New York’s Post-Pop duo KOKO DOZO’s members — Amy Douglas and Polarity/1 — remember 9/11 well. P/1 shares a neighborhood with the fallen towers. They remember; and they know that you remember. That day will live on in our nation’s DNA. Death, destruction and the trauma of invasion generate a force of memory that is trivialized by media rituals with solemn speech-making, dazzling graphic design, dramatic background music and the droning subtext of fear and vengeance.

KOKO DOZO also want to point out that national tributes to The Fallen — the rendering of tragedy as fetish — inevitably lead to more death, less freedom and the assurance that healing will never occur. For the past seven years America has celebrated the nightmare of 9/11 with a ceaseless Dance of Death.What has gone unnoticed and unheralded are all of us who have remained alive and who breathe life into the future with wisdom gained from that day. We are not “heroes” and we do not lobby for the construction of monuments to ourselves. We do not inspire insane acts of aggression and repression. We are not sexy ad copy for political campaigns. Living fearlessly is our act of defiance against brutality. That is what ultimately will make us safe and prosperous.

KOKO DOZO proclaims that the daily act of living through tragedy is more worthy of a holiday than death and destruction. We’re alive! And we want to celebrate being alive on September 11. And on every September 11 to follow. Life springs from the living. Creativity springs from the living. Hope and possibility are the natural expression of life in motion.

KOKO DOZO has chosen to perform on 9/11 and they will not request a moment of silence. They want their audience to dance. They want everybody to go out and dance; to remember the dead and celebrate the living. Be alive! It feels good. KOKO DOZO proclaims that it’s ok to feel good. Especially on September 11.

Koko Dozo play Club NME on Thursday, Sept 11th, 2008 with Boy Wonder www.myspace.com/boywonder and more. Go to www.myspace.com/clubnmenyc for more on lineup. This show should not be missed.

http://www.kokodozo.com

The Red Plastic Buddha is Timothy Ferguson (vocals, bass), Todd Lazar (lead guitar), Todd Leiter Weintraub (rhythm guitar), David Kling (drums), Matt Walters (keyboards) and special guests include Pamela Richardson (backing vocals) who recently became a permanent member of the band, and Ric Salazar (lead guitar on “Kerosene”).

Ferguson calls their music gas soaked garage with heavy influences from the late great Syd Barrett. I tend to agree with that statement, and I heard a lot of great music on this recording. I am the kind of listener that bought the Nuggets box sets that covered this kind of music in depth. I love garage rock injected with psychedelic feedback. It is so pure and unencumbered by technology and the lyrics do not have to make any sense, it all sounds like a one big acid trip. This approach was intentional and it always gave bands a good excuse as to why the lyrics never made much sense. After all that is what that time was about, experimenting with everything to see what happened. Where would music be today if people like the Beatles and The Beach Boys did not have the brilliant minds and courage to reach beyond their own surroundings and capabilities? Certainly, there would be no Red Plastic Buddha.

Ferguson is a good lead singer and bass player. He will immediately sound familiar to you but you may not be able to put your finger on who he sounds like, I sure couldn’t and still cannot for some reason, all I know is that the familiarity brought about while listening to him sing is a comfort zone for me. As I listened this music grew on me in a positive way. This process helps me discover some of the greatest new music out there in the world of indies.

A culture and this music style are bubbling under the surface of everything that is going on in the industry right now. This music never went away; it just was taking a little nap. I think bands like this will help launch its reemergence and you will see teenagers all over the world picking up guitars and putting together bands like this, just like when this music first became popular. Things are quite different now and so is today’s youth…the one thing that never changes is the music. Red Plastic Buddha reinforces that with every song on the Sunflower Sessions.

“Forget Me Not” is a great opening tune and it would be a perfect single, actually every track I could envision getting spins on a radio, either traditional or internet radio. The only song that did not make any sense to me was “Gingerbread Pornography” but then again the singer says he is not making any sense anyway so that makes it ok. The formula for recreating this type of music was almost true to the time it was born. I actually could understand the message in five out of six songs, which is unusual. All the fun of this music is trying to figure out what they are singing about but most of the time the people making the music do not have a clue either, they are just playing and having fun so who cares? That is the whole point of going to the studio and laying down tracks and coming out with some great music. There is no need to come up with heavy politically charged statements and particularly meaningful words, just good rock and roll, some spacey esoteric messages, and a result that everyone involved is happy with, including all the listeners, which is what the band wants and the entire purpose behind what they do in the first place.

Artist: Red Plastic Buddha
Title: Sunflower Sessions
Genre: Garage Rock-Psychedelic
Label: Spade Kitty Records
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Tracks:
1. Forget Me Not
2. Rollercoaster
3. Clouds
4. Kerosene
5. Over and Over
6. Gingerbread Pornography

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Keith “MuzikMan” Hannaleck