The Black Lips went to Iraq god damn it! So that was the whole plan behind this ‘Arabia Mountain’ album? The Atlanta guys are just coming back from the whole Middle East grand tour, stopping in the Emirates, Lebanon, Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Dubai, and Noisey sent a camera crew, producing this 9-minute video to document the action. You can watch it below while waiting for a full length documentary in the works by filmmaker Bill Cody.
Dubai people were actually happy because, as these two women say at one point of the video, they only got bands which were popular in the 80s and got bankrupted! An indie band is a no-see in Arabia. And you thought that Dubai was cool with all its impressive luxury whereas the music scene sucks!
So the Black Lips brought their indie savage garage-rock all over the places, eating local food in Iraq markets, skiing indoors inside this insanity that is a mall in Dubai, walking by Egypt great pyramids – not the ones in Las Vegas! –studying street graffiti in Cairo, getting in touch with the population and the political upraising climate…. and visibly having a lot of fun. The Black Lips are some unusual guys, they actually had some guts to go to places where American are not very welcomed… Talk about touring out of the indie comfort box!
But they are back in the US, and they will stop in my neighborhood soon. Check out these dates:
Mar 13-17 Austin, TX SXSW
Mar 18 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall
Mar 19 Felton, CA Don Quixote's International Music Hall
Mar 20 Santa Barbara, CA Soho
Mar 21 Los Angeles, CA El Rey Theatre
Mar 22 Santa Ana, CA The Observatory (Burgerama II)
Mar 23 & 24 San Diego, CA Casbah
April 6 Tempe, AZ, Marquee Theater