New York, NY (Top40 Charts) As we prepare for the new President's gold plated term to begin, the Upper Crust seem more necessary than ever. Their costumed madness sends up the aristocracy with biting sarcasm and more than a little rock guitar riffage. Bands from
Little Richard to the
Rolling Stones to
Elton John and
Lady Gaga have used costume and masquing to magnificent effect, but they have nothing on the gentleman of the Crust. Delusions of Grandeur will arrive on April 7th on their record label Upper Crust, LTD with distribution via Redeye Worldwide, giving the seething nation a much-needed dose of butt-shaking satirical badassery.
Upper Crust began in 1994 as an admittedly frivolous and comical concept, with no expectation but to entertain a few friends, that to everyone's surprise immediately took on a vigorous momentum of its own that continues to accelerate to this day. Two decades later the band has toured the United States and Europe, appeared on television's Late Night With Conan O'Brien and the Late Late Show with
Craig Ferguson, played with bands like
Aerosmith and the Go-Gos and performed at festivals including All Tomorrow's Parties and Tenacious D's Festival Supreme. In addition, the band placed a song in Guitar Hero and have written the theme for the History Channel's American Daredevils; they were also the subject of a full-length documentary film, produced a half-hour pilot for VH1, and were immortalized as animated characters in the children's TV show Codename: Kids Next Door. Now that they have worked the kinks out, they are ready to take the concept to its natural conclusion, which appears to be no less than massive, worldwide acclaim and, incidentally, riches beyond imagining.
So far the Upper Crust have released five albums: Let Them Eat Rock, The Decline and Fall of the Upper Crust, Once More Into the Breeches, Entitled, and Revenge For Imagined Slights. 2016 saw the release of a split album with friends the Grannies from San Francisco, titled Lords & Ladies.
In the two decades of its existence, the band has won devoted fans around the world and secured beyond dispute its position as the finest purveyor of 18th-Century Rocque and Roll to the most demanding aficionados of the genre. With the release of the new album they are poised to win over those stragglers who have been thus far slow to perceive the seismic cultural shift represented by the Upper Crust. With their powdered wigs and velvet knee breeches the band may be perceived as funny (and maybe the observation is not entirely without merit), but they're not to be dismissed as a joke—their songwriting, their recordings and their live performances all speak to the fact that the Upper Crust are across the board, by every pertinent criteria, among the best rock, or as they say "rocque," bands to come along since the invention of the electrical guitar and the steam-powered amplifier.
The band consists of the Lord Bendover and the Duc d'Istortion on guitar, Count Bassie on bass (replacing Lord Rockingham and Marquis Mark, who left the band after the first year to pursue less lofty ambitions) and Jackie Kickassis on drums.
"…merges the cliches of the spoiled rock star and the contemptuous nobleman; its witty rip-offs of AC/DC, Cheap Trick, and the Buzzcocks excoriate the poor and celebrate the pleasures of wealth and dissipation."
Chicago Reader
The Upper Crust www.theuppercrust.org
Redeye is www.redeyeworldwide.com
