Saturday, July 24, 2010

Semi Precious Weapons to Play S.S.M.F.

WeHoNews.com announced Thursday that Semi Precious Weapons would be part of the lineup at this year's Sunset Strip Music Festival they wrote:

"They all join previously announced headliner The Smashing Pumpkins as the boulevard is closed to traffic between Doheny Drive and San Vicente Boulevard and transformed into a premier concert destination with outdoor stages, beer gardens, a VIP lounge, food trucks, interactive experiences and live performances within the venues during the day.

Multi-Grammy award winning musician and noted actor Common, who has spent his career pushing boundaries and taking listeners out of their comfort zones with his socially conscious words, will close the East outdoor stage.

The street fest will also feature Semi Precious Weapons (whose appearance marks a break in their tour with Lady Gaga and a return to their Sunset Strip roots); Neon Trees (who “are excited to share the stage with such an amazing eclectic group of artists as well as have the time to become fans for the day”); Big B with special guests (known for his high caliber collaborations with guest performers, Big B will preview songs from his upcoming fifth studio album); and a larger than life performance by The Sunset Strip’s resident heavy metal band Steel Panther." 

The bitches in WeHo just got a little bit luckier. The third annual Sunset Strip Music Festival is set to take place on Aug. 26-28 of this year.


Photo Courtesy of Todd Owyoung

A Short Review of Semi Precious Weapons in Dallas

Steve Lee of the QuickSilver Interactive Group wrote this about his Dallas Monster Ball Experience!


" — The American Airlines Center endured the ultimate in crazy fandom last night for the first of two Lady Gaga concerts. Whatever I had prepared myself for it wasn’t nearly enough, because parading through Victory Park in all directions were Little Monsters donning leather, rubber, sequins, glitter, platforms boots, and balloon-covered bikinis. And those were just the boys! It was a delightful sensory overload of painted faces, shredded fishnet tights, and puffy bows. I was so pumped I didn’t even mind the $4.50 bottle of Aquafina.


Semi-Precious Weapons opened. The glam rock quartet from New York was nothing short of a shock and awe show that put an ear-to-ear Cheshire grin on my face. Some of the younger girls dressed in their latexed Gaga best seemed surprised by Semi-Precious Weapons' act but lovingly embraced the overtly sexual, sequined high heel-wearing frontman Justin Tranter and his pack of hysterically fun misfit bandmates. Tranter humped the stage in his flesh-toned spandex leggings and jiggled his ass as he proclaimed, “We’re here to get you beautiful, filthy Texans wet and excited for Lady Gaga!”


Their sound is definitely a nod to late ‘80s hair metal, with a bit of a New York Dolls twist in style and attitude. They were wildly entertaining to watch as Tranter led the packed AAC in a back and forth “LADY! GAGA!” chant to get them riled. Overall, Semi-Precious Weapons were a deliciously shameless and fascinating gender-bending alternative as the opening act. After SPW, I could only imagine we were in for complete insanity next."

Photos Courtesy of Todd Owyoung 

Semi Precious Diaries 13: UK Highlights

Monday, July 19, 2010

Don't Forget! Keep Requesting SPW on Alt Nation

 
Let's Take Our Boys To Number 1! Call, Tweet, E-mail and Facebook Alt Nation and ask them to play 'Semi Precious Weapons' by Semi Precious Weapons - It's the summer rock anthem for 2010!

CALL THEM!
1-888-426-4-ALT

Our Take on the Monster Ball


Hi loves,

It's A.J. and I am posting to let you know our take on the St. Louis Monster Ball. 

First off, the show was everything. My mind can't comprehend all the many adjectives you could use to describe how great the show was. But before the show was our actual trip down (or up, technically) we had a horrible experience with our hotel and travel arrangements, etc... and we were running extremely late (Go Fig.) but we finally got ready and ran down the street to the arena for the Semi Precious Street Corner Giveaway.  We got there about 10 Minutes late and saw our favorite boys there, signing stuff and taking pictures and needless to say... we both got extremely giddy and starstruck.  

