Picnic or Poker

Does anyone like stories? This one goes like this.

I really love Wolf Parade. If you don't know who they are, it's OK, essentially your typical indie rock act but with more edge, bare emotions, and unspoiled energy. I got their long play debut cd, titled Apologies to the Queen Mary, probably fall of third year.(1) A long enough time ago, in other words.(2) A lifetime ago, you could even say.

So I checked on the band occasionally via www, to see if they gots a new cd, tour dates or other trivia.(3) Fast forward a little bit and I noticed one of the Wolf Parade's singers splintered temporary to a side project/band, Handsome Furs.(4) Even clueless as to what this new band's sound might possibly be, there was instant excitement. Fast forward some more, and an announcement, via www, of, among others, two Handsome Furs shows in my home state, Lower East Side NY!

Now, I was not working back then. So I thought better to tighten the credit card belt, and save the plastic pennies for a rainy future day. Weeks passed and weeks passed. And well, 13 dollars per ticket is not much, I'll just not super-size a meal or two. And presto, yesterday (Monday) I was set for tomorrow's (Wednesday) grand show.

At this point, today (Tuesday) saw the release of Handsome Furs' debut cd, Plague Park,(5) which is pretty damn good, sort of like Wolf Parade but more edge, emotions, and energy. Ha, just kidding. It's same and different, as would probably be expected.(6) But if Wolf Parade isn't your boat, you ain't gonna set sail for Handsome Furs either.(7)

I may have been set for Wednesday's show but God or the United States Custom officers equivalent believed otherwise.(8) Apparently, Canadians Dan and Alexei, the tag team who are Handsome Furs, were denied entry to the red, white, and blue parts of the beautiful Americas. Retribution for the Senators trouncing the Sabres?(9) Maple syrup protectionist policy? Chertoff issued a double secret new threat alert against the rock & roll sector?(10) Anyway, as a result, their shows, including the one I have a ticket for, were c-a-n-celed. Fuck. And double fuck.

The end. Short, but harmless.


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1. I actually, if it matters, caught them opening for another band I like during summer first year. That was a true lifetime ago! And the year delineation refers to an American law school thing.

2. One of my better friends in law school (I should use this space to say that all my friends, in or out of law school, are my better friends) was this seemingly Nordic giant named, by initial, B. We shared a common interest in indie and new musical exploration that was such that I trust his musical judgment near without reservation. Soon after I got the Wolf Parade cd that fateful third year, I shared it with him. A year later, he told me that one of the bands he had since really gotten into was Wolf Parade. And I was totally like, "Dude, I gave you that cd a year ago." He maybe didn't pay as much attention to Apologies a year ago, as it deserved. At the same time, during that fateful third year's time, I was quite into Etta James, and I remember in casual conversation B. saying he was listening to a lot to Miss Peaches as well, independent of any referral by me. As for the Wolf Parade slight, it's all good, he got me into Brooklyn's new flavor, a band called The Nationals. These days probably one of my favorite new-ish act is New Jersey's The Wrens, and I wonder if B. has their amazing album titled The Meadowlands.

3. You have to google for yourself, I'm afraid, for the sites.

4. Via www: To an interview question "How did the name Handsome Furs come about?" Alexei replied, "I was working on a short story with that title. It came from a Victorian book of clip art I had. It was this funny advertisement featuring a little dapper man in a fur coat with a huge moustache." I'm not crazy about the name (in part because I'm anti-pelt), but I excuse it, figuring Canadians have a special and natural affinity to the wilderness and fur. The other Wolf Parade singer, Spencer Krug, has his own side project/band, the very good Sunset Rubdown, whose newest cd, titled Shut Up I Am Dreaming, is also pretty good.

5. Via www: "The title comes from ... Ruttopuisto Park, located in the center of Helsinki, Finland, which was built on the corpses of one thousand, one hundred and eighty five people who died of 'pest plague' in 1710. Every year, on the first day of spring, the locals go down to Plague Park to honor the town and those fallen due to this unfortunate incident." However, and regardless that it is wrong, I just think the title was meant to be an homage to Camus' novel, titled The Plague.

6. From their myspace page: "The duo of Handsome Furs began as an idea in the winter of 2006, comprised of Montreal residents Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade) and Alexei Perry. Dark and minimal while noisy and earnest, the point was to be as sparse and repetitive as possible with the help of little more than vocals, guitars, and a new drum machine. Through this, songs of earthbound captains, eggs made of gold and iron, and sleepless bodies were born. Boeckner's disenchanted vocals thinly resonate while cloaked in a frenzied undertone of fear and uncertainty, all punctuated by bare drum machine beats. Through the course of each track, a deep-seated sense of longing is leveled out by staunch realism as a restless disdain for both urban life and smaller towns collide... It is a record of melancholic tendency and heartfelt desire; a stripped down symphony relegated between city and country, and made for ears of either side." Uh, why not.

7. Plague Park actually is quite wonderful. I have listened to Plague pretty much nonstop and exclusively at the expense of recent new purchases that include Arcade Fire, Feist, Besnard Lakes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs & Mandopop princess Sun YanZi (her new cd is quite good too). "Baby, we can get you anything you want, any time you want, but you won't know what it's for."

8. I do not know why I have to insert God into every situation and argument that involves hard luck, bad breaks and so forth. But if I cannot sloppily blame Him/Her, then who else?

9. Ottawa ended Buffalo's Stanley Cup dreams. Yeah, I don't follow hockey much either.

10. I assume the Secretary of Homeland Security hands out the national threat advisories.