Music Feature Archives...............................
LEN
Music Feature of the Week for the Week of 8/29/99
I was listening to the radio the other day, when this song came on. It was something about sunshine and the first thing that came to my mind was The Brady Kids' "Sunshine Day". How gay, right? Well, I heard it a few more times and finally noticed that it was a pretty cool song and group so here they are as my music feature of the week, Len. This is from MTV News.
"Somewhere in Ontario, a twisted mixture of punk and pop was brewed up by
a motley crew of hip-hop, funk, and Kraftwerk fans whose collective
interests and influences bubbled over, demanding more than their
homemade indie label could manage. Len's breakthrough LP, "You Can't
Stop the Bum Rush," was born, buoyed by the strength of its bright-eyed
single, "Steal My Sunshine."
Len co-founders (and siblings) Sharon and Marc Costanzo started off
playing punk rock, but hip-hop fandom took over, inspiring them to
exchange the instruments they could barely play for samples and beats.
Rechristened The Burger Pimp ("It's the difference between Burger King,
which you basically sell burgers, and Burger Pimp, which you make money
from burgers," he explains), he and his sis hooked up with friends D.
Rock, Planet Pea aka Kudu5, DJ Moves, and the Drunkness Monster and
proceeded to release one EP and two LPs on their own Four Ways To Rock
label. Now, with "Bum Rush," Len has put together a "compilation of
songs," as Sharon calls it, running the gamut from German electro ("The
Hard Disk Approach") to '70s AM radio guitar rock ("Feelin' Alright),
from '60s mod pop ("Cheekybugger") to soulful easy listening
("Junebug"), complete with Herb Alpert-esque trumpet. And then, there's
that candy-coated single. "Some people bought the record and complained
about the rest," The Burger Pimp explains. "They're saying, 'You guys
really screwed us on this record. You made "Sunshine," the rest of it's
not what I want to hear." I can't help those people." MTV News caught up
with Sharon and The Burger Pimp to shoot the shinola about the group's
love for genre-hopping, its friendly, casual, and chemical approach to
recording, and the siblings' unusually, uh, "close" brother-sister
relationship. Get ready to groove on the flow. "
-MTV News