In light of recent events, it is appropriate to feature this superb 2006 release from
Blow Up Hollywood.
Blow Up Hollywood’s third studio album,
The Diaries of Private Henry Hill, is based on the journals of a young soldier who died tragically in
the Iraq War. This concept album narrates a first-hand account of the
transformation of a real man from citizen to soldier to killer to
martyr.
The Diaries of Private Henry Hill is Blow Up Hollywood’s follow-up to the critically heralded 2004 album
Fake.
Blow Up Hollywood is an underground American rock
band. Their eclectic sound, built over a decade of recording,
incorporates many different styles, diverse as progressive rock,
post-rock, experimental, pop, classical, jazz and ambient soundscapes.
Founded by Steve Messina and Nik Chinboukas in 2001, the group has
evolved into more of a collective than a band, as some of their members
have changed over the years.
Their debut, self-titled CD, is a concept album about death and the
afterlife. The CD was recorded in a beach house in West Hampton, New
York, over the course of three weeks in March 2001, and was released the
following year. Originally the recording was intended to be just a
“musical vacation” amongst friends who had performed and recorded
together in various groups and projects throughout the years. But after
hearing the results, and enjoying the collaboration, they decided to
release it, with Blow Up Hollywood as their moniker.
Their sophomore CD, Fake, was released in 2004, and garnished critical acclaim.
In September 2004,
John Diliberto, the host of the radio show
Echoes,
ran a feature on the band and had them perform live on air, bringing
them national attention. That same year their live version of the song
“beyond the stars” was included on the Echo’s compilation CD, alongside
artists
Yo-Yo Ma, Kai King, and
Will Ackerman.
Stars End – A one track ambient improvisation, was recorded live on November 14, 2004, at
WXPN in Philadelphia. The CD is titled after Chuck Van Zyl’s show
Star’s End which
has aired every Saturday night since 1976. “We asked Chuck what we
should play, and he gave us free reign. So we improvised for an hour”,
one of the band members stated.
In 2006 the band released what would become their most popular CD,
both nationally and internationally. With the debate over the war in
Iraq raging, the band released another concept album,
The Diaries of Private Henry Hill.
Based on the journal entries of a young, deceased soldier from the Iraq
war, Blow Up Hollywood takes us on Private Henry Hill’s surreal journey
as he joins the army out of necessity rather than patriotism.
That same year the album was released,
Amy Goodman, the host of the news show
Democracy Now! (a
daily TV/radio news program, airing on over 900 stations, pioneering
the largest community media collaboration in the United States)
championed the band and the video for the song
WMD, playing it repeatedly on her show for weeks.
Rachael Maddow, the then host of
The Rachael Maddow show on
Air America Radio, also invited the band to perform live and discuss the CD. And many other songs from the Diaries record were featured on
NPR‘s program
All Things Considered.
In 2008, the band was invited by Tomas Young (an injured American soldier from the Iraq war ) and
Eddie Vedder (the lead vocalist of the American rock band
Pearl Jam) to have
WMD included on the compilation soundtrack to the documentary film
Body of War, alongside
Bruce Springsteen,
Neil Young,
Tori Amos,
Tom Waits,
Roger Waters (founding member of
Pink Floyd), and Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam.
In 2011 Steve Messina, Nik Chinboukas and Thad Debrock joined forces
to write, produce, and record with photographer and conceptual artist
Andres Serrano, with Blow Up Hollywood as his backing band. They
released the recording under the name Brutus Faust.
In the second half of tonight's show, we will feature Tehran musician, Reza Solatipour, and his 2019 dark ambient release,
The Gate. Our thanks to Raffaele Pezzella and the Unexplained Sounds Group for providing us with a promotional copy of this album.
It came
clear, in recent years, that drone & dark ambient music from Iran
made a considerable statement among the followers of this music genre.
Reza Solapitour, from Tehran, was among the most talented Iranian
projects alongside with Xerxes The Dark, Alphaxone, idft. His music was
published on the prestigious compilation “Visions of Darkness” curated
by Raffaele Pezzella and co-released by Unexplained Sounds Group / Cold
Spring Records.
soundcloud.com/rezasolatipour
unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/album/visions-of-darkness-2cd-edition
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