luv the valley

I saw Xiu Xiu in concert at the Bowery Ballroom last night. Jamie was great, but the opening band, the Yellow Swans, was an instrumental nutjob that evoked the possible results of two MFA students of ambiguous sexual orientation inheriting a warehouse of samplers and mixers and deciding to drop out of their program to change the world ... one already-converted emo boy at a time. At one point one of the band members, who looked a little like Dave Grohl but had up to this point been doing nothing but turning knobs and switches, starting shouting into a microphone (facing in profile to the crowd) and sort of limp-wristedly punching his fist in the air, but there was so much noise created from the last ten minutes of sampling that you couldn't hear anything at all from the man with the mic. Also, I have to say, I'm a liberal as well, but you just make us all look bad when you blame Bush for "napalming Iraqi babies." Napalm? Napalm is not a metaphor.

I saw lots and lots of nerdy glasses, and guys who don't work out but who wear very tight shirts anyway.

I saw Jamie Stewart rock out on a harpsichord! An autoharp? I'm not sure.