Chris Constantinou | |
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| Also known as | Chris De Niro |
| Origin | London, England |
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| Website | chrisconstantinou |
Chris Constantinou is an English musician, best known as the bass guitarist and backing vocalist for Adam Ant.
Constantinou was born at Charing Cross Hospital in Charing Cross Road, London and at the age of three, he moved to Plymouth. He went to Plymouth College before a brief spell at Plymouth Art College. He performed with school and garage bands supporting 1970s artists such as King Crimson, Snafu, and Sassafras. His professional career started when he joined Diz Watson, the renowned exponent of New Orleans blues/Professor Longhair-style piano and barrel house blues, as bass player. In 1977, he formed the rock band The Drill. Acting as co-writer and bassist, they first signed to Ebony Records before moving to RCA Records for a string of singles, several of which were produced by Chas Chandler (from the band The Animals, who also found and produced Jimi Hendrix and Slade). [1] [2] [3] [4]
In 1982 Constantinou joined Adam Ant's live band as bass guitarist and backing vocalist in time for the Friend or Foe album tour and the video for the single Desperate But Not Serious. [5] He also took a minor acting role as Toulouse Lautrec in the video for Ant's 1983 single Strip. [6] Ant later pared down his eight-piece touring outfit to a four piece which first appeared on TV performances of Ant's UK top 5 single "Puss 'N Boots" in late 1983 before becoming a full time touring/recording unit in mid 1984. Under the pseudonym Chris De Niro, Constantinou became an integral part of the mid-1980s "Ant/Marco/Wiczling/De Niro" line up which recorded the UK Top 20 single "Apollo 9" and parent album Vive Le Rock , both of which were produced by Tony Visconti. Constantinou's performances in Ant's band included Top of the Pops, Saturday Night Live, American Bandstand and, on stage, Radio City Music Hall and 1985's Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium. Parting with Ant in 1985, Constantinou spent time with SF Go, a Miles Copeland III-managed band he had formed with Danny Kustow (TRB, Glen Matlock). [2] [7]
At the beginning of the 1990s, Constantinou formed a band with Bow Wow Wow's Annabella Lwin, fronted by Annabella with Chris as co-writer, bassist and backing vocalist. They built a substantial following hit singles like Do What You Do (Sony, 1994), a dancefloor hit thanks to remixes from Farley & Heller and Junior Vasquez. The project was produced by Steve Lironi (Fun Lovin' Criminals, Happy Mondays). In this period, Chris also had a songwriting partnership with Guy Chambers. [2] [4] [8]
Chris took centre stage to form post-punk outfit JackieOnAssid in 1996. As lead singer, songwriter and bassist, JackieOnAssid toured Europe three times, released two albums (2001's 4Play and 2002's Zip Me Up) and supported Iggy Pop. The videos for these singles were directed by award-winning British film maker Paul Hills. He later featured the band's Meditation Man single in his 2003 movie The Poet (Dougray Scott/Laura Elena Harring). [2] [3] [9]
In 2004 Chris began work on his project, The Wolfmen for which he handled lead vocals, co-writing, bass and various other instruments. It saw him reunite with another former Ant, songwriter/guitarist Marco Pirroni, [10] to blend a sound described by Mojo magazine as "exuberant filth... Chris and Marco do growing old disgracefully with style.” [11]
Constantinou played and produced some tracks on The Slits' EP, Revenge of the Killer Slits in 2006 [12] and co-wrote tracks "The Wolf Is Getting Married" (Single 2012), "I had a Baby" (Album track 2012) for Sinéad O'Connor's album, How About I Be Me (And You Be You)? , released in March 2012. [2] [8] [13] [14]
A collaboration with Daler Mehndi in 2007 materialized in the Bhangra / rock single Two Eyes (Do Naina), which topped the BBC Asian Network charts. [15] [16]
In January 2013, Chris Constantinou developed in a discussion with Eugene Butcher, editor from the magazine Vive Le Rock, and Dave Collins the idea of an album set out to retrace the roots of punk, new wave and ska, featuring all-star punk musicians. [17] It materialized in the creation of the musical supergroup The Mutants, with Chris Constantinou and Paul Frazer as core members, later also joined by Rat Scabies. After a series of initial projects (like Nuclear Wasteland, made at the disaster site in Chernobyl), [2] [18] the first album, Rhythm and Punk Review, was released in July 2014. In this album, Constantinou brought together and collaborated with a variety of musicians, like Norman Watt-Roy (Ian Dury and The Blockheads/Wilko), T. V. Smith (The Adverts), Charlie Harper (UK Subs), Jake Burns (Stiff Little Fingers), Knox (The Vibrators), Neville Staple (The Specials), Judy Nylon (John Cale/Brian Eno), Beki Bondage (Vice Squad), Texas Terri (Texas Terri & The Stiff Ones/Texas Terri Bomb), Preston Heyman (Kate Bush/Tom Robinson Band/Massive Attack), Tim Smart, Jonathan Read (The Specials), and Joe Atkinson (Flipron). [19] [20]
