Since their inception, ESG has affected post-punk, no wave, dance-punk, hip-hop, and various styles of dance music such as house. They fell in with the late '70s and early '80s NYC no wave and post-punk scene, they had their music sampled countless times, and they became a playlist staple at '70s and early '80s dance clubs like the Paradise Garage and the Music Box. ESG (Emerald, Sapphire and Gold) formed in 1978 in the South Bronx.
Chromatics originally hailed from Seattle as a quartet featuring vocalist Adam Miller, drummer Hannah Blilie, guitarist Devin Welch, and bassist Michelle Nolan. That lineup debuted in 2002 with a Calvin Johnson-produced 7" on Gold Standard Laboratories -- a split with Die Monitr Batss -- and followed with the similarly GSL-issued Chrome Rats Vs Basement Ruts LP. While Chrome Rats was critically hailed, Chromatics couldn't keep it together, and Miller was soon the only member in good standing (Blilie, Welch, and Nolan went on to form the similar-sounding Shoplifting).
There are three bands with the name Telex: 1. The Belgian synthpop group Telex was formed in 1978 by Marc Moulin, Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers, with the intention of "Making something really European, different from rock, without guitar - and the idea was electronic music." (Marc Moulin) Mixing the aesthetics of disco, punk and experimental electronic music, they released a stripped-down synthesized cover version of "Twist à St. Tropez" by Les Chats Sauvages.
It’s a birds and the bees sort of question… Or maybe a chicken or the egg sort of question… What came first the rosined violin strings, major falls, classical theory or the smashed guitars, split finger tips and sweaty bodies? To see the Balconies play is nothing short of grasping at science. Even when placed down neatly in a Petri dish underneath thumbs and forefingers – the DNA-code of their infectious pop hooks interweaved with classical sensibility and theory is hard to discern.