I mean, for us, it was seriously a dream come true.  Jawsh and I have been listening to SPW for a reallly reallllllly long time and had never gotten the chance to meet them (since we've lived in podunk Kansas all our lives) and now that we were here - and they were right in front of us.. We had NO idea what to say.  But of course, they were extremely nice and we gave them a bottle of Veuve that we bought.  And met some fam and it was awesome to hear all the things they liked about the site.  It made me see that we are clearly the luckiest people on Earth to have contact with the most amazing group of musicians EVER!  After they went in for sound check, Jawsh and I just stood on the corner next to a man in a black studded mini with stilettos and an army helmet and we just had NOTHING to say.  I feel like it went by so fast.

But it was time for the show!  Starlight took the stage first and spun some great records - she really got the crowd warmed up - and she danced/drank/laughed the whole time. (Jawsh fell in love.) And she started playing 'I Could Die' and we freaked! She is a seriously talented artist.

Then it was time for our boys to take the stage - CREAM! - They played a sick-ass set.  Jawsh and I decided not to record the whole set, cause we wanted to sing and dance the whole time.  But we did get the intro! But first, check out this haute photo by Todd Owyoung of Justin getting myself and Jawsh 'Sticky'. We're in the lower corner of the pic takin that pagne!


We screamed, dance, sang, cried (all pretty terribly) but it was well worth it.  They're seriously some of the most energetic, fun-filled performers around. Jawsh caught Justin's sweaty towel (we missed the fetty necklace :( ) but at least we got the towel.

Then Lady Gaga took the stage and absolutely mind-fucked everyone. :)
In the end, we had a life-changing time.

Thank's SPW for making us feel comfortable in St. Louis.  We Love You. You Love You.
Aj & Jawsh XXXO

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Justin Talks SPW, The Tour, & The Fans


He's tall, blond and pretty, and can rock high heels and smoky eye makeup. Justin Tranter, the frontman for New York City's Semi Precious Weapons, knows how to put his personality into well-crafted rock 'n' roll songs - like those on the band's brash, sexy, dark and humorous new album, You Love You. Tranter, however, didn't necessarily hone his style and sound while studying at the prestigious Berklee College of Music.

"I did a singer-songwriter thing in college and I was boring myself to tears, let alone everyone else, but I didn't really understand why. I didn't really get it yet,'' says Tranter.

He and some friends from music school - bassist Cole Whittle and drummer Dan Crean (guitarist Stevy Pyne joined in 2008) - moved to New York City and formed Semi Precious Weapons in 2006.

"We got in a room and the first thing we wrote together was the `I can't pay my rent but I'm f---in' gorgeous' song (a.k.a., the eponymous track Semi Precious Weapons).Oh my god, this makes so much more sense,'' Tranter remembers thinking.

The raucous glam rock song Semi Precious Weapons leads off You Love You with swagger. Even the slower tunes are full of glam-rock attitude; the stunning piano ballad, Leave Your Pretty To Me, includes lyrics such as "with bottles and her mamma's cigarettes'' and ``gorgeous and passed out on the cement.''

"A little much? Not if you're a rock 'n' roller", says Tranter.

"These ridiculous, amazing, absurd things I say in real life, if I'm fronting a rock band and I'm not sitting at a piano, it actually makes sense and it's allowed to be humorous and over the top because there's a bad-ass rock band to back it up,'' Tranter says, and that discovery allowed Semi Precious Weapons to take off.
Funded by Tranter's equally rock 'n' roll jewelry line, Fetty, Semi Precious Weapons self-released its debut album, We Love You, in 2008, then re-released it on the Razor & Tie label. The band signed a deal with Interscope in November 2009, the same time they launched a yearlong tour as special guests of their friend Lady Gaga on her worldwide Monster Ball tour.

"It's interesting, because a lot of the kids have no clue who the f--- we are,'' Tranter laughs. ``But Interscope did have a three-song EP up, but that didn't even go up until we were about halfway through this tour. So it's been a slow but sure build.

But rock 'n' roll is allowed to take a little bit more time than pop music is. Can't complain. There were even a couple of people who said, `Oh, you shouldn't do a tour without an album out,' but if Lady Gaga wants us to open for her, we're not going to say no!'' he says.

