tonight, tonight - saw panthers/the walkmen/the liars. panthers, hmm. whatever. the walkmen, as my dear blog reader(s) know, have been tickling my fancy for some time. they proved wholly mid-20s, not so witty onstage, frightfully self-assured from their BIG LONDON GIG only 30 hours earlier (it's amazing how that telegraph machine works, you can send messages anywhere! it only costs a buffalo nickel.) and generally didn't live up to their bonobravado (neologisms galore!) although at one point a heckler shouted "play Another strokes song" which really put them out. they'd been interviewed by fancy mtv mics in the dingy under room of merc. lounge before the show, 15 industry types were on the list for them. and the heckler called them on their shit. ta da! no dynamics, no passion, just dudes in button downs going through the motions. they covered a neil halstead song in poor taste.

then, there were the liars. recorded, i say they sound like p.i.l. which is no small thing. live, their wiry australian singer whose accent convientely gives them that british edge angled through the set with the lazy cockyness of a class clown. he's too tan, too blonde to be singing 'i'm soooo sick of fucking you...over' when all it looks like he does is the walkabout and the hula. did i just write that? anyway, their bass player, much like myself last weekend, has sat down with 'entertainment' a few times - only i learned it all on acoustic guitar (dude, check out my tattoo - the world's first flying acoustic guitar!) and was perhaps even more theft driven than, dare i say it, radio 4. aaron, the guitarist, he's great. but they are a cartoon, a void and worse than a void, a meaningless spectacle. yay de bord. triumph over content. and they're on mute, did a peel session, so on.

afterward, ran into a boy who's constantly trying to trick me into saying something condemning about the super cool things he likes. at halloween last year he told me low was the new joy division, now he's telling me the liars are the birthday party reincarnate. he's a beautiful looking boy, but he's quite stupid. so goes the other music fall out.

am interviewing siouxsie + the adverts in a few days. all nerves. punk rock, etc.