A subsequent Mutants album, Tokyo Nights, released in May 2015, had all the songs fronted by a rotating set of Japanese guest stars. [21] The third album, Your Desert My Mind (October 2016), is a collaboration with a series of guests from the Californian desert rock scene, among them David Catching from Eagles of Death Metal, Chris Goss from Masters of Reality, Brent DeBoer, Peter Holmström and Zia McCabe from The Dandy Warhols, Sean Wheeler from Throw Rag and Victoria Williams. The album was recorded at Rancho De La Luna in Joshua Tree, California. [22] [23] In October 2016, The Mutants also went on a tour in California together with the guests Chris Goss, Sean Wheeler and Bingo Richey. [24] [25]
As a guest musician, Chris played flute with The Dandy Warhols, [26] Holy Holy (the album The Man Who Sold the World Live in London), [27] Brant Bjork & Sean Wheeler, Andreas Grega (the albums Mikrouli Mou and Vallar Av Snö), and Nerina Pallot (the album Fires). [28] He also guested on bass in the 2016 UK Station to Station tour by Earl Slick and Bernard Fowler. [29] [30]
In June 2016, he released with The Mutants the mini-album Time For a Drink (post Production Courtney Taylor-Taylor & Brandon Eggleston). [31]
The work with Rat Scabies as core members of The Mutants developed also into the project One Thousand Motels, involving only the two of them (quicker and easier to put in practice, considering the logistics around The Mutants musicians as a supergroup). [32] In 2020, they released the album 2% out of Sync , described in reviews as forging new ground. [33] [34] Their music is characterized by Vive le Rock as "upbeat rock songs with a twist in the lyrical tail" [35] and by Midlands Rock as "a match seemingly made in rock ‘n’ roll heaven (or a punky purgatory)". [33]
The second album Get In Where You Fit In was released in April 2021, with Sean Wheeler as vocalist. At its creation also participated American musicians like guitarist Hal Lindes (Dire Straits), Marc Franklin and Arthur Edmaiston from Memphis on Horns (Aretha Franklin, Isaac Hayes, Snoop Dogg, Stevie Wonder) and Jonathan Moore with the First Street Choir from Mississippi. The musicians from London are the percussionist Preston Heyman (Kate Bush, Massive Attack, Terence Trent D'Arby), on harmonica Steve 'West' Weston (Roger Daltrey, Wilko Johnson), on slide guitar Dave Ahern, The Specials Brass Section & Su Robinson (The South Brass) and pianist Diz Watson (Dr. John). [35] The album was noticed for its blend of gospel, soul, funk, blues, and rock with Deep South nuances. [36] [37]
Also in 2020, he started the project RudeGRL + CC, in collaboration with Jenna Dickens. The music is described as a blend of post-punk/punk and hip hop (Jenna has a hip hop background). [38] [39] In 2020, they released the album Anthemic Hip Hop (Universal Music) and one of its songs, "Helen Keller", won the 2020 PMA Best Hip Hop Track award. [40] In September 2020, they released the EP Like Wow and, in January 2021, the single Brand New Cadillac , noticed in reviews as an update with modern sonic textures of the 1959 classic rockabilly hit by Vince Taylor. [41] [42]
Some of his songs were included in well-known soundtracks, like "Bamboo Moon" from Tokyo Nights album in the soundtrack of the TV series Money Heist. [43]
With Adam Ant
With Annabella Lwin
With The Slits
With The Wolfmen
With SSG
With Sinéad O'Connor
With Andreas Grega
With Anisa Arslanagic and Paul Frazer
With The Mutants
With Paul Frazer
With Oliver Straus and Rat Scabies
With James Young
With James Young, Paul Frazer and Vincent Welch
With James Young and Nicholas de Carlo
With James Young and Florence Sabeva
With James Young and Susie Webb
With Hal Lindes
With One Thousand Motels
With RudeGRL + CC
The Damned are an English punk rock band formed in London in 1976 by lead vocalist Dave Vanian, guitarist Brian James, bassist Captain Sensible and drummer Rat Scabies. They were the first punk band from the United Kingdom to release a single, "New Rose" (1976), release a studio album, Damned Damned Damned (1977) and tour the United States. Nine of the band's singles charted on the UK Singles Chart Top 40.