And when they're not on stage, opening for Gaga, Tranter says he and his bandmates can often be found hanging around the merchandise table, talking with people.

"Until we got on this tour, we were the type of band that was also selling our own merchandise, driving ourselves to every single show, blah blah blah. And now that we're on this tour, you're not even allowed to (personally) sell your own merch, so we just go stand near the merch and sign things and take pictures and talk and chat and do that whole thing.''

So what kind of comments are they getting from the audience?

"My two favourite things that happen are: I love the 35-year-old drunk woman who's desperate to just have sex with one of us. They're always hysterical and can barely stand up,'' Tranter laughs. ``And then there's always amazing kids that, whether they're having some sort of gender confusion or whether they think that they're a loser, or whatever it is, the kids really, really get it.

They're like, `If you can be a man in heels and stand onstage and tell everyone that you're f---in' gorgeous, then I can be f---in' gorgeous, too.' So the two are very different fan responses, but they're both awesome.''

By Karen Bliss, Canwest News Service

Patrick Dear + Danni Davies Interview Justin Tranter





 Written by Danni Davies

Friday, July 9, 2010

Semi Precious Weapons: On The Verge

"While they claim not to follow astrology, Semi Precious Weapons certainly predicted the lives of most of this generation when vocalist Justin Tranter penned the lyric “I can’t pay my rent but I’m fucking gorgeous,” off the self-titled song that appears on SPW’s just-released major-label debut, You Love You. Things heated up at New York City’s Hudson Hotel (not just because it was 102 degrees) as Tranter and his bandmates (Dan Crean– drums, Stevy Pyne- guitar, Cole Whittle-bass) tell PV’s Joelle how the band went from rock bottom to bottoms up on tour with Lady Gaga in this two-part interview. Watch and try not to be jealous that Tranter can walk better than you in heels."
 




Source: Planetverge.com

Best Buy Never Looked So Beautiful

Semi Precious Weapons performed a 3 Song Set after doing an album signing at Best Buy in New York. They played Put a Diamond In It, Look at Me, and premiered Leave Your Pretty to Me (Much to our dismay because we wanted to hear it first.. but that's fine we'll get over it, eventually. It will just hurt for a while *tear*)












Photo Credit goes to the ever-amazing weapon: Meijin Bruttomesso

Semi Precious Covers!








Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Vintage Semi Precious Weapons & Lady Gaga

Check out this vintage poster, created by Tommy Couture, three years ago today - for a Semi Precious Weapons/Lady GaGa Show!

They've come such a long way, it's unreal! So proud of you guys!

xoxo
Semi Precious World
P.S. FOLLOW TOMMY ON TWITTER!!!!

Update: we are really proud of lady gaga and semi precious weapons.. we have no idea who stylofone is...

Young Hollywood: Behind The Scenes with Semi Precious Weapons

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Semi Precious Weapons Afterparty: Boston

Check out what Stuff Magazine: Boston had to say about the rockin' SPW After Party:

"What I learned last night: I really can't party like a rock star after all. I wore Z Cavaricci pants in middle school. Cocktails at Woodward are dangerous.

Last night, the Ames Hotel hosted a private after party with the Semi Precious Weapons, who opened for Lady Gaga at her TD Garden show.

The ultra glam rockers arrived fashionably late but made up for it for it by infusing the place with electric and contagious energy, throwing one hell of a fucking after party. I'll refrain from filling you in on how late we partied till (heaven forbid I get anyone in trouble here), but let's just say it was an incredibly unique evening/morning in our typically stodgy town.
Frontman Justin Tranter, played it up for the crowd with his wacky dancing, DJ-ing and nipple-exposing gestures. There was also a little leg kicking and bar-top dancing going on. Although totally entertaining and sort of hard to take your eyes off of, I was WAY more interested in hanging out with Dan Crean the Drummer and Shaun Hoffman, one of their tour managers. As it turns out, we were chums back in elementary school and junior high (also known as the penultimate breeding ground for most future rock stars thanks to raging hormones, pre-pubescent isolation, and constant sexual tension with members of the opposite sex), and it was SO FUCKING AWESOME to see them again! They were both sweet as pie then, and are still sweet as pie now. I was happy to find them unaffected by their newfound fabulous lifestyles (their ability to rage like a rock star at a killer afterparty notwithstanding). I also learned that although I was "nice" and "cool" as a kid, apparently I was also a bit if a snob, and Dan revealed that he was jealous of my super slick Z Cavaricci pants I sported with the sort of pride a frequent shopper of Contempo Casuals had back then. And yes, they were always pegged. 

