RIFF MARKET

New Violators
Tonic NYC
March 12

What makes one band that plays Cure songs better than another band that plays what are essentially the same exact Cure songs? Two years ago I was telling every shitty American band I knew to move somewhere unAmerican on the sly a.s.a.p., and/or release their records on EUR labels only, the idea being that, for whatever reason, the internet music community responds better to mainstream American poprock when it's repackaged as the underground and overlooked misfitry of Lady Europa. My guess is Peter Bjorn and John are probably from Nebraska and would have signed a deal with Polyvinyl or whoever had they not stumbled upon my advice and moved to Sweden; New York City's the Bravery meanwhile put out a catchy electro-rock album and nobody can put his finger on why it's so despicable. Britain's no longer a fount of indisputable cool either, though you probably already figured that one out four years ago after buying that MOCO EP. Fuck!

Anyway let's just skip to my loo here. American indie and/or "incubator" bands writing mainstream poprock songs, I have an idea for you (again): Move to Europe, forget how to speak English, relearn some sort of broken variant that underscores your cultural distance, speak to the press in blunt and maybe even accidentally self-conscious terms about the manufacture of your identity, play the "Doctor's Advocate" as I call it. Your Americanness is holding you back; band interviews are the new music. 71 RIFFS



El Sombrero a/k/a "The Hat"
corner of Ludlow and Stanton
Mexican

Everything is surprisingly expensive in here, way more than you'd expect from a place whose main export is a slurpee with alcohol in it. Casual inquiry has led me to believe that every burrito tastes pretty much exactly the same, regardless of innards, and the going rate for a burrito is like eight or nine bucks, which is suspect. I was going to ride hard for this place after eating there last night, having had a much better experience than my last time around, but when I got back to the apartment I had some reflux and coughed up some pollo, so here we are. What's the word, the one on all the rat poison signs?



44 CUIDADO RIFFS

Labels: food, internet music people, music, rock