| Mikey Jukebox | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Rochester, New York, USA |
| Genres | Indie rock |
| Years active | 2008—present |
| Labels | Young Lion Of The West Recording Company |
| Associated acts | The Mercies, Longwave |
| Website | mikeyjukebox.com |
| Members | |
| Mike James | |
Mikey Jukebox is the musical project of Mike James based in Rochester, NY.[1] Before going solo, James was a member of the New York City based band Longwave. After leaving the group, he returned to Rochester to form The Mercies and eventually Mikey Jukebox [2] Mikey Jukebox's self-titled debut record is due out in the fall of 2010.[3] One thing's for sure, you won't need a spoonful of sugar to get this album to go down.[4]
Mikey James started out playing drums in clubs when he was only six. After learning guitar at the age of 16 with the help of his “pops” and Steve Schiltz (Longwave), he started writing and performing all the instruments on demos around the age of twenty. He’s since learned guitar, bass, drums, keys/synth, and percussion and spending years on his four track recorder, eventually coming into own as a producer of his own music as well as other bands, most recently The Demos.[5]
After playing drums for New York City’s post-punk band Longwave (for whom he wrote a few songs), and fronting The Blood, DJ Dick James/Footage, and, most recently, The Mercies, James has taken on the pseudonym Mikey Jukebox and hand-crafted his self-titled solo work Mikey Jukebox.
In October 2007, James began recording and mixing with Bill Racine (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Sparklehorse, Phantom Planet, Mates Of State, etc). However, he scrapped the project and started from scratch with John Hampton of Ardent Studios in Memphis mixing this time, and then scrapped it and started over again (for the last time) at GFI in James' hometown with Sam Polizzi. Such fastidiousness is typical of James, who has been known to accumulate 90 different tracks for one song and then start madly stripping everything down, and who will often tweak and re-tweak [6]
The musical references of Mikey Jukebox are too numerous to list, but suffice it to say that James is so skilled at synthesizing the disparate that the listener will be taken on a virtual tour of production values ranging from 1955 to today.
The song that is the biggest example of Mikey Jukebox’s perfectionism and smorgasbord of influences is “!Hello Dreamer!” There are four recorded versions of this song that James considers “some 70s teen idol song.” Of the song, James remarked, “I consider myself by all means a glam rocker at heart (T.Rex, Bowie, Roxy, Sweet, Kiss, Dolls, Transformer, Mott), and the song really lent itself to it in ways. In the end I was trying for an epic “Station to Station” (Bowie) thing production wise. A lot of the lyrics on the record have to do with being cursed with this idea of a needing to be a star and therefore trapped in surroundings that are unfit to compel yourself. This song sets the record up.”
Much of the songwriting was also influenced by a “50’s Memphis/Rock ‘N’ Roll” phase (Haley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Sun Elvis, Orbison, Jerry Lee) combined with a passion for Klaxons, CSS and a love for French House music and early Source Records.[7]