"You make me want to pick up a guitar, and celebrate the myriad ways that I love you."

Blogging from the DC area this morning, as I traveled to my sister's place in order to catch Interpol last night at the 9:30 Club. A solid, professional show (give that guitar player a Quaalude, though), but the real revelation was the opening act, Blonde Redhead. Might have been the absolute shittiest performance ever from a group I paid money to see. And I'm including De La Soul's horrible '93 performance at Bates College. It was all the more offensive to me because I normally like this sort of crap: shoegazer guitar chords powerfully strummed for two-three minutes with heavy use of the ol' flanger pedal, with either a skinny male mumbling incomprehensible lines about a cruel world or an ethereal female ready to protect you in her moist mother-earth embrace. But the illusion was destroyed every time Kazu Mikano opened her mouth, thus turning their performance into high comedy. After every painfully out-of-tune line she insisted on doing a dance that resembled a cross between Axl Rose and a drunk Olive Oyl. I'm still in shock from the stunning lack of self-awareness. Sis and I killed time waiting for the Interpol set up with various theories concerning BR's ability to score a gig like this (they all involved Mikano being someone's girlfriend), but a quick Amazon search reveals they've been around for a while. Judging from their song titles, their hilarious pretensiousness isn't limited to concert performances, and remember, this is coming from a guy with two Slowdive albums.

Maybe she was just getting over a cold.

I almost want to buy their album just to find out how production masks her voice, she CAN'T sound like that on disk, can she? Oh well, the drummer was good (I'm such a softie, I have to say something nice about everything).

Didn't say much about Interpol, did I? Certainly not enough to justify the use of a song line as a subject title. Didn't realize the bassist was so angular. And kudos to Sis for finding a great spot to watch the show (balcony in the right corner affords a great view of everything).