordion. If it’s possible for a sometimes quirky, often transcendentally beautiful art-rock band to slay, 17 Pygmies slayed.


They opened with a couple of tunes set to a pummeling surf beat, the second with a ridiculously long title (edited version: Sammy Hagar Saves Los Angeles from Godzilla). It didn’t sound anything like the Hag or Godzilla – in fact, it was a dead ringer for Misirlou up until the chorus – but it was the perfect opportunity for Del Rey to show off his devious wit. Then they got serious.


The rest of the set was mostly new material from their new album 13 Blackbirds (their first release since the 80s), as well as some unreleased songs. 17 Pygmies alternated lush, ornately arranged art-rock anthems with quieter, introspective, pastoral fare featuring a lot of fingerpicked classical guitar. With the clang and chime of the 12-string carrying the melody and Del Rey’s nimble, sometimes minimalist leads and fills hovering and circling around, they brought to mind other great, artsy jangle bands like the Church, the Byrds, Fairport Convention or the late, great Wirebirds. Mixing major and minor chords, verses that built slowly to towering refrains and then subsided again, the band held the small but attentive audience spellbound. If the live show is any indication, the new album must be amazing. This is a band you should get to know.
They ended their hourlong set with a psychedelic Kinks cover and then a suitably volcanic, seven-minute take on the Neil Young classic Cortez the Killer which Del Rey attacked with appropriate frenzy when it came time to solo, chopping at the fretboard with a fury that would make Old Neil proud, using his effects pedal to get a watery, chorus effect that effectively set this version apart from the millions of others.


http://lucidculture.wordpress.com/2007/05/27/concert-review-17-pygmies-at-pas-lounge-somerville-ma-52507/

17 Pygmies Available on iTunes

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO DOWNLOAD "13 BLACKBIRDS"

iTunes