Strange Animals from Planet Toronto

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The Creeping Nobodies

Let's pretend money is no object, and do the make-believe thing as if concerts tickets never sold out (or that Tully here has a permanent privilege guest pass for any show he damn well wants to attend). Then Saturday night may have proved a curious quagmire for the live rock n roll heat seeking party zombie/corner lurker that I am (with wimpy digi-cam to boot). Let's see, Blonde Redhead, Arcade Fire, Peaches… Fuck it, said I, and went straight to the Zoobizarre for some of Toronto's finest and noisiest (and had oh-so much extra cash to spend on beer).

I made the right choice, and the bruises prove it.

Anagram came on like the drunken, coked up, older brother of a June bride at her wedding to some plaid-panted square working as an investment cranker (and whom the bride thought was a total piss-headed loser back in high school when he picked his nose and played Seinfeld trivia at lunch). Read: 'in your face' literally, with lead man's circling antics and mock poses as he chanted on a drone of commands somewhere between Ian Curtis and a Buddhist on speed. There was that cold disdain for key changes and chord progression that sends any radio whore to the STD clinic in a throb. Was that a fucking Saxophone? Like Stooges/Birthday Party saxophone, Fucking A yeah! This gig was so hoped up on incessantly repetitive euphoria and anti-pop attitude I had to cry in the bathroom afterwards for like, two minutes, as I shamelessly stickered it up to cheaply boost my ego.

Having recovered with the help of buying shots for two Aussie dive-bar twins (anything for a smile), the procession banged on punctually with The Creeping Nobodies. At first I was apprehensive about getting too close to the stage. While drawn forth by nuclear build-ups of dissonance, not to mention a cut-cute keyboardist whom I was checking out all night, unbeknownst to me she was in the fucking band (oh shame Tully), something about the singer's Columbine-esque style of looming and leering kept me to the wall like I was at some sort of Nazi spin-the-bottle party. But, I now know this to be just the nervous reaction they sucked up, for before long the fear turned to frenzy, bordered on frolic, and u-turned into no-shit seizure-ly phantasmal-fun, like crack fun. How to turn freak lines of guitar, bass, keys and voice into the equivalent of being sexually assaulted in an Ontario sewer? How to have a heart attack in anticipation experinecing mass, condemned architectural ejeaculations? Shit, don't ask me, it's just a metaphor kids (and quite non-sense at that). Review: good, like sucker-punching somebody in the gut good, like great.

Today I breath well, feeling generally coddled for being able to gush sincerely about one of the awesomest ten-buck-or-less rock parties in a while. But don't get too cocky T-Dot, lest I may have to clear some space in my kitchen and turn it into a co-op living share for your exiled under-grounders to come reside and keep me air-guitaring. A Co-op? Ha! The profit would be all mine.