Luxxury

Luxxury is an electronic pop band formed in San Francisco, USA and fronted by Blake Robin, who performs as Baron von Luxxury.

Background
Luxxury formed in San Francisco in early 2003 when Blake Robin met singer Stephanie Motzkus at a party in Mill Valley, California. After discovering a mutual love for Fleetwood Mac and Blondie they decided to write songs together. They soon found Reid Maxwell, Devin O'Brien and Anu Kirk to complete a live band. After Motzkus left and Robin took over as singer. Maxwell left moved to Los Angeles and the remaining trio performed locally and completed "The Drunk EP" in early 2004. The EP was picked up by Chicago indie label Omega Point Records.

After a brief period with Dan Aquino on drums (temporarily on loan from Every Move a Picture), O'Brien moved to NY and Kirk left the band in 2005, Robin focused on writing and recording a full length debut. Entitled "Rock and Roll (is Evil)," the album was co-produced with O'Brien and mixed by Robin along with Chris Fudurich and Mark Lewis. It was released on Nolita records in October 2006 with cover art by Jeremy Blake and liner notes written by Theresa Duncan. To support the album release, Luxxury toured the UK as a three piece band with the addition of Rico on drums and Sha on bass.

After the tour, Robin took a break from the band to work on Djing and producing remixes. He also founded an Mp3 blog called The DiscoWorkout with Luxxury bandmate Johnatron. In May 2007 "Sweet and Vicious: The Remixes" was released. During the year, many of Robin's remixes (as Baron von Luxxury) for Scissors for Lefty, Hilary Duff and CSS were released to great acclaim from URB Magazine, BigStereo.net and other publications. Baron von Luxxury remixes for Glass Candy, Sunny Day Sets Fire and Robots in Disguise will be released in early 2008.

In September 2007 Luxxury signed a label deal with RCRD LBL, and Robin signed a publishing deal with Razor and Tie. Luxxury's song "Drunk" was used in a national US commercial for Pontiac to promote the Transformers movie in summer 2007. Luxxury's song "Sweet and Vicious" was used in MTV's show The Hills in November 2007. The band's new album, tentatively titled "Baron von Luxxury is My Fake Name" will be released in early 2008.

Style
Luxxury makes a blend of electronic pop, dance and rock music which have been said by URB Magazine to "sound like a retrofit of Devo combined with the modern, pulsing beats of Daft Punk." [http://www.urb.com/promotions/next1000/profiles/315-Baron+Von+Luxxury.php]

Instrumentation
Robin is constantly experimenting with different live configurations for Luxxury. The first lineup included a full rock band, with O'Brien on bass guitar, Kirk on synth, Robin on guitar and singing, and a rotating series of drummers. For their UK tour, Rico played drums with live triggers, Sha played bass, and Robin added a MicroKorg to his singing and guitar duties. In 2007, Robin performed with a stripped down setup of an Apple powerbook, MicroKorg synth/vocoder and a Kaoss Pad accompanying his vocals.

Remixing
Robin has remixed a number of artists under the aliases Baron von Luxxury and Lovesick Vocoders at Night including: Scissors for Lefty, Hilary Duff, CSS, Glass Candy, Dirty Sanchez, Luxxury, Sunny Day Sets Fire and Robots in Disguise.

Discography
Discography
*The Disco Noir EP - (EP) Nolita, 2003
*The Drunk EP - (EP) Nolita, 2004
*Dirty Girls (Need Love Too) - (EP) Nolita, 2006
*Rock and Roll (is Evil) - Nolita, 2006
*Sweet and Vicious: The Remixes - Nolita, 2007
*Sweet and Vicious (Exxpensive Mix) - (single), RCRDLBL, 2007

Remixes
* 2007 CSS - "Alala"
* 2007 Scissors for Lefty - "Ghetto Ways"
* 2007 Hilary Duff - "Stranger"
* 2007 Luxxury - "Drunk"
* 2008 Glass Candy - "I Always Say Yes"
* 2008 Sunny Day Sets Fire - "Brainless"
* 2008 Dirty Sanchez - "Really Rich Italian Satanists"
* 2008 Robots in Disguise - "The Sex Has Made Me Stupid"
* 2008 Robots in Disguise - "We're In The Music Business"

Videos
*Disco Noir - 2004
*Dirty Girls (Need Love Too) - 2007
*Sweet and Vicious - 2007
 
< Prev   Next >