Xiu Xiu, "The Air Force"

OK, "La Foret" didn't happen. It was a nice little experiment in improvisation, an attempt to make almost an entire album full of sparse ballads. Incidentally, several months following the release of "La Foret", I fell in love with "Helsabot of Caraleebot" from the "Fleshettes" EP. Sparse, tense, fragile -- these words don't even begin to describe it. That EP should have been Xiu Xiu's last word in tender acoustic ballads because since then they haven't been able to assemble three of them that I can listen to without getting bored.

Xiu Xiu's new album, "The Air Force" is an outstanding piece of work. With every Xiu Xiu album, people seem to write "This is the album that will appeal to those who weren't pre-existing fans. We swear it! It's the Xiu Xiu album that everyone can love." One pained Jamie Stewart scream later and that proclamation gets shot to hell. Those who feel that Stewart's voice is their main impediment to appreciating his music on any level should know that he's remarkably restrained here, with female vocals featured more prominently and his own vocal eccentricities are squashed for the most part. Whereas "Fabulous Muscles" was Xiu Xiu's crack at making pop music (white noise pop at that), only the delightful "Boy Soprano" really fits that mold. Over and over again, they hit upon a dazzling sequence of fascinating and unexpected sound combinations set to hummable balladry, midtempo 80's throwbacks, and anodyne noise-blanketed moods. If "Fabulous Muscles" was the pop album, then "The Air Force" may well be the power ballad album.

"Buzz Saw" begins with gentle piano that could have been lifted from a Satie piece (or "Music For Airports") before getting interrupted by snare cracks, ghostly cymbals, electro-funk squelches, a female chorus, and wind chimes -- all in turn (and in various combinations). It threatens to break out into something more menacing (and earsplitting), but that moment never comes. This is a ballad that is determined to see itself to the finish. "Vulture Piano", with it's metronomic beat and spidery bassline, could pass for "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me"-era Cure (the letter-by-letter spelling of the song's title toward the end, similar to that in the chorus of the Cure's "Fire In Cairo", leads me to believe that the the ressemblance is no accident). Continuing the 80's theme, "Save Me" sounds like the Magnetic Fields covering songs on Fleetwood Mac's "Tango In the Night". Elsewhere, those who crave a noisier Xiu Xiu should be pleased with "Bishop, Ca", whose Kraftwerkian intro ("Franz Schubert" or more accurately, Rising High label ambient as immortalized on the early 90's "Chill Out Or Die" comps, or even better, Depeche Mode's "Waiting For the Night") does nothing to foreshadow the nightmare that accompanies its friendly "walla walla hey" chorus.

I have a CD by composer Martin Janicek, and on one of the pieces he plays a bent piece of thin plank wood held taut in its position by strings, creating echoey drones from its complicated vibrations. The final track on "The Air Force" is called "Wig Master" and to me it sounds a lot like that Martin Janicek piece. By this point (the entire record is a wonderously brief 34 minutes), I already have a million things to think about and that's before I get hit with the line "I'm gonna spank your ass so hard you're gonna hate the Wig Master, but I'll put two pillows on your dining room chair." Excuse me?

Two Memorials

Hundreds of notable personalities are buried in Paris' Cimetièire Père Lachaise, but it's only at Jim Morrison's grave that you'll find a security guard at his post seven days a week. As you surely know, Jim Morrison was a talentless junkie who also happened to be the lead singer of the Doors. Stories of his boorish behaviour abound, and his amateurish 8th grade Oedipal ramblings speak for themselves in terms of defining his uselessness as a writer. Ray Manzarek has made a career out of sanctifying Morrison as a visionary hero, eerily similar to the style that Tony Wilson would adopt vis a vis Ian Curtis (a Jim Morrison ripoff according to some) about a decade after Morrison's death. I personally enjoy the (apocryphal?) story about Jimbo dangling (or walking) off/on a balcony in an overwrough display of affection (twisted guilt trip?) for Pamela Courson (or Nico). The apologists say that it was an act of fiery passion by a man consumed by his romantic devotion to another human being. The sensible folk note instead that dangling (or walking) off/on a balcony is a fucking stupid thing to do, and only a total moron would do it under any circumstances. Speaking of drug abusers and sex addicts who died in Paris, it took me about twenty minutes to find Amedeo Modigliani's gravesite, which was about four rows off the walking path (most famous people are situated directly next to or within easy viewing distance from the path) and displayed a very unremarkable headstone. Until last week, not a single stone rested on his grave. They made a biopic about Modigliani's life too, so where is the love?

