The Strokes
Biography
   Very few good bands have come out of New York in many years. In decades past, New York City gave birth to many great rock bands, TheVelvet Underground, Blondie, Television, New York City Dolls, to name a few. But recently the list had grown short.  Then the world met the Strokes.
     The Strokes are a five member band that have given hope to the New York rock scene. Three of them were born in New York, one moved there soon after he was born, and the third was from LA but moved to New York around 1998.
     The first two Strokes met in grade school. Julian Casablancas, the singer and main songwriter, met Nikolai Fraiture (who was to become the bass player) st the age of six, when there was a watermain break at their school.  Nikolai's parents were at work and he told Julian he had nowhere to go.  Julian invited him to come home with him and they became best friends.
      Julian's father is John Casablancas who started the Elite Modeling Agency, but Julian denies being a rich brat.  He never lived with his father, John Casablancas only paid for his schooling.  Including a brief stay at a boarding school in Switzerland, which was supposed to "fix" Julian's attitude and drinking problems. Julian hated it there, but it was where he first learned to appriciate music.  His stepfather sent him a cd,
The Best of the Doors, and he would listen to it over and over and says that it taught him what rock music was all about.  He also met Albert Hammond Jr. there.  They were the only Americans in the school at the time so they became friends.  Albert later became a guitarist in the band.
       Julian returned to New York after a year or two and attended high school in the city.  There he met Nick Valensi and Fabrizio Moretti.  Nick and Fab were in a band already, Nick on guitar and Fab on drums and they invited Julian to come to a rehersal.  Julian came and sang with them and stayed on as a band member.  Later, Nikolai came on board as a bass player, but Julian felt like there was something missing.  He wanted a second guitarist.  By this time Albert had moved to New York to attend film school.  He met up with Julian and joined the Strokes instead. 
       Their first gig was at a club called The Spiral.  There was a very small crowd, but over time the crowd grew and the Strokes moved to bigger and better venues.  The worked their way up the The Mercury Lounge where the made a very important friend, Ryan Gentles.  He worked for the Mercury Lounge at the time, but soon quit to manage the band.  He sent a demo to Geoff Travis of Rough Trade Records in England and halfway through the first song Travis offered to record an EP for them. The Modern Age EP was released in England and met with much critical praise.  The Strokes toured England extensivly.
        Meanwhile, back in the States there was a biding war among record companies, each trying to sign the Strokes to their label.  In the end RCA records won the Strokes began recording their debut album.
Is This It was set to be released in late September, but had to be recalled after the 9/11 attacks to replace a song New York City Cops. The song has nothing to do with cops, but the chorus has the line, "New York City Cops, ain't too smart."  The band felt it would be better to remove the song rather than have the album suffer from it. It was purely their decision.
         The LP was released in October and once again had large amounts of critical praise.  The Strokes fans grew and they were soon selling out venues with very little airplay.  They have done many tours of both the US and the UK and headlined both the Reading Festival and the Carling Festival in England. They plan to go back to the recording studio in December or January and have a new cd out soon after.