Thanks For The Memories, AIDS Wolf

One of the bands I most looked up to as examples of how to run your career - AIDS Wolf - has just called it quits, via singer Chloe Lum's blog.

They toured relentlessly, designed posters as a side-job/for a living, and electrified audiences on three continents... even if by the end, it was to only 5 people at a time.

In her post, Chloe describes exactly how the ''free market'' in North America actually works - huge corporations no longer have to get their shit through customs, they can close factories in major cities and re-open them in Mexico or other poor countries at a lesser cost, but the proverbial Little Guy has to go through more - and more expensive - loopholes. Especially if He wants to make it all right and legal. It makes no moral sense.

Perhaps a show of love will convince them to not hang the wires forever, perhaps not. I know I've always wanted to sing a song with Lum myself; maybe if AW is on the backburner, she'll have time for it, maybe not. But this doesn't seem like a decision they made lightly, nor one they're thrilled about.

It's pretty much a mourning, for them and for us.

Picture below from suburbanalist.

picture below from Chloe's tumblr

The memories and recordings remain, though.

Video Of The Week: AIDS Wolf

First things first: if the band's name scares you off, your best bet is to not listen to the music. At all. Ever.

But you will. And you won't like it. You'll find it childish, like that ''art'' that hangs at galleries that is just a rectangle, that your 1-year old son could draw but is worth millions.

Let it be known that the musicians of AIDS Wolf (currently a trio formed of Chloe Lum, Yannick Desranleau and Alexander Moskos) could, if they wanted to, play note-for-note renditions of any Rolling Stones record (although they might actually prefer covering a Black Flag album), but as a no-wave band that hints on hardcore punk and dub themselves ''wierd punk'' (sic), they purposely choose atonal sounds, screams, textures and layers over melody.

They pride themselves on going wild in their live shows, which usually involve their extended entourage being in the crowd but has grown to include a large international following (from a fierce touring schedule and regimen over the past 5 years). And, for that - to build that - the name helps. Certainly.

For a while, they lived their art even outside the sounds of the band; sure, I'm referring to the screenprinting venture Lum and Desranleau are responsible for - Seripop - one that has garnered an international reputation as well, with shows in museums all across North America; but I'm also referring to the nude band pics that can be found pretty much everywhere on the interwebs.

These days, they let the music speak for itself. Case in point: they don't actually appear in the video - not in a decipherable fashion, anyway. Which is the point - and is pretty much the exact same point that they're trying to make with the type of music they choose to play: they're tired of the old, tired rock, and they get off experimenting in something that is both more primal and more 'researched', more layered. To get into it, you need to open your ears' minds and look for what you want to hear. It's too much trouble for many, but it's quite rewarding for others.



Aids Wolf - Suck is Happiness from Emily P on Vimeo.

How Does It Work?

It's quarter to 5AM. I've had an alright night, going all around town looking for a place to chill among fellows - with some kind of womanly attention going on. It took us at least two hours to get settled, but once we did, it was all right. So, Cafe Campus it was. None of us were looking to get lucky per se, but it was mutual consent, which is more than I can say for our conversations an hour previous.

So the Night happens, relatively uneventful; no one cheats on their girlfriend, no one does anything stupid, but some people are provided with a ride home, Facebook/cell phone numbers/emails, are exchanged, but no one gets hurt, right?

But on the way home, a real man deserves a poutine before going to bed. The girls go home first,but the men deserve fries with cheese and gravy; there is no more humane way to go to bed in Québec, period.

Problem is, I take it to go; and I watch TV when I get home. Tune into MusiquePlus, which should be the last cultural threshold we have before turning into monkeys. There is a Sam Roberts video, yes, sure; but nothing else worth mentioning, which is where the problematic issues arise. So... a half-decent rock video, and I'm-better-off-scratching-two-rocks-together-and-get-me-some-fire music.

It would (probably) be fine in and of itself; but when half the people you meet every day praise you for showing them unsigned bands worth checking out, when your own stuff seems light years beyond what is force-fed... your stomach gets some sort of a twitch. It would be vomit to most, but in 15 years of dealing with it on a nightly basis, you get used to it. It's the feeling that your City, your Culture, isn't doing half of what it should if the mainstream knew what was going on, even 10% of it.

Tonight, I could have had sex with 10 people; tonight, I could have started 15 bands - it's sad enough when the artist/fuckable female ratio is uneven, it's even worse when you trust that some of these people could bring something useful to the table.

In 2007, when I first took UnPop on my own, nearly half the bands had feminine content. Rock is at that level now anyway, whether you acknowledge it or not. It would be stupid and unfair to not acknowledge it, but some folks live in the past - and that's their choice.

Tonight especially, though, things stuck out. Girls are still waiting for that Grand Romantic Gesture. Why? You want s0mething - you take it. If it's not yours to take - you're told. No questions.

It's been a weird evening. I'm not sure whether that's because I've had more ''I want to play music with you'' offers (4, maybe 5) than ''I want you to come over and fuck me all night'' offers (3), but the math was off.

Either way - I got home by 4:30AM or so. Sam Roberts was playing on MusiquePlus. And the 0nly thing can got in my head was ''don't these guys have anything else they can play?'' Keep in mind, Sam Roberts is the most mainstream, conventionally-acclaimed singer-songwriter we have here, much more normal than Arcade Fire or Wolf Parade or Ghettonuns or AIDS Wolf. They don't play Beatles-like songs, but they don't seem like they're playing on broken instruments either; they're not inventing a style, but they're not playing to a crowd of 17 in-the-know fans either. Sam Roberts is the middle-ground for everything outsiders love about Montréal, but he's also the middle-ground for everything we can agree on.

Yet I couldn't help thinking everything else just sucked.

Maybe I was lucky; maybe Dead Messenger, Ghettonuns, Devil Eyes, Raw Madonna and the like are too raw for the mainstream. But then, how do you explain the success of Ideal Lovers, Coeur De Pirate and ElevenEighty?

I think programmers are just afraid of the Future, of what Montréal artists can bring to the table. And it hurts me inside, because I've seen that they can do it, that the empty space is theirs to take. On Bodies, Les Vestons, Allan Lenton, Elizabeth Bruce, Plunt, Nightwood... - I'm specifically talking about YOU. Time, money and energy is wasted on others. I really hope you don't get passed over like a passed-due carton of milk.