Continuing on the theme of people who drank themselves to death and expired in Paris, I figured I couldn't visit this city without making my own pilgrimage to Serge Gainsbourg's longtime residence at 5 Rue de Verneuil. Graffiti covers virtually the entire outside wall, and anguished poems and greetings to the deceased are written everywhere. It's a fairly quiet street, and in the few minutes I spent there, the people did walk by hardly seemed to notice the building at all -- surely it blends in with their perceived surroundings because they've seen it a million times before. I quietly took a few pictures and walked on.

Naturally, everybody should do what pleases them, but forgive me for ridiculing those who pull a tortured artist shtick and visit a gravesite or memorial to wrench immediate inspiration from it. It's about paying one's respects, not about camping out and relishing the taste of one's own angst.

Hopefully I can accompany this post with some pictures very soon

Bardo Pond, Ghostlights @ Lee's Palace

Bardo Pond's soundcheck/warmup becomes a spectacle in and of itself, building from gadget-checking tics and plucks into a cauldron of improvised noise with every band member's instrument screaming in unison. A lot like the opening band, Ghostlights, as a matter of fact. I can't help feeling a bit like a sucker for going out of my way to purchase or hear so many BP side projects and jam sessions when it's plain to see that they can knock that shit out in their sleep without the slightest thought.

And that pattern tends to repeat itself ... "Destroying Angel" begins a string of songs based around a similar tempo and style -- relaxed start, slow build into the cauldron of etc., and even though I fall for their tricks every single time, after an hour I'm still holding out for something much slower (e.g. "Favourite Uncle") or much faster and aggressive (e.g. "Again"). Those moments never come, for the band is in the mood to pour jam on everything tonight, even digging "Abscence" out of the archives to slot it into this looser style. "Every Man" is one of their live staples, but I have always felt it was the weakest track on "On the Ellipse", so thankfully I'm more than happy to hear them encore with "Aldrin" (whose coda finally fulfills my yen for both an aggressive track and a suitably mammoth closer). But didn't you know that Bardo Pond will play all night if asked? Michael Gibbons asks for a few minutes break, and the thirty or so diehards who stick around to take him up on his offer are rewarded with an explosive run through "Tommy Gun Angel".

All this and two-plus hours in the company of Isobel Sollenberger, who is still the hottest woman in rock.

Buzzcocks @ Phoenix Concert Theatre

Seeing a perfect show is a very rare thing, so rare that I'd have to think long and hard to remember the last one I saw. No, this Buzzcocks gig isn't the best show I've ever seen (not even close to it) but it was about as close to perfect as a concert can be (be careful not to confuse perfection with excellence).

There wasn't a single song I wanted to hear that they didn't play, sure, that's not so difficult to pull off if my Buzzcocks familiarity doesn't extend much beyond "Singles Going Steady", but nearly every band fails the selfish, nonsensical Set List Test. I didn't see a single person in the packed building who made a fool out of themselves by dancing in a style that gave away their age. Again, an easy test to pass in principle, but few bands and their fans can manage it. Pete Shelley still sounds great. I gave some quality thought to the notion of the Buzzcocks making the world safe for Green Day. They played for only 45 minutes, thankfully acknowledging the fact that any bands whose songs last only two minutes can't possibly play for much longer than that. Every song was efficient and fun. They made me want to run home and listen to the Ramones, in particular, to reconfirm that "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You" is still the all-time best song about love and relationships (it still is).

Pressure Kill Common Style, Twin Fangs @ Reverb

Rolling the dice on a NXNE gig featuring bands I've never heard of (save for a short recommendation in a newspaper) makes for some risky business -- if one of those bands turns out to be great, it's almost a bonus. Two great bands is a windfall.

For their main course, Pressure Kill Common Style channel "Isn't Anything"-era MBV, unleashing a furiously precise slate of noisy guitar rock. On the side, seemingly to satisfy the band member's collective curiousities, they do a thorough job of humiliating oft-hyped electronic pop bands like Styrofoam and Junior Boys by stealing their act and improving on it by leaps and bounds. How? Using the all-purpose musical topping -- hazy synth washes -- and drowning their dance beats with them. M83 should take note: this is the proper volume for synths in your live gigs. Then they dabble in Franz Ferdinand's style of 80's-style funk, just because they can, I guess. Brilliant stuff from beginning to end.

I don't usually like drums/guitar bands, but Twin Fangs are a very, very good one. It finally dawns on me just how low the White Stripes have set the bar. The drums are actually the lead instrument in this sort of band. Sloppy stickhandlers like Meg White put disproportional focus on the guitar -- the overall effect is that it appears as though an instrument is missing. This isn't the case with busy, dextrous, metronomic drummers. Screaming guitar solos and continual requests to increase the levels on the bass strings give the effect that there are four or five players on stage, and after a whirlwind thirty minutes, they stop, well before they've worn out their welcome. Always leave them wanting more, there's no fault in that.