Go with Guts! + Blog Status Update

A week-and-a-half ago, I started writing music reviews for the online magazine Vancouver Weekly. I'm writing as much as I can for them on top of working a full-time job, so the blogging has become less substantial. I've covered a couple of shows for them already, have an album review coming in a week and will have interview opportunities when I feel ready for the entirely new challenge of conjuring my inner-Nardwuar. My upcoming album review brings me to the other point of this post.

For my first Van Weekly album review, I narrowed down my choices from a provided list to the Strokes' new album Comedown Machine (RCA) and Wax Idols' Discipline and Desire (Slumberland Records), both due March 26. I really wanted to review DaD for a few reasons: Wax Idols' previous/debut album No Future was one of my favourite albums I heard last year (though it came out in 2011 on Hozac Records); they're from Oakland, CA and newer, so they're more relevant and present than the Strokes in both a regional and contemporary sense; and because Wax Idols are new and great, I want them to receive as much exposure as possible. Most enticingly of all, reviewing DaD would have required research, something I've never really done when it comes to music-writing because I usually write about topics/musicians/etc. I already know about. But DaD was largely inspired by lead Idol Heather Fortune's 24/7 lifestyle as a fetishist and dominatrix and thus, as she described to VICE, delves into "satirical social commentary ... a lot of references to fetish and sexuality and death—you know, the good stuff."

In the past few years, I've gotten pretty good at forcing myself out of my comfort zone - to take risks and to try new things, especially when it comes to things I'm passionate about, like music and writing. But I've also gotten pretty good at forcing myself to go with my gut. And though DaD's fetishist angle flashes glaringly like a big, red beacon, and I'd really like to tackle a subject so taboo and for the large part misunderstood, my gut feeling overrode my desire to seek a larger challenge. It told me to write my first published album review about one of the most important bands of one the most musically formative periods of my life. So for mainly sentimental reasons, I've chosen to review the Strokes' Comedown Machine over what I'm sure would have also been an exciting album to review, Wax Idols' Discipline and Desire. Plus, I'm sure as an obvious talking point, everyone who reviews DaD will be talking about BDSM. And it's not like Comedown Machine doesn't have its own daunting challenge, having been hyped to hell and back like all Strokes albums.

So to Wax Idols, I say maybe next time. And to the Strokes, I say just bring it.