Excuse me, but can someone please tell me why Canada is kicking our ass at everything? They've got democratic socialism, Internet pills, gay marriage, weird international Quebecois nationalism, more hair salons per capita than anywhere else and scads of rad bands more interesting, more messed-up, more right now than anything we've got to offer.
Dandi Wind (myspace.com/dandiwind), the outta-left-field trio who're about to blaze a trail through Europe because we're too busy sending troops to Iraq and cutting off abortion funding and dancing to ghetto sets from Steve Aoki to pay attention to something so special. Audiences piss their pants over Dandi Wind's utterly weird bubblegum rockabilly techno humpcore, though even if the music wasn't anything to write home about, their penchant for vaguely mystical, hypersexual WTF costumes would be worth the price of admission.
Plus, Canada has groups like
Crystal Castles (myspace.com/crystalcastles), a black leather video-game digital hardcore lite duo who seem like they might punch you in the face for fun. And sex-goo dance-punk
Duchess Says (myspace.com/duchesssays) and scrappy death rock
Twin Crystals (myspace.com/twincrystals) and neo no-wave
Channels 3x4 (myspace.com/ch3x4), all of whom are spastic and amateur in the best sense of the word ... Just start at any one MySpace page and click on Top Eights from there, and suddenly you're heading down a rabbit hole of awesomeness: scribbly noise with a bangin' beat that makes you want to fight or f--k.
Basically we have
Summer Lovers Unlimited (summerloversunlimited.com) to thank for all this, a record label of smartasses with the good taste to put out black-eyeliner, middle-finger disco. Until they slip up and start releasing b.s. like whoever's dubbed "the next Killers," the U.S. doesn't stand a chance of competing. But rumor has it
Les Georges Leningrad—a group that includes a married couple and a ghost (not associated with the label)—just broke up after seven years, which is a crying shame, but at least that's one less band of shriekers, screechers, and shakers to threaten us.