The Section Quartet preview

The Section Quartet
Kinetic Playground, Chicago
Friday, November 9, 2007

Chances are you’ve heard The Section Quartet without even knowing. Unless, that is, you’ve never heard a song by Foo Fighters, A Perfect Circle, Maroon 5, Kanye West, James Blunt, or Christina Aguilera, just a few of the many big names Section Quartet have worked with.

Though there is no guitarist, or bassist, or drummer, or hip-shaking frontman, The Section Quartet call themselves a rock band. It’s in their bio, in the liner notes of this year’s Fuzzbox (“TSQ recommends playing this album at an inappropriately loud volume. Because rock + roll sounds better that way”), and on their Myspace page, where “rock” is the only genre description chosen. Eric Gorfain, Daphne Chen, Leah Katz, and Richard Dodd prefer to be called a rock act and not a “classical” group, which most bands comprising two violinists, a violist, and a cellist would normally be tagged, because, duh, they play rock music. Since their first release, No Electricity Required, in 2004, the Los Angelinos have been writing “interpretations” of their favorite bands’ songs. No Electricity included tunes by Tool, Iron Maiden, Kiss, and Jeff Buckley; two years later they released the Lizards Like Us EP with live reworkings of Muse, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Ima Robot, and The Clash; and earlier this year Decca Records put out Fuzzbox, where Section Quartet take a crack at Soundgarden, David Bowie, The Postal Service, and The Strokes. They also revisit the catalogs of Led Zeppelin, Queens Of The Stone Age, and Radiohead, whose “Paranoid Android” is the third time in three albums The Section Quartet have used their material.

– Trevor Fisher

Click here for streaming samples of Fuzzbox. http://www.myspace.com/thesectioquartet

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly