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Buzz Watch: DataRock Rocks the Troubadour

Authored by Jay Baage on June 15, 2007 - 5:07pm.
Datarock Norwegian funny rockers Datarock sold out the Troubadour in West Hollywood on Wednesday. A great energetic performance and lyrics about playing video games on old-school computer “Commodore 64” made the crowd go wild. Datarock is an event-band. What do I mean by this? Well, it is a band that is best appreciated live. In a digital age, we sometimes need an antidote to watching music videos on YouTube or listening to a band on MySpace.

Since 2000, over the course of 330 shows in 17 different countries, Norwegian duo Datarock’s live act has featured up to 32 people, from a marching band, dancers and a men’s choir to heavy metal musicians and jazz instrumentalists. Now they are signed to Nettwerk, a large Vancouver, British Columbia based record label and music management firm.

In a recent interview with Montreal Mirror, band member Fredrik Saroea, explained how he came up with the bands unique sound and style after running across a toy called Mix-Me DJ (a preprogrammed sequencer with built-in rhythms and a collection of sounds) in a store. The Datarockers list their major artistic influences as Devo, Talking Heads and the Happy Mondays. Creativity is a funny thing and what is “cool” is ultimately up to the audience. These guys have a firm grip on that.

“The weirdest thing is that people like it. I don’t know what we should gather from that! That’s the problem with stuff like this. When you have a new thing, you don’t exactly know what to compare it to. And the kids eat it up, obviously, because they want the newest thing around. But I actually don’t dislike being associated with it. Because now we’re doing excessive touring and I’ve gotta say one thing—of all the different crowds you can play for, the crowd that comes to that kind of show is just the best to play for. It is 2007 and a lot of bands are just too orthodox, too conservative, and I think what’s happening with these bands is that it’s a nice mix of so many different aspects of music culture. So hopefully what Datarock is doing is transcending these ephemeral trends.”

Joakim Baage
tags: Marketing | Music | Nettwerk | Troubadour | Datarock |



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