Milton and the Devils Party - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Overview

Milton and the Devils Party is an American Indie rock

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

band from Philadelphia, PA. It was formed in 2001 by singer-songwriter-bassist Daniel Robinson and guitarist Mark Graybill. Drummer Bob Falgie joined in 2006.

Critics frequently compare the band's sound to The Smiths

The Smiths

The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...

and to R.E.M.

R.E.M.

R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...

and praise the songs' lyrics, noting that Robinson and Graybill are English professors http://powerpopaholic.blogspot.com/2007/10/milton-devils-party-how-wicked-weve.html. One review credits the band with the invention of a new sub-genre called "jangle noir" http://www.tirbd.com/2008_01_01_archive.html. Nearly every press item on the band emphasizes the band's accessibility, urging listeners to overlook the academic credentials. One critic writes, "Sure the music is intelligent but it's far from exclusionary" http://www.smother.net/reviews/modernrock.php3?ID=740. In an interview with Metro Philadelphia, Robinson says, "We don’t want people to think that we’re pompous. We don’t take ourselves too seriously." Critics also frequently compliment Graybill's guitar arrangements http://www.highbias.com/reviews/20050313_short1.html.

As Robinson explains in numerous interviews, the name of the band is derived from a passage in William Blake

William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a book by the English poet and printmaker William Blake. It is a series of texts written in imitation of biblical prophecy but expressing Blake's own intensely personal Romantic and revolutionary beliefs. Like his other books, it was published as printed sheets...

in which Blake calls the poet John Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

"a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it" http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=mhh.f.illbk.06&java=yes. Robinson tells Metro Philadelphia, "There's a famous belief that (John) Milton when he wrote Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...

and created the character of Satan, he inadvertently made Satan more interesting and appealing than any of the good characters. . . . It's kind of a joke. I thought it would be a funny name for a rock band because there's that whole silly tradition of rock Satanism." Though he is frequently compared to Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...

, Robinson asserts that his main songwriting influences are Ray Davies

Ray Davies

Ray Davies, CBE is an English rock musician. He is best known as lead singer and songwriter for the Kinks, which he led with his younger brother, Dave...

, Morrissey

Morrissey

Steven Patrick Morrissey , known as Morrissey, is an English singer and lyricist. He rose to prominence in the 1980s as the lyricist and vocalist of the alternative rock band The Smiths. The band was highly successful in the United Kingdom but broke up in 1987, and Morrissey began a solo career,...

, Nick Cave

Nick Cave

Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...

, and Lloyd Cole

Lloyd Cole

Lloyd Cole is an English singer and songwriter, known for his role as lead singer of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions from 1984 to 1989, and for his subsequent solo work.-Early life:...

.http://www.ithaca.edu/buzzsaw/0405devil.htm

History

Robinson and Graybill met while pursuing their doctorates at the University of South Carolina

University of South Carolina

The University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, with 7 surrounding satellite campuses. Its historic campus covers over in downtown Columbia not far from the South Carolina State House...

.http://www.chorusandverse.com/content/200503/20050327_MiltonandTheDevilsParty.htm When both ended up at Widener University

Widener University

Widener University is a private, coeducational university located in Chester, Pennsylvania.Its main campus sits on 108 acres , just southwest of Philadelphia...

, they decided to form Milton and the Devils Party.http://www.canarypromo.com/publicity-detail.php?cl_id=58

The band played its first show on July 5, 2002 at the Philadelphia venue Club 218 on South St. The original lineup included Robinson, Graybill, guitarist Pat Manley, and drummer Martin Evans http://www.sonicbids.com/epk/epk.aspx?epk_id=38812. After building a small following consisting mostly of Robinson and Graybill's students at Widener University, the band went into the studio with New Jersey producer Harris London to record its first album, What Is All This Sweet Work Worth? The self-released CD featured 12 songs and received some impressive critical notices upon its release in 2004. Jonathan Takiff of the Philadelphia Daily News

Philadelphia Daily News

The Philadelphia Daily News is a tabloid newspaper that serves Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The newspaper is owned by Philadelphia Media Holdings which also owns Philadelphia's other major newspaper The Philadelphia Inquirer. The Daily News began publishing on March 31, 1925, under...

wrote, "As you'd suspect, their lyrics have an edge, but the spirit of songs like 'End of the Affair,' 'Perfect Breasts' and 'Ugly American' is more sarcastic punk than high-falutin' poetics. And the band's propulsive, power pop music offers the sweet-and-sour whiff of an Elvis Costello or R.E.M. anthem." Philadelphia Weekly

Philadelphia Weekly

Philadelphia Weekly , is an award-winning alternative newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, published every Wednesday.The paper was founded in 1971 as a sister publication to the South Philadelphia Press. In 1995, the paper became Philadelphia Weekly...

wrote, "The Philly quartet's debut What Is All This Sweet Work Worth? finds singer/songwriter/bassist Daniel Robinson charmingly channeling the bee-stung sincerity of Elvis Costello and Matthew Sweet."http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=8588 The greatest strength of the band appears to be the literary quality of the songs: as a reviewer for Glorious Noise put it, "What Is All This Sweet Work Worth?, the first album from Philadelphia's Milton and the Devils Party, combines lyrical complexity with powerful pop hooks. But this is no snotty adolescent parade of undergraduate pseudo-intellectualism. Sharp and catchy, this CD deserves a broad audience" http://www.gloriousnoise.com/reviews/2004/devils_party-12-27.php The title of the album comes from a line in Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...