After about 7 cocktails, I started doing that thing I do when I'm tipsy: I hug everyone in sight and tell them repeatedly how much I love them. Yeah, I'm that girl. But truly, who doesn't love a happy drunk? After telling both Shaun and Dan how proud I was to see them both rockin' life, I grabbed my Urban Daddy and split. Watching the room spin is never fun. Even when you're partying with rock stars.

 And while I may not be able to party like a rock star but after finding my bar tab (crushed into a ball at the bottom of my purse) this morning, I certainly can adopt one of the band's mantras: I can't pay my rent but I'm fucking gorgeous. Words to live by. Thanks, guys." - By


Here are some photos from the SPW Afterparty in Boston!:



2010 Monster Ball Tour Dates:

Sun 07/4 Atlantic City, NJ Boardwalk Hall
Tue 07/6 New York, NY Madison Square Garden
Wed 07/7 New York, NY Madison Square Garden*
Fri 07/9 New York, NY Madison Square Garden
Sun 07/11 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre*
Mon 07/12 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre*
Wed 07/14 Cleveland, OH Quicken Loans Arena
Thu 07/15/ Indianapolis, IN Conseco Fieldhouse*
Sat 07/17 St. Louis, MO Scottrade Center
Tue 07/20 OKC, OK Ford Center
Thu 07/22 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center*
Fri 07/23 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center
Sun 07/25 Houston, TX Toyota Center
Mon 07/26 Houston, TX Toyota Center
Wed 07/28 Denver, CO Pepsi Center
Sat 07/31 Phoenix, AZ US Airways Center
Tue 08/3 Kansas City, MO Sprint Center
Wed 08/11 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center
Thu 08/12 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center
Fri 08/13 Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand Garden Arena
Mon 08/16 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion *
Tue 08/17 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion *
Thu 08/19 Portland, OR Rose Garden Arena*
Sat 08/21 Tacoma, WA Tacoma Dome
Mon 08/23 Vancouver, BC General Motors Place
Tue 08/24 Vancouver, BC General Motors Place *
Thu 08/26 Edmonton, AB Rexall Place *
Fri 08/27 Edmonton, AB Rexall Place *
Mon 08/30 Saint Paul, MN Xcel Energy Center
Tue 08/31 Saint Paul, MN Xcel Energy Center
Thu 09/02 Milwaukee, WI Bradley Center
Sat 09/04 Auburn Hills, MI The Palace
Sun 09/05 Pittsburgh, PA Consol Energy Center
Tue 09/07 Washington, DC Verizon Center
Wed 09/08 Charlottesville, VA John Paul Jones Arena
Tue 09/14 Philadelphia, PA The Wachovia Center
Wed 09/15 Philadelphia, PA The Wachovia Center
Thu 09/16 Hartford, CT XL Center
Sat 09/18 Charlotte, NC Time Warner Cable Arena
Sun 09/19 Raleigh, NC RBC Center

*Indicates tour date with a special Semi Precious Weapons after-party. Check http://twitter.com/preciousweapons for more details. More after-parties to be announced.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Weapons Cover: Leave Your Pretty to Me!







If you have any Semi Precious Weapons covers that you want featured on the site or you know someone who does PLEASE email us at semipreciousworld@gmail.com or contact us on twitter at www.twitter.com/spwworld --- Send in pictures or videos of ANYTHING Semi Precious Weapons Inspired you to create and we'll feature it on the site!

Semi Precious Street Corner Giveaway!



Make sure you & your friends arefollowing Semi Precious on Twitter for all Contest Details so you can not only get the chance to meet SPW but to also get the chance at two FREE Monster Ball Tickets!

Friday, July 2, 2010

The First Time I Saw Semi Precious Weapons by DJVH1


 In the spring of 2007 I needed a job. I talked the owners of Pianos in the Lower East Side into letting me have Sunday nights.  Most of my good friends were DJs and bartenders and waitresses and GoGo girls—we spent our weekends dancing for dollars and we had no place to go on our night off.  Pianos used to close around 1:30am on Sundays.


The bar backs used to call Sundays “Suicide Sundays” because they made no money—so we kept the name.  But once a month we had “Posse Night” which included any number of Lower East Side bands and DJs (sometimes they were interchangeable).


That night I put Gaga in charge of getting her own opening bands for the night.  She showed up with a posse of her own friends, carting equipment and disco balls, straight from Gaga’s house three blocks away.


Lady Starlight came in, buzzing somewhat with fresh make up ringing her eyes.  Our friend Dino acted as their roadie, carting a keyboard and a disco ball.  - “Are you excited?” I aksed.
“Yes I can’t wait this is going to be the best show ever!!” she gave me a big hug.
“Did you get an opening band?”
“Yes, but Starlight has to work tomorrow at nine.  So we’re going on first.” 

“Really?" Wait. The only band we know with a major label deal wants to open up for a bunch of boys from Boston who just started their band? They don’t even have a record yet. “Look, you can charge whatever you want at the door, because it all goes to the bands. Normally I have a guy doing the door and he writes down who is there to see which band and you get the full cover. But tonight he’s DJ’ing upstairs for this new party called Red Light District and Tali De’Mar is GoGo dancing.”
“No cover.  No money.  I just want to play.”
“And the other bands are okay with that?”
“Yes.”
 Right then Justin Tranter from Semi Precious Weapons walked in with this guy I know who owns a clothing boutique in Greenpoint called Alter.  Justin clomped in with a big smile on his face, wearing two pairs of panty hose and a ripped t-shirt.
“Can you believe I got them to play?” Gaga shrieked with joy.
Starlight got set up as soon as they got there so that she could finish up in time.  At that time she was a makeup artist and she had to be up for work in just a few hours. Normally if the party goes well I get stuck up front, dealing with the drunks and the DJs (oftentimes the same problem).
Tonight when everyone went in to the live room we realized: We had no DJ.  One was supposed to start at 10, but where was he?
I walked into the live room to look for him.
Inside, a rose-lit Lady Gaga had half the Lower East Side wrapped around her little mic-cord. 
I had known her for a long time by then, but I'd never seen her perform like this before.  She connected with the entire audience, cheered on by this giant, bleach blonde creature named Justin from Semi Precious Weapons.
She played the living shit out of her synth and sang a pitch-perfect song about being 20 (now 21) and confused and in love.  It never got released.  “Wunderful.”
If I fell in love with you would you understand me dear?
Love is weird.
I colored you a valentine, struggled just to stay inside the lines
I lose my mind.
I really can’t believe I lost myself again.
My voice caught in my throat and right then I caught this look from Gaga as she looked into my wide eyes.  She smiled back at me as if to say, “Thanks for noticing, buster.”  *Wink.*
 On the way back to the bar St. Michael looked at me.  “What just happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Where’s the DJ for later?”
“He wasn’t back there.”  I’d forgot to look.  “Wait.  Let me double check just to be sure.”
Shameless excuse.  I couldn’t pull my ears away from such a beautiful voice.
The felsic crowd erupted to the appreciative singer.  Starlight cued up another record and dropped in Gaga’s Lollapalooza hit “Blueberry Kisses,” a little ditty about needing some “muffin-lovin’.”
 After the show Starlight walked up with her record bag and her coat on.  “I have to get to bed, honey.  I love you.”  
Semi Precious Weapons started tuning up on stage.  Justin pulled Gaga into the live room in back and shut the sound proof door.
Just then I heard an explosion coming from the back.  A sonic valve churned out a crag of guitar.  Pint glasses shook under the taps.  People outside smoking squinted through the windows to find what they heard.  At the bar you couldn’t hear the drinks people ordered, I ran in back to investigate.
