Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Twin Canadians: The Connection

In my admittedly belated review of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs album Fever to Tell (which I posted early last year), I mentioned how Karen O managed to pull-off uncanny impressions of Siouxsie Sioux and Chrissie Hynde. I bring it up again now because (1) As always, any mention of Karen O or the Yeahs will automatically increase my hit-count by 40%, and (2) The new Yeahs single, called "Gold Lion" is out now.


(Obligatory YYY pic guaranteed to increase web hits)

First, let me say that "Gold Lion" is a brilliant song, and I absolutely love it. I usually prefer to have the context of an album before I make such proclimations (Show Your Bones, the forthcoming YYY album, drops March 28), but "Gold Lion" could be my favorite Yeah Yeah Yeahs song. It doesn't sound like Siouxsie and the Banshees, or The Pretenders, or anything else on Fever to Tell.

In fact, it sounds exactly like Tegan and Sara.

Right. So, is it actually a good thing that Karen O and the Yeahs can sound like so many other bands? I really don't know. I do know that Rock music desperately needs Karen O right now, since she is basically the only one in the genre who is flying the female flag and getting major airplay. So I can't criticize her too much. Hell, I'm as mesmerized by her as most people seem to be.

Therefore, I will leave that conversation for another time, and come to the real point of this post: To talk about the comparatively (and unfortunately) under-appreciated Tegan and Sara.

I've been playing tracks from their album So Jealous (the only one I own right now) for months. The first time I heard them was probably over a year ago, when "Walking with a Ghost" was getting airplay on Indie broadcast and satellite radio stations. And if you haven't heard any Tegan and Sara songs, that right there may be the reason. "Walking with a Ghost" is one of the two quirkiest songs on the album, the type of song that Indie stations like to play because it's too quirky to cross over.


Tegan and Sara. No, wait...
Sara and Tegan? Wait...

But the rest of the album is so catchy and so appealing, that if any other song had gotten airplay initially, it would've had a good shot at crossing over. Not that "crossing over" is or should necessarily be the goal of a band like Tegan and Sara, but it would be a shame if a potentially large fanbase missed out on T&S just because they weren't listening to the right radio stations.

Tegan and Sara, the people (I don't know their last names, and I'm not sure anybody does) hail from Calgary, Alberta, but because they are identical twin sisters, they now live on opposite ends of Canada from each other, in order to avoid driving each other (more) crazy. You can find this info and more at the website linked to above. Each sister wrote the other's amusing bio, and even the band's official press release for So Jealous has the sisters' distinct stamp on it: "The band is happy to report that no one cried during the recording process, except of course Sara (identity crisis on the second day of mixing) and Tegan (she cries whenever Sara starts crying)."

That these unique (except for being identical twins) women managed to make an album that is peculiar yet totally accessible, speaks volumes about their songwriting skills. "We Didn't Do It" sounds a bit like Missing Persons, but not in the way that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sound like Tegan and Sara. It's not so much a matter of familiar melodies as it is of vocal references. Nobody sounds like Tegan and Sara, but occasionally Tegan and Sara use the same vocal inflections as in certain Police songs. Or, if you really want to get into minutiae, pay close attention and you'll notice that they frequently use the exact same inflections as the lead guy from Thompson Twins. (No, I am not insane; just listen to how they pronounce their "D" words!)

I also love "You Wouldn't Like Me", a paen to insecurity, and "We Didn't Do It", a beautifully-produced track that builds up to some surprising heights.

(Sidebar: Actually, there is one person who sounds a bit like Tegan and Sara: The comedienne (and occasional singer) Sarah Silverman. Enough so that when I first heard "Walking with a Ghost", and the announcement of the band name "Tegan and Sara", I thought that it might be a musical side project of Ms Silverman's! Alas, the world still awaits for that potential to be realized.)

The bottom line is, Stop ignoring Tegan and Sara, buy their albums, visit their website, etc., etc., etc.

And thanks to all YYY fans for the traffic. ;)

Strippers+Wrestling > Moving

[Note: The publication of this post had to be delayed due to a problem with Blogger's photo upload service. Looks like they're shootin' for 100% downtime! C'mon Blogger, you can do it!]

Regular readers of this blog (both of you) are already aware of my peripheral connection to the entertainment spectacular known as Lucha Va Voom (my sister Rita is Co-Producer and a performer), as well as my deep and abiding love for those fighting filles, the Poubelle Twins (and in case Mrs. Arhythmius is reading, by "love" I of course mean "respect for the craft").

For those of you who didn't know all that, you do now.

What none of you know is the great shame that I am about to reveal: I did not attend LVV's Valentine's Day event, "Love, Mexican Style" last week. That's right: I am lame, and I let the side down.



There was really only one thing that could have kept me from attending (aside from the usual Death, Dismemberment or Nausea clauses), and that was being neck-deep in the fresh hell of moving. As usual, the act of taking stuff from one place to another somehow turned out to be 200% more difficult than originally anticipated (and I originally anticipated it to be an excruciating, interminable mess).

