Hot Hot Heat on the DL

I don't exactly know how secret this show was, all I know is that there was absolutely no advertising for it, and I thought I shouldn't do a post on here because...well, I don't know, I like the idea of a show being secret. My friend Matt from the Fall Collection invited me to the Red Room to see his new band, along with You Say Party! We Say Die! and of course Hot Hot Hair. Now, I don't want to be one of those people, but I saw them back when they were a no-wave spazz band at the Java Joint in Surrey. I also saw them as they're present incarnation as dance-pop sensations at a house party in East Van. I liked both. I even liked their first Sub Pop release, Knock Knock. But when Make Up The Breakdown came out, I had enough of the rock star posturing. The vocals were super high in the mix and you could hardly hear the drums. The whole thing was like a shiny can of Coca Cola, fizzy and sleek. They got signed to Warner for a million dollars, got stylists and groupies and a whole new fan base of teeny boppers.

Okay, I'm officially old. Who were those people? Was that Mypsace? MSN? WTF?

I know, I know. Show reviews that focus on the crowd are lame.

I missed You Say Party because I had to work, and well there was zero advanced notice of this show. I did however catch The Fall Collection's (not collective) set in it's entirety. Resorting to stereotypes, I'd have to categorize (we need categories, us journalists) them as Dancemo. What is Dancemo? I just made it up. (All good journalists invent genres) Postal Service is almost Dancemo, but not quite. Bloc Party are closer.

The Fall Collection fall somewhere between Minus the Bear, The Faint, And The Killers. Not usually my bag of dicks, but they are good at what they do, and I know Cam is sincere and not hopping on any sort of bandwagon. He's been doing this for a while as he was in Mico before this. All the players are quite talented and have the makings of being quite successful; and depending on which direction they want to go could garner some commercial success. The songs are radio friendly for sure, but there is also a passion for music here that is lacking from corporate rock radio.

But do they want to go the same direction as Hot Hot Heat who have been getting increasingly safer and safer as time goes by. I know everyone loves to talk shit about HHH for selling out or whatever, but you gotta give them some credit. They are a lot better than most shit out there in popland and despite what people say, they are good people. Sure, they could have chose to dwell in obscurity, or even reside in the mid level purgatory that is SubPop. I suppose the one main criticism that may be warranted is that they should have changed their name after dropping Matty from the band. They really became a completely different band. Of course, Dante recently left the band, but the music didn't alter drastically after that.

Back to the show: It was fun to play the snobby indie kid role for a couple of songs and stand up at the front taking pictures for my blog, but really, I just didn't belong there. The kids were having fun and I shouldn't ruin it for them. Steve Bays is an amazing performer, but I really can't connect with the music anymore. Call me cynical and jaded if you will, but the whole thing just felt like a cheesy music video.

So if you want to see some bands this weekend that are still playing house parties, go to the Vancouver Vipers Myspace site and click on upcoming shows for the address. The Winks are also playing at their practice space, 152 W. Hastings (not 156).