On stage that little bottle blonde baby gawked at his audience and put on the singer equivalent of a bass-face, sneering through his makeup. 
The guitar went on. 
The drums materialized in perfect succession as if the amp feedback had stirred them to life. 
Justin screamed into the microphone the one perfect line that resonated with ever soul in the room, “I can’t pay my rent, but I’m fucking gorgeous.”  That line is so personally effacing, that hearing it out loud- for once, matters more than reading it written down.
Gaga stood off to the side of the stage, head-banging her then-dark mane all around the room.
I walked back into the bar, which had completely emptied by then.  The manager ran over to me, hanging up this little pink Razr phone we had that forwarded calls to us when we couldn’t hear the phone in the office,  “Brendan, we can’t have this,” the manager shouted.  “Heavy metal on a Sunday night?  The neighbors are complaining; I have the sound guy cutting all the mics and the drums are a capella right now and it’s still too loud.”
“They said they wanted to use their own Marshalls,” I gave him a very cartoonish shrug.
“We have to do something.”
The manager shook his head, “We have no GoGo dancer for the new upstairs party, she didn’t show up.  Now you’ve got this noise.  There's a guy across the street hurling potted plants at us off his fire escape, shouting death threats if we don't turn it down.”
I went back into the live room.  A mist of hot breath and sweat danced in the stage lights.  Justin finished singing and took a deep breath, pacing up and down the stage in his two pairs of panty hose, wiping the sweat from his forehead, “Whoooo, what a wonderful, hot sweaty gig we have here tonight.  I think I’m going to lose fifteen pounds up here.”  Everyone laughed and I thought how great it was to see after dealing with all these bands that take themselves too seriously. 
He was like the Lower East Side Sinatra.
I walked back outside after talking to Gaga for a second.  The manager pumped me for answers as the soundproof door shook to an early incarnation of ‘Magnetic Baby’
“Did you get them to turn it down?”
“What can we possibly do?” I said.  “They only have four songs.  Total.  Wait it out.”
 The boys of Semi Precious Weapons belched out of the live room in a vomit of hairspray, glitter and glaMOUR.  Every eye - every-single-eye that came out of that room kept focused and smiling on one person who had performed.  Former lab partners who came to see Gaga as a favor became converts to SPW.  Alex Magnetic—a prominent scenester and muse at the time—became the inverse convert to Lady Gaga. 
This was, in the very purest sense of the word, the beginning of a scene.  And because none of us belonged anywhere, and a Sunday night free show - to some seriously broke kids can mean the world at the right time—we will always have this to remember. 
Every band on the roster that night literally did it for one reason.  They were doing it for the fame.
Gaga later wrote about it for ‘Vanity’ which later came out at a bonus-track and on the Australian version of “The Fame.”


Midnight at the glamour show on a Sunday night.
Everybody drank a lot of whiskey and wine.
We dance like no tomorrow; we’re on burlesque time.
But everybody’s gotta work tomorrow at nine.
Normally when a band finishes in the LES everyone goes outside for a smoke or they rush the bar for another drink.  But when Gaga found out that they had no GoGo dancer upstairs she ran up there to take her place.  A legion of neo-devotees of both bands followed her upstairs, leaving the main floor completely empty.
I ran up behind her as she strode over to the GoGo platform.  “What are you doing?”
“These guys need a GoGo dancer.  And I am a GoGo dancer.  The show must go on, yeah.” She she gave me a huge smile and mounted the GoGo platform with Justin and the rest of the boys cheering her on.

Artisan News Talk Semi Precious Street Corner Giveaway!

Pardon all the outdated photos. Tisk Tisk Artisan News.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Happy Late Birthday Dan!... Again

Big LATE Happy Birthday to Dan of Semi Precious Weapons!


Our blog is supposed to post Happy Birthday messages automatically but it fucked up! Dan's B-Day was the 27th! Hope You Got LAID!!!!

Semi Precious Weapons Full Cherrytree Session









Videos Courtesy of: Cherrytree Records & MonsterWeap0n