LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Maginot Line
built 153 days ago
The Maginot Line was a line of concrete and steel defences that stretched between Luxembourg and Switzerland along France's border with Germany. The defensive system had originally been proposed by Joseph Joffre and was built between 1930 and 1935. It had three interdependent fortified belts with anti-tank emplacements and pillboxes standing in front of bombproof artillery casements. Named after Andre Maginot, the French war minister at the time, it cost 7,000 million francs to build and was claimed at the time to provide an impregnable defence against the German Army.
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Before World War II, the layouts of the Maginot Line's ouvrages, or large underground fortifications, were a military secret. Illustrators surmised that they were compact, like battleships when in fact they were elongated and spread out. Barracks complete with a wine cellar, a chapel, a dentist's chair and a morgue could house a thousand men. Trolleys carried troops, arms and munitions to combat bunkers through tunnels often more than five miles long.
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Paris Burning, the debut full-length from The Maginot Line, presents a quartet focused squarely on the pursuit of smart, energetic rock songs. The opening track, "Working Hard to Make A Bad Life Worse," features a band capable of both straightforward melody and sudden left turns into new territory. Anchored by the precision bass playing of Dave Allen and warm thwack of drummer Mark Stalzer, the quartet is rounded out by the thick chords and brassy ambience of guitarists Sean Lara and Rob Anthony. Sewn together by the vocal interplay of Allen, Lara and Anthony, The Maginot Line relishes every opportunity to enrich the mix with singing that ranges from shouted call-and-response ("Hospital Corners") to three-part harmonies ("Eight by Nine").
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The Maginot Line, as it would popularly be called, was not a true wall like Hadrian's or the Great Wall of China--that would have been far too expensive, not to mention inconvenient. Rather, it was a series of more than 50 forts with hundreds of artillery emplacements and turrets connected by a vast system of tunnels. With a few ready armies behind the line and in the tunnels, France could quickly organize a defense if attacked. Mindful of the importance of defensive fighting in the First World War, most military tacticians thought the Maginot Line could be held indefinitely. Initially, it ran from the Swiss border on the south to the Ardennes forest in the north. Later, after Belgium terminated its alliance with France, there was an attempt to extend the line through the Belgian border, but the forts built there were nowhere near as strong or advanced as the ones on the German border.
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Hailing from the District of Columbia and Baltimore, The Maginot Line was formed in the winter of 2000 and includes former members of Branch Manager (Dischord) and Corm (Shute/Dischord). They released their first effort, the To Victory EP, in late November that same year. The Line have had the pleasure to play with such bands as The Dismemberment Plan, Bluetip, Naht, Fin Fang Foom, Stinking Lizaveta, and The Fuses. The band will tour the US this spring and summer.
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As is the fate of most openers, much of The Maginot Line's talent was lost on the restless crowd. A four-some from DC who released their debut on amBiguous CITY! Records last year, they played a rocket set of fast, melodic punk songs with high energy and kept up a friendly banter with the small audience. Yet, everyone might as well have remained seated, for all the moving around they did. The lack of energy from the crowd may have been due to the technical difficulties: the house lights were still on, the bass had to be switched twice because of a left/right-hand mix-up, and the vocalist's mic was too loud.
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Maginot Line