Milton and The Devils Party

Milton and the Devils Party is an American Indie rock band from Philadelphia, PA. It was formed in 2001 by singer-songwriter-bassist Daniel Robinson and guitarist Mark Graybill. Drummer Bob Falgie joined in 2006.

Critics frequently compare the band's sound to The Smiths and to R.E.M. and praise the songs' lyrics, noting that Robinson and Graybill are English professors. One review credits the band with the invention of a new sub-genre called "jangle noir". One critic writes, "Sure the music is intelligent but it's far from exclusionary". In an interview with Metro Philadelphia, Robinson says, "We don’t want people to think that we’re pompous. We don’t take ourselves too seriously."

As Robinson explains in numerous interviews, the name of the band is derived from a passage in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell in which Blake calls the poet John Milton "a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it". Robinson tells Metro Philadelphia, "There's a famous belief that (John) Milton when he wrote Paradise Lost and created the character of Satan, he inadvertently made Satan more interesting and appealing than any of the good characters. . . . It's kind of a joke. I thought it would be a funny name for a rock band because there's that whole silly tradition of rock Satanism." Though he is frequently compared to Elvis Costello, Robinson asserts that his main songwriting influences are Ray Davies, Morrissey, Nick Cave, and Lloyd Cole.

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Famous quotes containing the words milton, devils and/or party:

    Her heavenly form
    Angelic, but more soft and feminine,
    Her graceful innocence, her every air
    Of gesture or least action, overawed
    His malice, and with rapine sweet bereaved
    His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought.
    That space of Evil One abstracted stood
    From his own evil, and for the time remained
    Stupidly good, of enmity disarmed,
    —John Milton (1608–1674)

    The fact remains that the human being in early childhood learns to consider one or the other aspect of bodily function as evil, shameful, or unsafe. There is not a culture which does not use a combination of these devils to develop, by way of counterpoint, its own style of faith, pride, certainty, and initiative.
    Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)

    In all conversation between two persons, tacit reference is made, as to a third party, to a common nature. That third party or common nature is not social; it is impersonal; is God.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)