“ Fools like us could live like kings…” (“Get Steady”)

Jonny Lives! lush & dirty, glossy & gritty Lower East Side sound blares with an urgency that'll push you out of the way if you don't move with it.
 
“The East Village of NYC is our muse. People are up to no good every single night; they pack the bars and pour out into the streets. There's a copious amount of debauchery going on, and it's all inspiration for our music.”
 
That's Jonny Dubowsky, namesake and leader of Jonny Lives!. Hailing from the same scene that championed The Strokes, the Mooney Suzuki, Fountains of Wayne, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jonny Lives! takes cues from the Brit-pop, rhythm ‘n blues, and LES punk scenes of the 60's and 70's and updates it with unbridled, anthemic rock.
 
Christian Langdon (guitar/vocals), Tommy USA (bass), Jon Weber (drums) bring the noise with a delivery that articulates what's possible when a group of individually talented artists with obvious respect and affection for each other put it all together. Yes, Christian is “a Langdon” – the younger brother of a certified rock family – and Tommy USA laid down the groove on Liz Phair's White Chocolate Space Egg.
 
“We're enchanted with The Kinks, the Stones, and The Who,” says Jonny, who writes “little vignettes…I paint a situation out of thin air, play around with the characters, and tell whatever story I want to tell.”
 
U.K. rock journal NME Magazine said the band is “not just another bunch of well groomed Manhattanites… indeed Jonny does live.....but we had no idea he was in a shit-cool NY rock and roll band…On ‘Get Steady,' Jonny Dubowsky manages to sound exactly like 'Raw Power' era Iggy.” 
 
There is no higher praise than that, folks
 
Dubowsky, who attended NYU as a philosophy major, has been “inspired by great writers: Walt Whitman, Marcel Proust…I read a lot,” he chuckles. His own writing often produces “three or four a day” and always comes from whatever's going on…
 
”'Get Steady' came about after we'd just gotten back from a crazy time playing the UK. I started working out a riff that suddenly turned into this sleazy, psychedelic groove. It felt dirty to even play it – the song reeks of sex and booze.”
 
“Everybody's Trying to Break You Down,” on the other hand, was inspired by Yoko Ono's exhibition of interactive performance art at Carnegie Hall.
 
“She stood on stage wearing nothing but a burlap sack, and everyone in the audience came up and cut off a piece of the sack, bit by bit, until she was naked. The song is about a female bartender who hates where she is in her life, who feels like everybody is picking her apart, taking pieces of her. It's from the perspective of a guy who is in awe of her and doesn't understand why she's letting people treat her that way.”
 
“Cliché,” featuring some guest-star guitar cameos, is a night in the life of a New York summer…
 
 “It's fucking hot, sticky, muggy…and people are out for cheap one-night stands at that point. The whole sweaty sentiment, ‘You wanna fuck or fight?' It doesn't matter what story this guy tells. ‘It's a cliché/Everything I say/And all the games that we play/Every single day/You know you wanna.'” 
 
Road-testing in the UK proved Jonny Lives! is on to something. NME Magazine raved: “Jonny Dubowsky quakes like a hairless hellcat,” and “Jonny Lives! are so pant-droppingly brilliant that this reviewer has just been ordered to sex them down so you don't eat the magazine from sheer lust and excitement. So yes, ahem, Jonny Lives! Quite good. Ones to watch.”
 
With an impressive fan base for their live shows in the UK, a hand-full of impressive performance write-ups, and some fucking brilliant rock songs, Jonny Lives! is currently haunting the East Village – gigging, drinking, writing, and…living.
 
“There's a lot going on, and it mostly happens at 3am when everyone else is asleep. But not us. We're out every night writing about life as it happens.”  Here's your invitation to join them. 
 
For more info visit: www.myspace.com/jonnylives < http://www.myspace.com/jonnylives >