's poem "Love's Philosophy." One song, "To Jane", is derived from poems Shelley wrote to Jane Williams.

In 2006, the band released an "expanded and revised edition" of What Is All This Sweet Work Worth? on the New Jersey power-pop label FDR. This version contains two additional songs and enhanced arrangements of the original tracks. Reviews were mixed: one reviewer found a spiritual allegory in the songs http://www.musicspectrum.org/2006/10/unlikely-sources-for-sunday-school.html and another found it to be "banal" and "familiar" http://www.adequacy.net/review.php?reviewID=7295. The re-release received only slight press attention, some of it strongly negative. http://www.readjunk.com/cdreviews/milton-and-the-devils-party-what-is-all-this-sweet-work-worth The band did have some success on college radio.

In 2007 the band signed with Philadelphia indie label Transit of Venus, label home of The Trolleyvox

The Trolleyvox

The Trolleyvox is an American Indie pop band from Philadelphia, PA. It was formed in 1996 by Andrew Chalfen and Beth Filla.The band's style drew comparisons to The New Pornographers, while a YouTube video for "Just You Wait" turned it into an anthem against George W...

. With new drummer Bob Falgie replacing Evans, they recorded their second album in the fall of 2007. How Wicked We've Become was released in September 2007 and was produced by Brian McTear, who has produced The A-Sides

The A-Sides

The A-Sides were an American indie rock band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They formed in 2002 and consisted of Jon Barthmus , Charlie Cottone , Christopher Doyle , Mike "Flem" Fleming , and Patrick "Party Todd" Marsceill...

, Matt Pond PA

Matt Pond PA

Matt Pond PA is a New York based band formed in Philadelphia by singer-songwriter Matt Pond. They have released eight LPs and eight EPs since 1998....

, and B.C. Camplight

B.C. Camplight

BC Camplight is the moniker of songwriter Brian Christinzio based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. His 2005 album Hide, Run Away was released by One Little Indian and featured Cynthia G. Mason on vocals...

. With this album the band began to reach a wider national audience and received more positive reviews. Paste Magazine writer Andrew Whitman wrote, "There are deep undercurrents of longing and yearning in the lyrics, cleverly disguised by the bright, uptempo music. The themes are universally relevant, although it's probably not a bad idea to keep a thesaurus near your iPod just in case"http://andywhitman.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html. David Miller at Blog Critics Magazine compared Robinson's vocals to Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello

and praised the album as "Robinson's personal commentary on the human condition"http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/10/29/073653.php. Allmusic gave this album three and a half stars, describing it as having an "'80s college rock feel" and comparing Graybill's guitar playing to Peter Buck

Peter Buck

Peter Lawrence Buck , is an American rock guitarist who is best known for playing in and co-founding alternative rock band R.E.M....

and Johnny Marr

Johnny Marr

Johnny Marr is an English musician and songwriter. Marr rose to fame in the 1980s as the guitarist in The Smiths, with whom he formed a prolific songwriting partnership with Morrissey. Marr has been a member of Electronic, The The, and Modest Mouse...

.[] The band also played its first showcase at CMJ's Music Marathon in October 2007.

The band in 2007 also contributed a cover of The Kinks

The Kinks

The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...

' "Victoria" to the FDR label compilation About a Girl, featuring covers of songs with women's names in the title.

In the summer of 2008, while still promoting How Wicked We've Become, the band began recording its third album, again with McTear in Philadelphia. The future release of this album is unknown, but Robinson has put several songs from it on his personal website http://danielrobinson.org/milton-and-the-devils-party/, where the title of the third MDP album is given as "You Must Contribute, Brain!"

On 20 December 2008, the band played a show to celebrate Milton's 400th birthday at the World Cafe Live in Philadelphia. MDP continues to perform occasionally in Philadelphia.

Discography

Year	Title	Label
2004	What Is All This Sweet Work Worth?	Self-released
2006	What Is All This Sweet Work Worth? (Expanded and Revised Edition)	FDR Label
2007	How Wicked We've Become	Transit of Venus
2012(?)	You Must Contribute, Brain!	Transit of Venus

External links

Milton and the Devils Party Official website
[ Milton and the Devils Party] on Allmusic
A long review at Two-Way Monologues

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.