love is an (international) and noisy battlefield

and i'd fight, hard, for my love.

sexiest. frontman. ever.

ha ha.

really, my complete love for the (international) noise conspiracy has NOTHING to do with the uber-sexiness of my future husband denis lyxzen. seriously. but he is hot...

whatever, not the point.

i think i first heard t(i)nc sometime in 2001 or 2002. the first song i heard was 'capitalism stole my virginity' and had discovered them somewhere along my path to discovering that refused was of the only hardcore bands that didn't make me want to rip my ears off my head. either way, i was instantly hooked.

and i wasn't hooked soley by the quality of the music but also by the quality of the message. i continue to appreciate their passion and commitment to their political ideals. more than anything i appreciate their acknowledgement of the glaring contradictions of being an anti-capitalist band who needs to sell records to survive. that's always been the thing that makes me laugh about so many supposed anarchist/anti-capitalist punk bands-they just don't seem to be aware of the irony of what they do. their struggle is something that i, as an artist, really appreciate. how do we survive as artists without 'selling out' and still manage to eat/pay rent/not have a day-job/not die?

t(i)nc is also one of those bands who's songs inspire a crazy amount of nostalgia. their new album, armed love, for example takes me back to the fall of 2004 when i went to europe to prevent a post-graduation nervous breakdown. i got this album the first day i was in london (it wasn't available in n. america at the time-and also still on burning heart) and i remember walking around london, edinburgh and dublin with that album as the soundtrack to those thousands of steps.

i closed my eyes last night during 'communist moon' and i could smell the cobblestone and train stations and that little cemetary in the middle of ediburgh that inspired my sleeve.

it's funny because before i left for that trip i was trying to plan my time in france around their tour schedule thinking if i didn't see them in europe i'd never see them. it didn't work out. and i've been lucky; i've seen them twice in the past 18months right here in good ol' edmitten.

last night's show was a zillion times better than the last time i saw them peep this:

(from may 18, 2005)

on tuesday i had the pleasure of hitting up the venue equivalent of stalingrad (thanks jeff) for a little concert!

the (international) noise conspiracy are one of my FAVOURITE bands! they killed! KILLED! so much energy and joy to their show. they are a band who, without a doubt, LOVE what they are doing and have fun with it. it's so nice to see a band with something intellegent to say be totally rad without all the artifice of post-modern ironic hipster bullshit. you aren't that cool, denis lyxzen knows you aren't that cool so just fucking dance and stop trying to be cool!! they KILLED! i love this band!

and finally......and you will know us by the trail of dead were not my favourite. to be honest i found them a bit boring. while their two amazing drummers made me a little bowl of panty soup i just couldn't get past the uber-masculine-prog-taking-ourselves-WAY-too-seriously-bombast! they are good musicians but remember boys, rockin' out can be fun too...i just can't understand how you can take yourself seriously when you're play the tambourine...c'mon you emo-tastic idiots...HAVE FUN!! your black hearts and cheesy as shit lyrics will probably forgive you!

so that's what i had to say almost a year to the day ago and let me tell you something last night's show was a zillion times more fun, energetic and joyful than the last time i saw them. i think it had a lot to do with the fact that the show wasn't at reds. i think the last time the band found the idea of playing in that mecca to over-consumption and jeans a little nauseating.

whatever it was, they played an amazing show and just reinforced all the things i love about live music. even just being there really made me feel a lot better.

x's and o's

michelle.