Empire records and Adult Disillusionment
I spent last night watching Empire Records and being overly maudlin with Miran. Remembering those golden days when we couldn't wait to be old enough to get jobs at record stores, because obviously work would be exactly like Empire Records. I can't say Mintage is bad, there are definitely huge benefits to working in a vintage clothing store--mainly the built in opportunity to flirt with well dressed hipsters "No-absolutely, change right in front of me so i can give you my opinion of your chest-I mean cowboy shirt", but also the fact that any wardrobe misstep you make ends up looking hyper fashionable. At Wonderbucks my new haircut might just be messy, but now that I work at a prestige store my haircut looks intentional (and really, I guess there are worse things to look like than Sophia Loren on a painkiller bender). It's just that nothing will ever live up to the reality presented by Empire Records. We ended up making a last minute decision to see Xiu Xiu, which ended up being, well, a Xiu Xiu concert. We got there in time for the last few songs of the second band, I don't know what he was called, but he was really frightening. He alternated between smashing the shit out of his drums and banging on the xylephone in a rhapsody. I find music without a voice alienating, and this kind of took that feeling to the next level. Xiu Xiu did their usual thing, it was cool to see them with a drummer, but I wasn't blown away like the last time I saw them. Though one song, which I'll just call "I Can Pluck My Own Mustache" sung by Caralee was breathtaking. I don't know if it says something about the decline of Jaimie Stewart's artistic pluck that he was absent from what was by far the most intense song of the evening. The new album is definitely a bit less horrificly damaged, though he can still sing lines like "Your acne is a pearl" with feeling. The crowd was a bit of a cliche, with crossed arms and nodding heads, but really what else are you supposed to do at a Xiu Xiu concert? Writhe on the floor? Tear Your garments? Do the boogaloo?