shilpa :: venus shaver

Shilpa Ray And Her Happy Hookers are excited to announce upcoming fall tour dates (none in Georgia) with the beloved indie band Cornershop, who return to the US after an eight year absence. They are also honored to be sharing the stage with legends Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye, and peers Outernational, at a benefit for the FortnightJournal.com, to be held at Southpaw in Brooklyn on Thursday, November 11th. The benefit is sponsored by BrooklynTheBorough.com, in the name of The Fortnight Journal, a website that launched October 20th, and is edited and currated by Samantha Hinds and Adam Whitney Nichols.

The band spent the past week playing gigs at CMJ, treating audiences to the songs off their recently released Venus Shaver 7″ and their forthcoming full-length Teenage And Torture, out January 18th 2011 on Knitting Factory Records.They impressed the normally weary industry laden crowds with their “fearsome,” (New York Times) performances. Perhaps that has something to do with Shilpa Ray And Her Hookers approach to their art. As a feature profile in New York Press put it last week, “Shilpa Ray bears it all. Any flaws are presented in perfect clarity. The dynamic range of emotions delivered is raw and genuine, as if any filter has been removed. It’s a frightening yet engaging situation for both performer and listener.”

On January 21st Shilpa Ray And Her Happy Hookers will take the stage at Brooklyn Bowl to celebrate the release of the new record Teenage and Torture, an album that lives up to the effusive praise they have steadily amassed since their debut 2009 full-length A Fish Hook, An Open Eye. Teenage and Torture both refines and expands upon the arresting qualities of their first release. The result, “isn’t as thrown together as the first one,” says Ray. Recorded with Black Dirt Studios’ Jason Meagher at Seizure’s Palace in Gowanus, Brooklyn, a studio that has also played host to Sonic Youth and Swans. The songs on the album are dark, sardonic looks inside Ray’s own world and obsessions.