Anonymous asked: I was looking on the net for some records/CDs, and I read about a "0.535416666666667 - The Way It Is (Red Vinyl)" by The Strokes... Do you know anything about it? And what does the "0.535416666666667" stands for? Thank you so much!

Wow, I’ve never heard of this at all. I just googled it and it came up on some rare record sites, mostly from England, so it seems like it definitely did exist there at least, I’m just not sure why. This has some information on it.

—Chelsea

Anonymous asked: What about the myth that says that the legs in the UK ITI cover are from Albert?

Um…that’s just a big fat lie. A) it’s obviously a woman, B) there’s a story behind it:

the model explains that the photoshoot was spontaneous, and happened after she came out of the shower of photographer Colin Lane, her then boyfriend, naked.

“I walked out of the shower and I was completely naked,” she recalls. “I was walking around the house – he was like, put this glove on. I walked over, boom, that was the shot.”

SOURCE

Anonymous asked: wich label is the strokes on? are they still on rough trade? according to rough trade's website julian's solo stuff was released there to but i thought that he had his own label.

The Strokes are on Rough Trade in England and RCA in the US and I think the rest of the world. They are still on Rough Trade, and Julian’s (and Albert’s, and Little Joy’s) solo records were released on Rough Trade in England. However, in the US and the rest of the world, Julian’s solo record was released on Cult Records, his own label, which is an imprint of RCA.

Anonymous asked: I saw "Is this it" album on cassette. Is there in that format?

Yes, I’m almost positive that both ITI and ROF were released on cassette as well as CD and 12” record. I don’t think there were many of them made, but they can be found…I think I once saw one on eBay. However, a lot of cassette pictures you see here on Tumblr are mockups, so I can see the confusion. 

—Chelsea

Anonymous asked: what is the meaning of the covers of the 4 cd's of the strokes?

I don’t think that their album covers have intense “meanings” outside of them looking cool and trying to fit the “sound” of the music or something.

Is This It: Basically, they just thought the photo of the butt (by Colin Lane of his girlfriend after she took a shower) looked cool, I guess, but by the time of the US release, they liked the particle collisions better. 

Room On Fire

First Impressions Of Earth

Angles: A painting by Guy Pouppez, a Belgian artist

perilune asked: what songs does Nick sing background for, and is he the only one who has sung alongside Julian?

Albert and Nick sing backup on Under Cover of Darkness and Gratisfaction live, and Nick also sings on You’re So Right live. On You’re So Right on the record, I think Nikolai is also singing along with Julian on the first verse only (just because it sounds like the same voice that’s on Nikolai’s solo records to me), but I think Julian’s voice is double tracked on the rest of the song. However, I think Nick is singing on the chorus of Call Me Back on the record as well. 

(Am I forgetting anything?)

Before Angles, they didn’t really do much with background vocals or even a lot of double-tracked vocals, so it’s pretty much just Angles we’re talking about here :)

—Chelsea

Anonymous asked: do you know how they got the guitar to sound the way it does in 12:51?

From here:

Valensi: Yeah, well how that came about wasn’t really a fluke, but it happened in a weird way. I was playing these silly little jazz things using my neck pickup with the guitar’s tone control rolled all the way down, and I accidentally stepped on the DeVille’s channel-switching footpedal. The gain on that channel was on 12, and all of a sudden the tone sounded like an analog-synth sound — or a weird heavy-metal, Joe Satriani tone [laughs]. Julian was the one who really saw the possibilities of that tone for “12:51.” So I played along with the vocal melody, doubled the part, and that was it. It was all a bit of an accident — I was just trying to get a nice jazz tone — but it sounded cool. The DeVilles didn’t really like that tone, though. I blew up three of them.

—Chelsea

Anonymous asked: am I the only one who feels bad about the fact that the band hasn't released a 3rd single yet? I feel like it was a ritual as they released 3 singles in every 'era'. Do you think they will release it sometime this year?

I would be very surprised if there ends up being a third single from Angles—that album cycle is over and behind them, really, and I think they’re taking time off and looking towards the next one. It’s true there’s been three singles from the prior albums, but this whole Angles cycle was a bit weird and truncated anyway, so I guess it’s not surprising we only got two. 

—Chelsea

Anonymous asked: Do you know wich songs from The Strokes are B-sides? Thanks (:

• New York City Cops [in the US]
• When It Started [in the UK/rest of world]
• Alone Together (Home Recording)
• Is This It (Home Recording)
• The Way It Is (Home Recording)
• Modern Girls and Old Fashioned Men (Feat. Regina Spektor)
• Clampdown (Live) [cover of The Clash]
• Hawaii
• Life Is A Gas [cover of The Ramones]
• I’ll Try Anything Once
• Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) (Feat. Eddie Vedder and Josh Homme) [cover of Marvin Gaye]
• You’re So Right
• Taken For A Fool (Live feat. Elvis Costello)

sabertoothkidz asked: Do you think they are going to release a 3rd single?

I thought they would, especially because every other album had three, but now I’m not so sure they will. It’s a bit late in the game now, and I think the end of the tour kind of symbolically closes the “era” a bit, but there could be a business deal we don’t know about saying they have to do three singles. 

There were rumors a few months ago that they were going to do “Machu Picchu,” but since we’ve heard nothing since, I doubt it’s going to happen. Shame, because I would have loved a new music video (though I gave out hope long ago for original B-sides).

-Chelsea