About
Magic Wands
Magic Wands are hotly tipped Nashville based girl/guy duo Chris and Dexy Valentine.With instantly memorable poppy hooks and melodies, backed by huge washes of distorted guitars and immense drums machine rhythms and bass lines, Magic Wands are one of the most exciting groups to come out of America for a long time.
And this is before we even touch upon how the band came to be..
Opening with the kind of fuzzed up guitar riff that wouldn’t sound out of place on either Blondie’s Parallel Lines, or Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the band’s first proper single ‘Black Magic’ is a swirling mix of sleazy, otherworldly psych-pop.
Occupying the area between the spaced out vision of The Flaming Lips and Fleetwood Mac at their most emotionally fraught and melodic, ‘Black Magic’ centres around Dexy’s lead vocal “White light my time has come!” and is disco sleaze of the highest order.
Lyrically and stylistically, Magic Wands have created their own weird and wonderful world. In their Ray-Band Wayfarers, cut off t-shirts and with only their guitars and a 5ft stuffed lion for company, Chris and Dexy are certainly doing their own thing. Dexy is like a young Debbie Harry with her bright blonde hair while Chris looks like Kyle MacLachlan playing Patrick Bateman in some long lost road-trip movie
The story of how Magic Wands came to be reads like an alternative version of Tarantino’s True Romance, or the beginning of a Brett Easton Ellis novel.
In 2007 while living in Nashville, Chris found a song on Myspace that he listened to repeatedly, day and night. Soon he discovered it was a song by Dexy, called ‘Teenage Love’. During the course of the summer 2007 Chris and Dexy started talking on the phone until dawn, writing songs for each other and mailing gifts such as toy lions, old records, handwritten poems and one glowing heart lamp. Though 2000 miles apart, they decided they were destined to be. Two weeks later Chris was back in L.A. helping Dexy pack up her old Mercedes Benz for a trip across the country.
When they arrived in Nashville they began recording under the name Magic Wands, taken from one of Dexy's favorite things that Chris sent her - a magic wand.
Magic Wands announced their arrival with the release of the brilliant ‘Teenage Love’ as a free download on Valentine’s Day from their Myspace. ‘Teenage Love’ is now widely available from iTunes and all other digital platforms.
By the time you read this, Magic Wands will have made their live debut at this year’s SXSW. One of the main tips of the pre-festival chatter, the band seems certain to depart Austin as one of the most anticipated groups of 2008.
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The Commodore Ballroom