The Slits were a punk rock band based in London, formed there in 1976 by members of the groups the Flowers of Romance and the Castrators. The group's early line-up consisted of Ari Up and Palmolive, with Viv Albertine and Tessa Pollitt replacing founding members Kate Korus and Suzy Gutsy. Their 1979 debut album, Cut, has been called one of the defining releases of the post-punk era.
Stuart Leslie Goddard, better known as Adam Ant, is an English singer, musician, and actor. He gained popularity as the lead singer of new wave group Adam and the Ants and later as a solo artist, scoring 10 UK top ten hits from 1980 to 1983, including three UK No. 1 singles. He has also worked as an actor, appearing in many films and television episodes.
Neville Eugenton Staple, sometimes credited as Neville Staples, is a Jamaican-born English singer, known for his work with the 2 Tone ska band the Specials, the pop group Fun Boy Three, as well as with his own group, the Neville Staple Band. He also performed with Ranking Roger in the supergroup Special Beat.
Marco Francesco Andrea Pirroni frequently credited simply as Marco, is a British guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He has worked with Adam Ant, Sinéad O'Connor, Siouxsie and the Banshees and many others from the late 1970s to the present day.
The Members are a British punk band that originated in Camberley, Surrey, England. In the UK, they are best known for their single "The Sound of the Suburbs", reaching No. 12 in 1979, and in Australia, "Radio" which reached No. 5 in 1982.
Christopher John Millar, known by his stage name Rat Scabies, is a musician best known as the drummer for English punk rock band the Damned.
The Godfathers are an English rock band from London, England, with strong influences from R&B and punk.
Vive Le Rock is the third solo album by Adam Ant, released in September 1985, which contained two versions of Ant's 1984 song "Apollo 9".
The Wolfmen are an English rock music band formed in 2004, and centred on Marco Pirroni and Chris Constantinou.
Adam and the Ants were an English rock band that formed in London in 1977. The band existed in two versions, both of which were fronted by Adam Ant, between 1977 and 1982. The first phase began when the band were founded in May 1977 and were called the Ants until November of that year. They later changed their style from punk rock to post-punk and new wave, and released one album. The final line-up of this version consisted of Dave Barbarossa, Matthew Ashman, and Leigh Gorman—all of whom left the band in January 1980 at the suggestion of manager Malcolm McLaren to form Bow Wow Wow.
Antics in the Forbidden Zone is a Greatest Hits compilation and accompanying video by the English new wave musician Adam Ant, released 23 October 1990 by Epic Records. The collection spans the years 1979 to 1985, including Ant's time as frontman of Adam and the Ants with selections from Dirk Wears White Sox (1979), Kings of the Wild Frontier (1980), and Prince Charming (1981), as well as his first three solo albums, Friend or Foe (1982), Strip (1983) and Vive Le Rock (1985). The collection does not include "Ants Invasion," from which the title Antics in the Forbidden Zone was taken.
Women have made significant contributions to punk rock music and its subculture since its inception in the 1970s. In contrast to the rock music and heavy metal scenes of the 1970s, which were dominated by men, the anarchic, counter-cultural mindset of the punk scene in mid-and-late 1970s encouraged women to participate. This participation played a role in the historical development of punk music, especially in the US and UK at that time, and continues to influence and enable future generations. Women have participated in the punk scene as lead singers, instrumentalists, as all-female bands, zine contributors and fashion designers.
The Mutants is a punk rock supergroup based around Chris Constantinou, Rat Scabies and Paul Frazer, hosting an all-star cast of guest musicians.
RudeGRL + CC is a collaborative hip hop and punk project formed in 2020, consisting of Jenna Dickens and Chris Constantinou.
One Thousand Motels is a collaboration duo of Rat Scabies and Chris Constantinou.
2% out of Sync is the first album by One Thousand Motels, a collaboration project of Rat Scabies and Chris Constantinou.
Like Wow is the debut EP of RudeGRL + CC, a collaborative project of Jenna Dickens and Chris Constantinou.
Get In Where You Fit In is the second album by One Thousand Motels, a collaboration project of Rat Scabies and Chris Constantinou.
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