So, that's what I was doing instead of watching the Poubelles dominate the ring; instead of watching Super Porky demolish Blue Demon, Jr.; instead of watching the Wau Wau Sisters --

Holy CRAP, I missed the Wau Wau Sisters!

The Wau Wau Sisters [Photo: Marcy Robinson]

Well, now I'm even more bummed-out than before. How utterly bogus. Here's hoping I won't be lame and miss the show next time.

C'est une tragédie! Forgive me, Bibi!

O Blogger! Wherefore dost thou suck?

People often ask me why I don't post in this blog more often. Well, that's not entirely true; in fact, people never ask me that, because nobody really reads this blog. But if they were to ask, here is what my answer would be:

Because, of all the times I have visited Blogger or Blogspot.com with the intention of posting, the site was down for about half of those times. That's 50% downtime, which is considered "bad" in the world of information technology. Mind you, that's not 50% of my overall visits to Blogger, just 50% of the times where I intended to post. And since I post at fairly random times, that means that Blogger is, technically, really fucked-up.

(I've made this joke before, but as everybody knows, redundancy actually makes sarcasm funnier, so here goes) I suppose that I shouldn't be too upset, because Blogger is just a tiny startup that has been forced to contend with the sudden and unforseeable explosion in popularity of blogging, and so therefore technical SNAFU's are to be expected.

Oh, wait -- actually, Blogger is part of a company that is worth about $100 Billion, and whose raison d'etre is the investment of huge sums of cash into bleeding-edge technologies, in order to make everyone's computing experience simple, efficient and fun. And they're doing great at it! Basically, every consumer-level application that Google has ever released just plain works. Even their oft-ridiculed, eternally Beta services.

*Sigh* -- except for Blogger.

Oh, and blogging has been extremely popular for, what, two years now? Yeah, hey Blogger? You may just want to get some new equipment to handle the sudden load.

Look, I realize that information technology on such a scale can never be problem-free. I don't expect Blogger to have zero downtime, I really don't. However, I do think I'm right in saying that 50% downtime is a bit much. It could just be my bad timing, but then again, Blogger could just suck that badly. I guess I only expect more because the last time I couldn't access Google.com or Gmail was, let me see... oh yeah, NEVER.

Now that I've finished my rant, it'd be really funny if it didn't post.

Go [Nicolette] Go

Some rather disappointing news about a featured ESTROGENIUS artist broke while I was unplugged from the internet:

Go Betty Go have announced that lead vocalist Nicolette Vilar is leaving the group. Most people don't realize how punishing their schedule has been, but the band has been alternately recording and touring around the world for about two years straight. That's bound to take a toll on anybody, and after plugging away as best she could, Nicolette finally decided that it was too much for her.

For more about Go Betty Go's recent album Nothing is More, check out my review here.

Betty, Aixa, Nicolette and Michelle of Go Betty Go

The good news for fans of the band is that Betty, Michelle and Aixa (Nicolette's sister) intend to continue Go Betty Go with a new lead singer, and will be posting audition information on the GBG website soon.

It all seems amicable, at least in public, and I don't know if it's because they're women, or because they're friends. It just seems to me that a lot of male groups tend to have spectacular flameouts, but female groups just sort of part ways with no drama. Even Hole disbanded quietly, for chrissake! Again, I'm talking about the public perception, because in private, there had to be all kinds of tears.

In any case, I wish Nicolette all the best in whatever she chooses to do in life, because she has entertained me greatly as the singer of Go Betty Go. And I look forward to GBG's next chapter: The music business can be insanely difficult, and I hope that GBG can work through this latest difficulty and come out the other side more successful than ever. Because they're Stronger...Than Yesterday!

Sorry...

Stuff

Personal note: The Big Move is done (almost), and I now have internet service at the new homestead. Halle-freakin'--lujah. Anyway, although we are moving into a larger -- and by all standards, better -- apartment, our goal was to be a bit more minimalist with our personal possessions. I don't mean ascetic or Spartan (I loves my HDTV), I just mean...we want less stuff. After ten years of living in the same place, one tends to accumulate a lot of stuff. To that end, we've donated to charity or disposed of about half of our stuff.

So, how is it that our remaining stuff is now filling-up our larger apartment, and we're not even done with moving yet?!? It seems physically impossible, and remember, the goal was to have less stuff. What the hell? There's no explanation -- except that I'm a walking George Carlin routine.

Save the Raymond (Again)!

Once again, it's time to step-up and give more support to a worthwhile local cause: The effort to preserve the historic Raymond Theatre in Pasadena.

I last wrote about the Raymond in the earlier version of Minor Notes, but sadly, the battle is not yet over. The preservation group Friends of the Raymond Theatre needs to raise $2500 in legal fees by February 10th (and when you read about the chicanery being propagated by City officials and private developers, you'll understand why so much litigation is necessary).

And let me reiterate my surprise at how, in this age of more enlightened preservation (especially in SoCal), somebody tried to get away with "redeveloping" the Raymond, without consideration for its history -- and nearly got away with it!

I encourage concerned citizens to visit the Friends of the Raymond website, and to contribute whatever they can to help preserve this outstanding piece of Pasadena history.