I went to a show with my best friend Jenny tonight.
I never go to shows. Well, I will if The Gossip is in town because they're too fucking good live to pass up, but other than that I never go to shows. I don't drink and I've become so anti social that I just can't take it, despite really loving music. It's weird, because I grew up going to shows in Seattle at least once a week. We'd take the ferry over and see as many shows as we could with the $20 buck we'd manage to wrangle together and just get older dudes to buy us drinks and food. One boy I was friends with had a 25-year-old Navy boyfriend who'd kind of take care of us. We could usually count on him for a 40 or a gyro or something (It wasn't safe, but it was fun. Where were my PARENTS!?) And in between all of this we'd catch shows by Bikini Kill and 7 Year Bitch and Babes and Toyland. (I once broke a bottle over somebody's head at an L7 show, but that's a story for another entry.) Or later, when my girlfriends brought straight boys around, we'd see Built to Spill and Modest Mouse and The Halo Benders. It was a pretty fun time in my life, actually, when I was in the city and not at my halfway house of a highschool. But I digress. I have no idea why 15 years later I can't stand being at shows. Except that I do...
The older I get, the more I find other people insufferable.
The show tonight was full of Type A personalities in skinny jeans with oversized glasses on. I look just like them, so I can't make fun. But going to shows feels different than it did then. The shows I went to then felt so exciting and subversive. This show felt like a middle school dance full of trust fund kids on coke. I don't know what the band was called, but they sounded like off brand New Order or a D grade Cure. Like when you're doing dishes or folding clothes or something and listening to New Order, but the whole album and not just the songs you know and love and there are all these songs that kind of just become background noise except for the moments when you're all, "What the hell New Order song is this? No wonder it wasn't a single!" They were like that. Like watered down New Order, not bad enough to dislike but not good enough to pay attention. Adequate... with synth!
I hope we get a wave of great new music soon because everything just sounds the same now. Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of new bands, but I feel like the last time we got a whole wave of great music was around 2003 or so when The Yeah Yeah Yeahs et al were coming on the scene. And remember Electroclash? Remember PEACHES? God, I loved Peaches. Good times.
Anyway, about Au Pairs. Au Pairs are a band I'd always heard of, but never heard except for their performance in Urgh! A Music War! They were a major influence for a lot of the riot grrl bands I loved when I was a kid. Last weekend Jenny and I were shopping for records when I very stupidly passed up buying an Au Pairs LP, opting instead for the safer Plastic Bertrand album. I am a fucking dumbass. Au Pairs are so fucking good!
Au Pairs sound kind of like Gang of Four but with an awesome feminist, lesbian singer with a smokey voice. SWOON. And all of their songs are about super lefty even when they're not about gender issues. I love them really hard.
Listen to my favorite song right now, "It's Obvious."
the guy all the way on the left looks like paul simon!
Posted by: isaac | February 07, 2010 at 05:38 AM